Work computer specs

[Skiz]

I'm fairly certain I take the cake for the shittiest work computer.

Can anyone "beat" this? :dabs:


http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6214/system2zs7.png (http://imageshack.us)

[backlash]

wow, that does suck. do you get a lot of freeze ups when you're working?

[Skiz]

wow, that does suck. do you get a lot of freeze ups when you're working?

It's absolutely horrific.

I have to plan things around my computer usage. When I get to work, the first thing I do is log on. It takes the PC about 5 minutes just to bring up the desktop. This isn't from a cold boot mind you, just logging on. Afterwards, I open Outlook and leave. No point in waiting around for that as it will take 10 minutes. :dabs:

Opening emails attachments or daily templates and spreadsheets is equally frustrating. Trying to open an Excel/Word/Access document will take a full minute.

I've had this PC for ages. I put in a request for a new/updated PC and was told that I wouldn't get one until this one bites the dust. Last week I put a twisty-tie on the PSU fan so it would cool anymore but that hasn't stopped it yet.

Suggestions? :whistling

No real freezes though. Not often at least. God forbid I have to do a complete restart. :wacko:

[backlash]

ughs. that's frustrating as hell. Maybe you could use a personal laptop just to avoid this headache.

[direstraits]

Suggestions? :whistling


Throw it, burn it... and get a new PC

[Skiz]

Suggestions? :whistling


Throw it, burn it... and get a new PC

That would be frowned upon, shirley. :ermm:

[Shiranai_Baka]

pour some coffee on the cpu fan.

[harrycary]

It may be a bit of work to get into a Compaq PC but...

Just put a drop of water some where on the mobo and power it up.
A short will be created on the mobo. Since no one does component-level
repair on mobos, a new, er, replacement PC is in your future.

The added bonus is the won't be any evidence of your misdeed.

[lynx]

Pffft, luxury.

I'm just in the process of decommissioning three servers, a Pentium 150MHz and a Pentium 120MHz, both running NT4, and a Pentium 75MHz running SCO Unix.

Can't give you any pretty pics as proof because none of them have the necessary support for that sort of thing.

I can't stand spoilt brats.

[clocker]

I am always amazed at the fondness businesses seem to have for wringing every last erg of use out of PCs...certainly someone must realize how counterproductive it is.

Of course, there is a downside (at least for the workers) to the reverse scenario.
A smart manager would provide you with the latest gee-whiz fast PC and then expect your productivity to increase proportionate to the computer's goodness.

Be careful what you wish for.

[dbmp]

I got a P200MhZ to my typing works :P It rules under Win98! :D

[Tanner31593]

Yeah,
I know how you feel, our school has Pentium II 397mhz with 128mb ram and a 3gb hard drive with windows 2000pro. So effin pathetic. And the school expects us to take care of things like printing and research in the 15 minutes before classes starts? Well, i timed it out and it took 8 minutes and 32 seconds to load up the desktop from the time i entered my ID and password, and it took 1minute and 4 seconds to open up a microsoft word document, and it took 19 seconds for it to find my USB disk (i had to turn the whole computer around because the USB ports are in the back.) oh yes, and we arent allowed to use any other media besides USB, and we absolutely NOT allowed to use google. So, with all that, 8minutes 55 seconds to even get started, leaving 6 minutes and 5 seconds to print or research. But look on the bright side, i get a nice morning jog to class.

The sad part is, 2 years ago the had blue and white PowerMac g3s with double the ram and 500mhz triple hard drive space, although hard drive space doesnt really matter because everything is stored on the network.

[Shiranai_Baka]

The place I work at just got some new PCs and they had 2GB ram and core 2 duos (don't remember the model) but having core 2 duos for an office PC is good enough. It even had the radeon X1600.. what the fuck do they want us to do? play call of duty 2 while we're bored?!

[Skiz]

I am always amazed at the fondness businesses seem to have for wringing every last erg of use out of PCs...certainly someone must realize how counterproductive it is.

