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Rolling Your Own Business Desktops?
mike asks: "I'm mulling the logic of my company building its own desktop computers. As the IT Manager (plus sysadmin, janitor...) of a struggling-yet-thankfully-still-alive dotcom, money is really tight. We have around sixty ~400MHz desktops which are increasingly showing their age. Acceptable P4 systems from the big guys run at least $1000. By recycling the OS (Win2k), case, cdrom, floppy, and K/V/M, I figure I can assemble a good AMD system for about $600. That's a 40% savings. Is it worth it? The cost difference could very well determine whether this project proceeds or gets put on the back-burner again."
"Some negatives about rolling my own:
- Management: I won't get the special business features offered by some manufacturers. Dell's OpenImage, for example, looks awfully nice. But how much does that really buy me in a company of 60 machines? I don't use such stuff now; am I missing out on nirvana?
- Time to build: Even though we'd leverage Ghost wherever possible, handmade systems nevertheless take time to build, load, & configure.
- Supporting different platforms: Because money is so tight, I can at best afford a capital replacement rate of 25%-33% (15-20 units) per year. That means I'm committing to the support of 3 or 4 different platforms. Having just one platform is great, but how many companies, even ones that actively strive for it, truly enjoy that luxury? I inherited two platforms (Micron & Gateway); support isn't that bad. With proper planning, I don't see why we can't support four.
- Hardware quality: How much can I trust a popular Athlon chipset in a business environment? I feel silly bringing this up because I have a few Athlon systems at home, each with a different chipset, and they've been nothing but rock solid. But I know the lack of a really good chipset has been a large contributor to why AMD's aren't more prevalent in the business world. (well, that and long term bullying by Intel).
- I don't get a proven, prepackaged system that works right out of the box.
- Cost savings. Plain & simple.
- Increased horsepower per dollar spent.
- By choosing my own equipment (mobo especially), I suffer fewer OEM shortcuts.
- I have to admit that I'd enjoy the pure geek satisfaction of rolling out 'my' creation to the company.
For those that are curious, Ask Slashdot did an article on the AMD issue, here.
I see it this way. You are the one that will be working on these machines. You must factor in the knowlege that you made them and know what is in them. Just make sure you get a warranty on all the parts since you will not have one on the entire machine
Maintaining all of them would give you plenty of job security.
Will Microsoft even allow you to recycle your Win2k license on a new computer?
...but Microsoft might be. You might want to take a look at the EULA from M$ and see if they allow the transfer of operating system. Not that I'm suggesting you follow that load of malarky, but it may be a consideration.
Personally, if they're just office type machines. Get Star Office and Linux and see what you can do. Experiment with a couple of your users to see how much trouble it might be.
I really don't see a downside to the project... if you had a few people you trusted to help upgrade the systems, you could assembly line the upgrade and get things up and running in a couple weekends. The only things that I would see as a concern would be the age of power supplies, hard drives, etc. But if you do regular backups, that risk is minimized.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
If, two months from now, one of them dies and dies hard, you're on your own to figure out what went wrong, find a replacement part, try to get warranty service from wherever you bought that component, etc.
Most of the majors offer very good service. Often it's just a cross-ship for the whole system, and you're in business the next day with no time invested by your IT department.
Those that actually need them?
I mean really suzy in the phone center has no need for over 400 mhz, I'm striving along just fine on my 667.
Don't forget having to run your own assembly and tech support shop as well. I can usually coerce somebody to come out from Dell and replace my broken (video card, motherboard, CD-ROM drive) with little effort here at work if the need arises and it's covered under warranty. At your shop, YOU are the warranty guy.
Also, factor in the labor costs (which will be substantial), count the amount of time it will take for you to assemble a machine, the cost of ESD straps and mats (you will be using ESD mats, right?), the time it will take to set up an assembly area, and the space that will take up, etc.
I used to build machines for other people (family members, etc.) Now I just tell them all to buy a Dell because the hassle on me to maintain them is WAAAAAY less. The only machine I build myself anymore is my personal box, because I spec out stuff that is too high-end for a manufacturer like Dell anyway.
What's your salary/the salary of the people that will have to build 60 boxes? How long will it take? Are you sure $600 + labor costs + no manufacturer support will be less than $1,000? If not, there's no business case to do it yourself.
