[K12OSN] Off Topic - Computer Kits

[Eric Brown]

Dan,

I have personally bought parts from mwave.com, and had kids assemble
the machines.  They also sell MS licenses.  The hardest part about
going through that route is that you are a little more responsible for
making sure what you get works together.  However, I've built some
fantastic video editing machines for under $1200 (monitor, OS, the
whole works) each.  They will also accept a school's PO.

I'm reluctant to go through tiger direct as I have heard nightmare
stories about people trying to return non-working items.  I've bought
some stuff from Geeks.com, but I didn't study it very carefully and
ended up getting something that was low quality.  I chose mwave
because  my buddy who owns a consulting business has bought over
$500,000 in parts from them over the last 8 years.  He doesn't even
buy desktops from Dell unless the customer demands it.  If cost is an
issue on a server, he'll build those from mwave as well.

In all cases, it has been my experience it's best to get quality, name
brand parts, and the better chipset (for example, Pentium 4 and not
Celeron).  My first round of student built machines are out-preforming
the Dells that were bought at the same time, and they cost about 1/3
as much.

I'm down in Keokuk, IA if you ever get the chance to swing by and see
the student built machines.  The kids love the chance to work on new
hardware, they take great pride in building them and watching others
using them.  You then also get bragging rights (yeah, my kids built
these).  AND the district gets some quality machines for a low low
price, and there's actually education going on during all this.

My final note, at least one kid (and probably more) will get at least
one critical thing plugged in backwards, like the cpu fan, the power
switch connector to the motherboard.  Even after I looked them over,
we still had some corrections to make.  Expect it.

Good Luck,
Eric

On 7/18/07, Ray Garza <ray at mission.lib.tx.us> wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 July 2007 10:18:15 am Daniel Kuecker wrote:
> > I was wondering if there were any reccomendations as to a good place to get
> > computer kits for students? they will be taking a class called PC Repair
> > and they will be assembling computers. I need to have a kit that they can
> > build, but i needs to run vista and below. Any input would be greatly
> > appreciated!
> >
> > Thanks
> > Daniel
> >
> >
> >
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>
> Well, you can buy barebones systems (newegg.com) or you can use any
> NON-CRITICAL computers you have now and tear them down and rebuild them. You
> can also use some older computers that use some of the older technology so
> that they are familiar with them as well as the latest and greatest.
>
> Ray
>
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