Help with upgrading the office computers

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Dome

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computers at our business are starting to really show their age. it's a restaurant, so it's like we're breaking atoms or anything, but on machines that are 5 or 6 years old, even internet and word processors take forever to load.

i was thinking i'd like 2 or 3 new rigs to handle easy stuff. spreadsheets, internet etc. i'd like to spend as little as possible while still having a computer that can last at least a few years.

i haven't really paid much attention to computer prices or anything, so i don't know if there are cheap off-the-shelf PCs that are reliable or if i should build my own.

price wise, i think if i could keep it to 350 a computer or less i'd be thrilled, but i don't know if that's even possible with Windows...
 
At that price, you're looking at some prebuilt systems from Dell, HP, or Lenovo. With the increased prices on hard drives due to last year's Thailand floods and the cost of Windows being at least $100 for a single OEM license, we aren't able to build you a better system than what you could find prebuilt, especially if said prebuilt is on sale or clearance.

If you have more than five computers at your restaurant, contact a customer service rep at one of those locations and see whether or not they are willing to offer you a discount.
 
Dome said:
computers at our business are starting to really show their age. it's a restaurant, so it's like we're breaking atoms or anything, but on machines that are 5 or 6 years old, even internet and word processors take forever to load.

i was thinking i'd like 2 or 3 new rigs to handle easy stuff. spreadsheets, internet etc. i'd like to spend as little as possible while still having a computer that can last at least a few years.

i haven't really paid much attention to computer prices or anything, so i don't know if there are cheap off-the-shelf PCs that are reliable or if i should build my own.

price wise, i think if i could keep it to 350 a computer or less i'd be thrilled, but i don't know if that's even possible with Windows...
Click to expand...

It definitely would not even be possible with Windows. You see, businesses generally go for Windows 7 Professional rather than Home Premium - and an OEM Windows 7 Professional license costs about $150. That leaves only $200 for the rest of the build (per PC) - and for $200 you either get a computer that's severely outdated and totally obsolete that it cannot run anything even remotely current at all whatsoever or a computer that's so extremely shitty that the system explodes (blows up) on you the instant that you power it on.

So in other words, for that stated budget limit per PC you either get a system that's of unacceptably bad quality or one that performs no better than your business's current old systems. I'd have to agree with tiraides and recommend a pre-built system from Dell or Lenovo at that price point. (I left out HP due to its history of below-average customer support quality.)
 
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Thanks for the help guys. I wish i could spend more, and if it were for my own use, i would (who knows, i might when i upgrade out of my laptop) but for now i'm thinking about work and what i can do.
 
Dome said:
Thanks for the help guys. I wish i could spend more, and if it were for my own use, i would (who knows, i might when i upgrade out of my laptop) but for now i'm thinking about work and what i can do.
Click to expand...

No prob. The Dell I linked to earlier should meet your work needs just fine. And honestly, you probably won't need higher-specs than that for just word processing and internet usage.
 
Just curious, what are the specs of your current PCs? Do you guys do any maintenance on the systems?
 
no maintenance, dunno the specs, haven't bothered to look. i know none of them are newer than 4 years old. other than the occasional defrag, what other kind of maintenance do you recommend?
 
I'd be willing to bet reformatting them and starting over fresh will breathe new life into those aging computers. I mean, computers don't "slow down" over time physically. It's generally new software that requires more resources that causes a computer to slow down. So if the software being used on those computers are from the day they were purchased, (with the exception of updates, which could cause the resource requirements to raise, but unlikely) then I doubt the computers just "slowed" down, chances are something is robbing them of those resources. Be it bloatware, spyware, viruses, etc...

Reformatting will answer that question though.
 
Dome said:
no maintenance, dunno the specs, haven't bothered to look. i know none of them are newer than 4 years old. other than the occasional defrag, what other kind of maintenance do you recommend?
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CCleaner for the registry and junk files.
Might want to switch out anti-virus software that isn't heavy on resources.

My old boss has a 1.6Ghz single core intel P4 laptop w/ 768MB of ram that has WinXP Pro.
I have MSE, Spybot S&D and Spyware Blaster for their security. CCleaner and Defraggler for drive maintenance. While not wow-gen and superOMGultrasnappy it is not far better than what it was more responsive. Their P3 in the office on the other hand is a piece of shit, and shame I didn't get a chance to swap it out with one of their donated P4s w/ 1GB of RAM.

Also WinXP w/ less than 1GB of RAM is pure hell to use!
 
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