-matt
Don't buy more processor than you need; It's expensive. You can always upgrade the CPU later if you pick a good platform. You can do the whole thing for about $450-$500 for each box.
Incidentally, I picked the GF2MX because it has good drivers and VERY fast 2D. If you are doing cad or something, get something from matrox, they have a much better DAC. The 3D is just icing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Perhaps you should consider Walmart's Microtel PCs without Windows. Assuming you don't need software or monitors, you can get a 1GHz Celeron for $400. The trick is the legallity of transfering your Windows licenses (Which piece of the original computer does the license go with, the hard drive? Can you swap that piece into the new system). [Of course, if you could convert to Linux, that would be cool, but that's probably a separate battle.]
If you must, go out and get some low-end consumer PCs and buy a bunch of spares: it's less work than building your own and still very cheap.
While I can appreciate the geek factor here, I think you'd be nuts to roll your own systems here. It will eat up loads of your time, overall costing your company more than it would to just pay more for each system. And I'm not just talking build time. When (not if) one of the systems go kerput, you'll end up diagnosing it yourself, RMAing the defective component, replacing it yourself, testing, reloading OS (if needed), etc etc. Compare to getting a Dell or something, where you determine software or hardware. If hardware, it's under warranty, you don't have to so much as crack the case open. Saves a lot of time and therefore cash.
Even if they cost a little more, I think you'll find yourself grateful for a warranty to fall back on. Plus, when machines go boom, you aren't instantly blamed. If you roll your own, any system that crashes will be pinned on YOU, and you alone.
I know that's not a situation that I'd like to be in. Would you?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
...and I can't really recommend it.
I worked in a 50-user shop, and provided services and equipment to a 200-user shop under contract.
In our case, the only way to get decent specs and meet the client's budget was to roll our own. The other options were too few systems, or systems too cheesy to contemplate. Cheesy as in crap, not as in creamy goodness.
If you go down that path, my suggestion would be to make sure you have confidence in your component choices, and that all your component choices interoperate flawlessly. Any system you have to see again will blow the savings - your first callback or return could be fatal. Make sure you source quality components, and if you're trying to minimize the number of discrete configurations, buy all your components at once.
Spend money on decent cases with good power supplies. Don't yield to the urge to "cheap out" on components that "don't matter" - they all matter. Don't buy cadillac parts, but make sure everything you do buy is good quality, sound, and durable. Keep extra original parts on hand, especially a mobo or two.
Come up with a logo and have the stickers printed - it amazed us how many people would readily accept a brand they'd never heard of, but would never accept an unbranded system.
Your initial problem will be evaluating a number of different hardware options, then settling on those you want to standardize on. Once you get to that point, what do you do with the bastard love children of your prototype period? Don't deploy them to users, you'll water down any faith and confidence your production systems should inspire.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
(Note: I don't work for Dell, but after buying this latest round of systems, I wholeheartedly recommend them.)
;)
I got two Celeron 1.1GHz systems and a Pentium IV 1.6GHz for $588 each (shipped!) Here is a Slashdot post that details my experiences with them.
There was absolutely no way I could undercut Dell on price by building my own -- especially not when you include the cost of Windows XP (preinstalled), one-year on-site warranty, and the awesome cases that open with the press of a button.
It really doesn't make sense to build PC's yourself anymore when manufacturers are offering PC's like this for bargain-bin prices. Plus, you can always recycle monitors as well -- that's what I did with this set.
Building your own will certainly give you job security (as someone else mentioned), but it will also give you no end of headaches. Why doesn't video card A work with motherboard B? And installing Windows 60 times is enough to make even the bravest person run away in fear. Even with a copy of Ghost in hand, you still have the daunting task of putting everything together (and charging the company for your effort). In the end, it's really not worth it to either you or the company. Besides, do you really want to spend the next two weeks testing out RAM and hard drives by hand? Bleh.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
- You can get a reasonable deal from a Dell or IBM for 50 PCs. This includes putting your own image on the drive, support, a decent salesdroid who will likely help with any issues down the road, a sturdy warrenty to back your purchase up, lotsa help in the drivers & spares market, etc.
- You can get 50 PCs assembled at ye local screwdriver shoppe for about what it would cost you to build-your-own but insofar as support & such you are own your own (unless it is some gross defect they can return to the manufacturer.)
- Or you can do it all in house and assume you've got the time to do it all, keep up with everything, and of course document it all in case of a proverbial bus hitting you.
