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20030912: New PC's for CCNY from egrant monies (cont.)



>From: "Edward Hindman" <address@hidden>
>Organization: CCNY
>Keywords: 200309091621.h89GKwLd024019 platforms

Hi Ward,

>Thanks for your careful and thorough preliminary analysis 
>of our computer needs.

No worries.

>You asked if we are replacing our Dell PowerEdge 2500 
>server.  No, it's working fine.

OK, sounds good.

>You asked how many machines are we planning on purchasing.
>We need to purchase a minimum of three to fill three empty 
>spots in our computer lab and a maximum of 5 to add two 
>more machines.

OK.  This gives me a good idea of what is possible given your $7000
budget.

>Your list of guidelines makes sense especially the USB 
>port on the front of the machine.  I've just begun to use 
>a "stick" USB memory device and like it.

Me too!

>I would like the machines to have 19" LCD's and have them 
>thin to set the "style" for the continuing transformation 
>of the lab.  In other words, we'll keep our old Pentum 
>machines that we bought in 1997/98 which currently meet 
>our needs (just a bit slow and have 15" monitors) and 
>insert the new machines in the empty spaces.  When the 
>old-Pentium machines no longer work, we'll campaign for $$ 
>to replace them.

I understand.  Going from a 17" to a 19" LCD display ramps up the cost
considerably.  I have been surfing various web sites scoping out the
cost of 19" LCD displays.  I found that they range from $500 up to over
$1200.  A reasonable cost for a 19" display would be $600 to $750.

>Finally, you mention a UPS for each machine.  This is not 
>practical in my opinion; too costly and not enough space. 

OK.  You will want to make sure that you, at least, have them on a
strip that will provide filtering for power spikes.  Otherwise, you are
running the risk of losing a machine from a simple power fluctuation.

> If we have a power failure, the whole school will shut 
>down and class will be dismissed.  We'll just have to 
>return later and recover what we can.

It is one thing for the power to go out and quite another for your
lab's machines to get damaged by the fluctuation.  I always try to err
on the side of caution.

>I hope I answered your questions adequately.

You did.

>In summary, 
>we want the best possible client PC's to run MCiDAS from 
>our Dell server as well as all the other applications and 
>at the lowest cost so our $7000 award will be wisely 
>spent.

Got it.

Here goes:

TigerDirect <www.tigerdirect.com> has "Factory Recertified" 2.66 Ghz
Medion machines that have 256 MB RAM, 120 GB hard disk, Nvidia GeForce
Ti4200 graphics cards, 6-in-1 media readers along with keyboard and
scroll mouse, and run Windows XP Home Edition with Microsoft Word,
Microsoft Works, etc., for $649.99.  Add 512 MB of PC2100 RAM for each
unit for approx.  $70 and add a Planar 19" LCD display for $599.99 and
shipping for approx. $50, and you will have a very nice system that
should be about $1370.  This would allow you to purchase 5 units for
$6850 leaving $150 for supplies like writable CDs or several 128 MB USB
Flashdrives.  Of course, there are a number of different mail order
houses you could go to; I am not trying to push you to TigerDirect.

You may be able to put together systems with more capabilities, but you
would be inviting the work of assembling components.  We did just this
for our internal use.  We decided on the class of system we wanted
(dual processor equivalents of 2.4 Ghz P4s); looked throught
PriceWatch.com <www.pricewatch.com> for the components we were sure
would support running any of Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris x86, or Windows XP
Professional; went to Computer Discount Warehose busniess section and
asked them to match our list; and they did.  Assembling the units took
a system admin about 30 minutes for each box.  Loading the OS took
another 30 minutes to hour, and we were up and running.  The specs
for the boxes we put together ourselves was:

- dual AMD Athlon 2400+ on Tyan motherboard
- 1 GB RAM
- 120 GB 7200 RPM disks with 8 MB cache
- Nvidia GeForce Ti4200 video w/128 MB RAM
- 4 USB 2.0 ports
- dual power supplies
- keyboard/mouse

The total cost was right at $1530 per unit.

>Thanks,

I hope the above helped.

Cheers,

Tom

>From address@hidden Thu Sep 18 09:48:29 2003

Tom:

Thanks for your recommendations.  I think we'll go the 
TigerDirect route.

Ward
CCNY