My own argument would be if the business is a real business it should invest in its tools that are a critical part of it's operation. If this eats into the other budgets tough - employees need a roof, lighting, and decent computers. Trying to nickel & dime on hardware is foolish because you invariably end up with a herd of increasingly quirky systems slowly becoming Frankensteined. Unless the tech support (you) is free they're going to end up spending any savings in your time as well as the downtime of the aging & rebuilt systems plus the increasingly irate rest of the staff.Put this all on paper, generate some good estimates of costs & time allowences, failure rates & resolution times then present it to the CFO. Even for a company in a cash crunch these are generally compelling arguments that are well understood by the numbers folks.
They they don't bite then ask yourself if you want to hang around babysitting these monstrosities as the rest of the world moves on?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I own and operate a small dotcom like business and we always bought the bits for our machines, and built them ourselves.
:-) Get someone else to burn it in - it's a waste of your time.
We bought the best components, big cases and were able to ensure everything worked as desired. But reliability is a BIG issue.
We recently stopped this practice and decided to buy from a small but reliable company (armari.co.uk). I bought a test machine (dual amd 1800+, 1GBram, etc.) and the build quality is amazing...we are now purchasing these machines (plus dual monitor) for all the team.
It's a big relief knowing that I can just call someone and have it fixed asap. Armari even provided named Win2k login, partioned the way I like, and system rescue CD's that in 10 minutes put the os, drivers and configs all back to factory ship.
No looking back to the dim and dark days of spending hours trying to get a SCSI card to boot a CD
Time to build: Even though we'd leverage Ghost wherever possible, handmade systems nevertheless take time to build, load, & configure.
Yes. But make damned sure that you're building them as an assembly line. The principle is that building a second one will only take 50% more effort than building the first; the third will take only 33% more effort than the other two, etc. Whatever old Henry Ford's theorem was. It works.
Set aside a room where no one else will bother you. *GOOD STATIC CONTROL* is mandatory. Do all stages of assembly at once, that way you're not wasting time fumbling back and forth for screwdrivers. Get going at a good clip with quality cases, and you should be able to assemble 100 systems/day - but that assumes you have *everything* where you need it when you need it, there's good padded shelving, and you've got a grunt taking care of taking cases out of boxes for you. It also excludes software load.
Just make sure you get a warranty on all the parts since you will not have one on the entire machineAbsolutely. But, assuming a competent builder (ie. not blowing processors with bad jumper settings or blowing boards by not having them seated right), the parts themselves should be pretty reliable. If you're buying good stuff, the biggest source of problems will probably be static handling.
Keep in mind that a modern memory or processor chip has literally millions of CMOS transistors. CMOS transistors have an incredibly thin layer of glass between the gate input and the source-drain circuit. A voltage applied to the gate influences the flow of current through the source-drain circuit. Trick is, the layer of glass involved is so thin that you can punch a hole in it with 30V. Next trick is that static electricity generates kilovolts (thousands of volts) with sufficient current to blow holes in the gate layer, but be imperceptible to you.
All it takes is one transistor out of the millions inside a modern chip to be defective and the computer will crash apparently at random... you know, when Windows VMM writes a 0 to a memory address and gets it back as a 1 later on... BSoD. Kernel Panic. Choose your flavor.
Wrist straps, static baggies, conductive floors, grounded workstations are *crucial*. Dell, Compaq, Asus and Abit spend millions of $$ on these things, and for similar reliability, you should demand the same standards every step of the way for your home-rolled machines. Make sure your computer store hasn't "helped" you by opening the static baggies. Write that one into the contract with the computer store. And make sure that the hard disk drives are still in their packing "egg-crate" things. You really don't want a box with a stack of hard disk drives. (Western Digital had a great video on hard drive handling floating around the 'Net, you should view it if you're building en masse.)
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
This guy is either going heavy 3D, or something like that...or he has quite a strange concept of "obsolete". Add some RAM to those machine be happy with them.
*sight* People don't know how to take care of computers anymore :-(
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
. . .
Which piece of the original computer does the license go with, the hard drive?
I can answer that first one straight up : MS licenses software according to a complete configuration, usually specified according to model number.
Moreover, as I understand it, if Dell or whoever change *any* component specification, they have to seek a *new* license _every_ time this results in a materially different *system*. I understand that system is defined as mobo + processor, disks and ram et.c. don't have any effect. The system system (are you with me? :) is not mutually exclusive with the model number system of licensing - both seem to have simultaneous effect.
How do I know this?
Well a year or so back, I ordered up a bunch of IBM "M Pro" dual PIII/i840 machines for my company. Firstly, IBM were sharp enough to take our cash (yup that's cash by direct transfer to their account) stating they had shippable product. Rubbish. Weeks later we were still being fobbed off. So at that point I called the legal department at their regional HQ and pointed that they had a material breach of contract and had better sharpen up. We got our boxes pretty darn quick. But with NT4 loaded instead of Win2k. (we'd ordered W2k)
In trying to fix our fulfillment problems I had a direct line to their assembly/engineering management, so this info is near as dang it from the horses mouth. IBM couldn't just switch us a new license for Win2k. Moreover, once an OEM license is accepted by the end user (like when you power up and configure :) , you're bound by the same OEM terms. You are *supposed* to keep the base system.
Yup that sucks. FYI IBM set us up with a bunch of nice SCSI 18Gb 10k drives by way of apology, and the machines are rock solid, service since then good et.c. It was an interesting education.
As far as the real world goes - not that I advocate this - how exactly is MS going to be able to tell you replaced the whole underlying System?
If that made any sense to you, I guess it's a result! I'm too tired to unravel the rest of the gobbledygook that was pumped into my mind when I got irate and pressed for answers why I couldn't just get IBM to hand us the licenses we originally ordered.
Good luck to ya, hope the BSA doesn't catch you at anything you shouldn't be doing:-0
We thought building our own would be cheaper, but the maintenance turned out to be a nightmare and cost us a lot more than the machines themselves. In once case, we had a machine that had a bad motherboard, then a bad replacement. Took almost 3 weeks to get that one machine up and running.
Dell is great. They'll come out and fix your machines for you. After the build our own fiasco, we went with Dell. The only problem we had of all the Dell machines was a bad IDE cable in one machine. Otherwise, things were great.
I bet you'll average more than $400 in labor time, for each machine, in the long run. Also, I think your math is bad. I bet you can get decent Dell P4s for $600 or so. A Dell, 128MB P4@1.7GhZ(without monitor), $500 after rebate.
You're either crazy or just a masochist. Yes, it sounds cool and very geeky, but it's also rather impractical. The money your company would save by doing this in house would be lost on having to maintain them and pay you to set them all up (thus taking you away from your other duties.)
This would also take an insane amount of time. Sixty machines is a lot of boxen; optimistically it would take you an hour per machine to swap all the hardware around and reformat the drives and install Windows. In other words, you'd be down at least a week.
Order sixty new machines from an OEM and you're down 2 days tops. Plus you get the guarantee that the machines work (out of 60 boxes, you're bound to get some bad hardware) and you get a warranty from a reputable company, not to mention saving yourself a MAJOR headache.
If something goes wrong with one of the machines, you just call the vendor and straighten it out. If you roll you own, you have to spend time doing diagnostics, then tracking down the receipts, RMA from parts warehouses, limbo time for replacement parts.. All this time your company is paying you to not do the job they hired you for.
Sure, they can hire on another guy to help you, but then there goes all that money you saved having to pay his salary. So in the end, your company didn't really save any money, they just have 60 new machines with no comprehensive warranty, poor tech support, and probably a very frazzled and stressed admin. The geek factor sounds fun, but in reality, it would be more practical to order from a vendor.
Bah. The first RIS job I did will be my last one. At least until I have to do > 100 PC's. I never did figure out all the problems we had with that install (project got pulled in the middle of it due to layoffs), but I think our Cisco switches did not like the DHCP requests from trying to boot off the network. About 35% of the machines had to be rebooted 5+ times in order to get a lease. And, even after it loaded (which took a god awful long time), we still had to configure each PC (for Outlook, custom apps, etc.)!
For the 15-20 PC's he's talking about, I think RIS is a little too much. Just make 2 images (assuming no SCSI drives), one for ACPI compliant PC's and one for APM PC's (assuming you have any), install your common programs (Office and the like) and sysprep them. Then just Ghost from a network server. That's the cheap, slow way to do it. Oh, and it'll also clog the network so you may want to do it off hours. Just make sure your server can support multiple streams (or use a few servers), or it'll REALLY slow you down. I'd suggest using Bart's network boot disk to boot from (hopefully you have supported NICs, most major ones are) and then you can assign an IP if you have trouble with DHCP.
Or, if your cases are easy to work with (most recent OEMs, barring HP and Compaq, are) Ghost from a few internal hdds (much, much faster). Just give each of your tech 3 hdd's and 3 preconfigured Ghost floppies to boot from (start Ghost in the autoexec.bat file). By the time they've started the 3rd install, the 1st will be done. Reboot it and it'll detect the devices.
All you've got left is to install the custom apps, and configure email. If you're going to go thru the trouble of making MSI's for your apps, you may as well start using Active Directory's software install services as well. Then your users can just install their apps for themselves.
One thing to add is that summer is almost upon us, and with that season comes many students looking for summer jobs. A couple fliers taken around to the local high school should get your plenty of high schoolers who'd be perfectly competent swapping motherboards/ram/hard drives. Ten bucks an hour to a high school student is better than flipping burgers, and far less than a salried employees time.
My 2Ghz P4 Dells are:
- 256MB DDR Ram
- 80GB 7200RPM Maxtor HD
- Builtin Sound, Ethernet
- CD-RW Drive
- Full Tower case (solid)
I've been building clone boxes my whole life, but I couldn't pass this Dell up. This is pretty typical on Dell's site.I usually check gotapex.com for deals.
Today they have a business class Dell P4 1.6GHz GX240 for $357.64 shipped. You can't build a loaded clone machine from scratch for that much, let alone one covered by a 3 year warranty.
I know this is a little late, but here's a solution we've come up with that's in the cooker for some of our clients in a similar situation.
:-)
Basically you should invest $4,000 in a single server, RAID SCSI drives, dual athlon, 2 gigs of RAM. You've already got a 10/100 Mb backbone for your network, so you can slip this in just about anywhere.
Now here's where it gets fun. Load your favorite distro of linux, visit the Linux Terminal Server Project, and make a terminal server out of it. Then, check out MOSIX, or Sun's grid-computing (the later sports better redundancy, a feature I adore when working with end-users). Grab nics and boot-roms for each PC, install 'em, and boom, you've got a complete functioning cluster of what, 40 PII's? You have any idea the power those can muster?
Not only will you see a huge boost in computing power, but you also save money. Need to use quick books? What's a single liscence for Citrix cost? You can publish the app natively on your terminal server. Open Office works great for converting all those old MS documents.
Honestly, KDE 3.0 just came out. Use it.
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
No, he's building new boxes. Even if he wasn't, no MS OS licence has allowed `recycling' after Windows 95, so changing the CPU would axe the licence.
Mandrake Linux's licence allows you to recycle an installation. Come to think of it, you're also allowed to copy an existing installation, install as amny times as you like from the Download CD set, benchmark it against other things, use an unlimited number of seats, and comes with OpenOffice.org 641D. Oh, and even if you spot Mandrake $50 a machine, that works out at around 1/10 of the cost of MS-Windows+MS-Office, and no free viruses.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I've worked for a white-box builder/consulting company and now i'm a sysadmin. I've been on both sides of the build or buy question and i've finally decided to buy pre-built boxes...here's why:
Replacement parts availability.
That nifty Athlon board from MSI, ABIT, Epox, and the like won't be around 1 year from now. If you image machines, you will most likely have to create new images when you service/replace hardware. (Win2k doesn't like having its boot controllers moved around very much...you'll get the "inaccesable boot device error".)
The upfront cost savings may be attractive, but there isn't a free lunch...you'll have to spend more time maintaining different platforms.
-ted
As far as the flames you direct against AMD, I'd say they're mostly, uhm, bullshit, I think the term is.
But you have brought up an interesting point. Know the old adagium 'no one's ever been fired for buying IBM'? Well, it's still around today and it's called 'no one's ever been fired for buying Intel'.
If your AMD craps out, your boss will be all over you for choosing a 'non standard CPU'. If your Intel craps out, it's just bad luck (which it is if your AMD craps out as well, but your boss doesn't know that).
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
But seriously I have worked on many many systems over the years and I have never had a problem which could be credibly linked to hardware failure brought on by ESD. I think that lots of less-experienced techs and help desk people blame any problem that they can't figure out on ESD. Got a BSOD that you can't explain? Here's a convenient line that no one can really disprove and makes you look smart. "It must have been mishandled by some other ignorant tech years ago and is just now showing symptoms." Right. How could even tell the difference between an ESD problem and a problem caused by irregular AC line voltages or manufacturing defects?
What the hell is a "latent failure"? As was stated above, ESD is measured in kV while CMOS tolerances are more like 30V. Either a transistor is blown or it isn't. I agree that ESD can damage transistors, and I also know that a computer may very well power up after suffering damage from this. However I think the notion that a system would power up and work normally for two years before going south is ludicrous. You seem to think that the static can somehow "weaken" the hardware without fully blowing it out.
My personal solution to the ESD problem is a compromise between the incredibly annoying wrist strap and "going commando" and risking relatively expensive hardware. I leave the power supply plugged into a grounded outlet while working on the machine. I know somebody's gonna flame me for this, but think about it. When the machine is plugged in the entire chassis is a path to ground which can bleed off excess voltage in the case of a static discharge. If you simply touch the chassis before you start working you will discharge any static electricity which is being carried by your body and you're good to go. Unless you are working on your computer while standing on a shag carpet in your socks while rubbing a balloon on your head then this is probably all you need to be safe. You could then unplug the AC line if you wanted, although I don't see any harm in leaving it plugged in during your entire operation. Outside of the power supply the voltages can be no more than 12V and low current so electric shock is really not an issue.
On a side note I think a much more common issue is the failure of the power supply itself, rather than motherboards and chips. In most machines I build the PS will burn out after a couple of years unless I spend a few extra dollars on a step-up model case like an Enlight.
Alright, flame away.
alex
--- Wherever you go, everyone is always connected...
I'm not sure what the chances are you'll even see this. 450 posts and the ones modded up are pretty negative. Oh well. . .
I'm currently rolling custom built machines for our 200 systems network. Oh, and I'm the only tech here. I do the servers, network, help desk planning, everything.
My place is a non-profit where a very small, chaotic budget. I'm never sure exactly when I'll have money to spend or how much. For strange reasons, when we go to spend money we have to go through a maze to buy complete equipment, but components are no problem. We couldn't buy a new company car, but we could buy all the parts to put a car together ourselves. Same goes for computers.
The savings we've seen building ourselves are huge. Adding the costs of the pieces and my time spent planning, building, and supporting these systems it is still cheaper than OEM systems and a support contract. A+ certified techs are a dime a dozen, so support of these wintel systems isn't really a factor if I were to leave. (They'd have to get a half dozen to do what I'm doing by myself in 40 hours a week, plus an MCSE and a CCNA, so I'm not worried about job security).
Here are some tips:
1) Plan out your configuration and use it for the next year. The most important component is the motherboard. It should be able to accept more RAM and a faster CPU than you are going to use initially. Spend lots of time developing a stable, user-friendly software config (OS and apps). As you need to replace systems throughout the year, use this config. After six months update the config with a faster CPU, more RAM, and maybe a larger HD. Update your software config with patches, fixes, stuff like that now also. At the year mark you can plan your new config.
2) Integrated components are your friend. I like the nVidia nForce boards because they have the (good) sound, video, and network integrated. Also, if one manufacturer stops making your board, you should be able to switch to another manufacturer but still use the same drivers. Very important for ghosting!
3) You really don't need the management software for 60 computers. That stuff is usually designed (and priced) for enterprises with several hundred if not thousands of systems. You should be able to keep most of that stuff in your head and in a small text-file database. Learn a little Python/tk and you can even build your own front end to the text-file. Cool!
4) Develop a relationship with a couple local component vendors, and a couple Internet vendors and have them bid for any purchase more than a couple grand. You'll definetely save money this way, especially if they know they are bidding and not just giving a price quote. I've saved thousands of dollars on a single purchase this way. Also, after a while the local guys will probably be able to send a couple guys your way to help out every once-in-a-while when you get swamped or stuck as a thank you for your business. Very Cool!
Following these tips, you only have four platforms to work with, you've saved money, you know exactly what you are working with, and you get a sense of pride from creating something from your own two hands.
I really can't recommend this approach highly enough.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I used to run a small computer shop -- 30-100 PCs a month kind of place.
We used to do hand-builds, then eventually switched to getting 'mostly configured' systems we could then further customize for the customer.
_If_ you know exactly what you're doing, _and_ you have a number of good contacts with various suppliers, _and_ you get a good batch of parts with no incompatabilities -- in other words, best case scenario you will have:
A: A big pile of boxes to assemble. The days of jumpers and whatnot are mostly gone, but you still need to figure out how everything fits together, do it 10, 20, 30, whatever times in a row, and never break anything or have a DOA part. And even though there probably aren't a lot of jumpers, there are still finicky CMOS settings to set correctly and equivalently on all of the machines.
B: To then load everything. This is generally best done on one 'master' system with that disk image 'ghosted' onto the other hard drives. Sounds simple, but setting up that master image properly can take a while. Perhaps you'd have to do this with a Dell anyway. YMMV.
C: To deal with any integration problems -- hard drive fails? Call the hard drive vendor. Flaky problems? Oops, you couldn't afford a RAM tester or other diagnostic equipment, and so you play the swap-out game -- you pretty much need a complete computer on the side for this kind of troubleshooting. And a _lot_ of time on your hands.
And this is absolute best case. The crackpot idea of upgrading the mobo in place and re-using the hard drive, video, etc. is fine in principle, but in practice doesn't scale beyond the one-off home hobbyist sort of thing.
Worst case is that you buy parts for perhaps 20 systems, get about 14 built, RMA 3-4 hard drives, have some strange driver problems with the video cards, and get 2-3 variations of motherboard --- rev. 1, rev. 2, one yellow one green -- whatever, RAM seems to be flaky, but you're not sure if it's a CMOS setting or a bad MOBO or a bad RAM module, and if the latter, which one it might be. Start chewing through all of the permutations and eventually you figure it out and maybe get 18 of the original 20 built, the other two are constantly rotated with various users as their desktops crap out.
IMHO other than for home hobbyist use, getting a Dell/IBM/Compaq/Gateway/HP/insert favorite brand here/whatever computer beats the heck out of a roll-your-own system.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
That's it. I've only fried a single component ever, an old hard drive, and it was because I drove around with the components rubbing against the cloth seats in my car in the sun in mid-winter, sliding around. I reached out and picked it up and felt the shock. uh-oh. Sure enough, it was toast. But it's still pretty rare.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Remember the article the other day when we all laughed at the Wilkes Barre IT guy who stopped the IBM maintenance on the AS/400 ? Well, this is the same kind of thinking: penny-wise and pound foolish.
Remember: support contracts are a form of insurance. They insulate you from the risk associated with the issue at hand. When looking at any form of insurance, you have to take into account what the worst-case senario is, and if you can handle it. In your case, the scenario is that you have multiple desktop failures, including critical failures of important machines (ie, severl of your main developers). Do a cost analysis: if I do a roll-my-own machine, what's the cost of it breaking? How much does it cost for that developer to have no (or a seriously inferior) machine for a week or more, vs. the 1 or 2 days a supported machine would be out?
For small companies, (especially those heavy in software development) I can't imagine a situation where the TCO of a fully-supported system is worse than a roll-your-own box. None The downtime and IT personnel time alone will kill that equation. For huge companies, it may pan out, but for a 60-desktop company with 1 IT person? Not a chance.
You need to put this into perspective with Management. Once again, they are looking at only the up-front costs, and none of the hidden costs, which in this case are the majority. Explain to them what the true cost of a desktop is, and how NOT buying a supported machine results in a WORSE return over the next year.
Now, here's a couple of recommendations for getting SUPPORTED desktops into your organization while not breaking the budget and still meeting increased performance needs:
I don't mean to harp on you personnally, but this kind of thing is why IT has a long, long way to go before being really professional. Folks, this isn't a garage. IT folks need to quite thinking like it's an expanded hobby, and also need to remind the Executives of this, too. It's a Profession, not a Trade.
-Erik
Systems/Network Architect and former SysAdmin
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
I am commenting as someone who has scratch-built many PCs, both for home and business use. First, I'll assume you know what your needs are, and not try to tell you that your 400 Mhz Pentiums are just fine. You said you need to upgrade, I'll take your word for it. I'm also not going to tell you exactly what you should buy, I assume you know what you need/want. And your Win2K license terms aren't my problem, either. Other people have also commented well on anti-static issues.
First, don't start this job until you are comfortable tearing computers apart and putting them back together. Building and repairing computers is fairly simple these days, when everything is componentized, but you do have to know what you are doing. You need to be able to understand those motherboard manuals and figure out what jumpers and BIOS settings you need for your particular configuration. You need to be able to screw motherboards into place and shove cards into slots without breaking them or slicing yourself open on the chassis (I swear every one of my personal computers is christened with my blood!), and plug cables in right-side up. All simple things to learn, but they can be expensive and frustrating to learn the hard way. If you're not comfortable doing these things, don't plan on building 60 PCs yourself. Farm the job out to a good local vendor or technician who is.
Line up a good vendor, either local or mail order, who can sell you what you need, when you need it (finding out replacement parts are unavailable or back-ordered for a month when you need them NOW is not helpful), at a satisfactory price and with a no-hassle return policy--because you will be returning bad components when you order enough for 60 PCs--unless you pay the higher price for a vendor that does 24-hour burn-in. Even then you may not weed out all the bad components.
Make your PCs as much alike as possible--it's easier to assemble a cookie-cutter configuration, and of course, ghosting a Win installation works a lot better if you're using the same drivers from computer to computer. As others have mentioned, don't cheap out on the components! Good quality, name-brand components are worth paying a few dollars extra for; you get fewer returns and mysterious failures, and name-brand quality components are more likely to actually follow the industry specs for whatever device they are, instead of cutting corners the way cheap components sometimes do. BTW, this is where you win over buying cheap pre-built computers: guys like Gateway and those Wal-Mart computers save money by putting the absolutely cheapest, bottom-of-the-line, no-name commodity parts in their computers. That's how they can sell them so cheap. Sometimes it works; back in the early 90s, the favorite no-name graphics card used in our company's computers had the Cirrus Logic chipset, which was a moderately accellerated, halfway decent graphics card
that actually had OS/2 drivers (which we were using). Usually, you have the problem with discount computers that the cheapest no-name card changes from week to week, so this week's discount computer may have entirely different components and drivers than last week's discount computer, even though they are supposedly the same model. Now that is a major hassle in the support department!
OTOH, some parts are so commodity that it doesn't matter. Who cares what brand floppy drive you buy? It's a mature technology and they all work alike. IDE CD-ROM drives are much the same way. IDE hard drives are NOT. Neither are SCSI drives.
I personally like Western Digital IDE drives and won't touch a Quantum if I can help it; YMMV.
If you're using AMD Athlons or similar chips, invest in a slot fan or bay fan in addition to the CPU fan. If the noise of all those fans is likely to drive people postal in a week, consider spending the extra dollars for low-noise fans.
So, you've got a vendor or three, and you've got a list of parts that meet your criteria for price, performance and quality. To lower your own frustration level, make sure you have plenty of tools; those Phillips-head screwdrivers and nut drivers seem to migrate of their own accord whenever you're not holding them in hand. Also, make sure you have plenty of small screws of various sizes, spare Y-junction internal power cables, and spare IDE cables. Save any leftover small screws that came with cases or whatever; you'll need them sooner or later. Spare mounting rails of various flavors are nice to have around; vendors never seem to ship the right mounting rails for your chassis, if they bother to ship mounting rails at all with the drives. If you are lucky, your chassis's don't need mounting rails at all, but support drives being bolted directly to the chassis. Wish mine did.
If an IDE drive doesn't work, check your master/slave jumper settings first, then the IDE cable (that's why you need spares--I've had a lot more bad cables than I ever had bad drives). Keep a "known good" AGP card around to test out the AGP slot when you think you have a bad graphics card--I've had more bad AGP slots on motherboards than I've had bad graphics cards or bad monitors.
Ditto for memory and memory sockets. (The quality control on certain brands *cough*SOYO*cough* of VIA-chipset motherboards was a bit off...) Also, watch the fun-n-games of putting PCI cards that don't share interrupts happily (NIC & AGP combo, particularly) in the wrong slots.
Being able to ghost the first OS + software installation onto all subsequent PCs is a major time and hassle saver.
As for "support" issues, if you can put together the PCs yourself, you can handle most support issues yourself. PC hardware is commoditized and componentized, and a hell of a lot easier to support than PC software. Keep "known good" components around for troubleshooting, and have spares of everything on hand, including and especially power supplies. (Make sure you get an adequate power supply in the first place).
Anyway, hope this helps.....
---dragoness