Of course, there is a downside (at least for the workers) to the reverse scenario.
A smart manager would provide you with the latest gee-whiz fast PC and then expect your productivity to increase proportionate to the computer's goodness.

Be careful what you wish for.

I could do an equal amount of work in less time. I'm all for it. :)

You would think a company which made $38 billion last year wouldn't mind keeping a bit more up-to-date. :dabs:

[MCHeshPants420]

After my next upgrade Crabgirl will get my current computer and I will be taking her computer into work as my work PC is the slowest POS I've ever had to "use". Random freezes, random crashes, takes my entire coffee break to open a word document and the cup holder tray has a cd stuck in it.

The computer would, perhaps, be just about bareable if the "IT guy" wouldn't insist on installing so much useless software on it.

[4play]

I cant believe people are complaining about having 500 mhz machines. your doing word processing, spreadsheets, email and maybe some web browsing on them i bet. That is really all you need unless your doing something more processor intensive like image manipulation or video encoding.

we use a custom made java program at work for pay and personnel. It requires about 10 -15 mins to load properly. Not because the 600mhz machines we use are crap, its because the software itself is rubbish. It has a server version at our head office and we have the client version installed at our premises.
for some odd reason the software grabs the whole table of hours and pay for the whole branch which means a few megabytes of data and sends it to us. Then the local version of the software decides what you can and cannot access so i can only use a small portion of all that data but it sends it all anyway. we have an isdn line setup as a vpn for our head office but it is also used for ordering and load planning so its used heavily sometimes. luckily only changes are sent so it doesn't take 15 mins to send all that data back.

word and excel documents load in about 15 - 20 seconds
I can browse the internet through our adsl connection with no slow down at all
outlook takes about 10 seconds to load.

If your machines really are as slow as you say chances our its network congestion, bad software, your domain server is overloaded or spy ware on the machine.

[Skiz]

word and excel documents load in about 15 - 20 seconds
I can browse the internet through our adsl connection with no slow down at all
outlook takes about 10 seconds to load.

If your machines really are as slow as you say chances our its network congestion, bad software, your domain server is overloaded or spy ware on the machine.

Our PCs are stripped bare. There is also no spy-ware or anything on the machines. Other than the internal web (intranet?), my work PC has never even visited an outside web page.

The 56K of RAM certainly isn't helping matters either.

How much RAM does your work PC have?

[lynx]

The 56K of RAM certainly isn't helping matters either.
Actually, you have 128MB ram (Total Physical Memory 130608 KB) of which 5.6 MB (Available Physical Memory 5620 KB) (not 56K) was free at the time you looked.

What's really amazing is the number of places that buy the minimum specification systems, then install some of the most resource hungry applications such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat. And then complain about the performance. :frusty:

[4play]

They have 256mb of ram, granted 128mb isnt much but another 128 and your machine would be useable easily.

[Seedler]

My school has p3 900mhz machines w/ 256mb ram, 20gb harddrives w/ over 200gb of storage on the network server. That's the specs for comps in the library, about 30 of them.

Then in the computer lab (for them computer science ppl), they have p4 2.6ghz 1gb ram 60gb comps, so not bad with that kind of specs on school comps. Heck we even had a SOF2 lanparty on these comps (with intel "extreme" graphix) a few times at lunchtime throughout the semester:dabs:

[Skiz]

Just got a phone from the tech guy at work.

*Paraphrased*

Tech - You want the good news or the bad news?
Me - Good news first, I guess.
Tech - I'm finally replacing your PC. It will be one of the better ones in the Hub.
Me - Orsum! What's the bad news?
Tech - I'm replacing it because your old PC crashed and the data on the drive is unrecoverable. Windows doesn't even recognize the drive.
Me - But I have years worth of work on that disk that's not replaceable...
Tech - .....
Me - :cry:

[Seedler]

Just got a phone from the tech guy at work.

*Paraphrased*

Tech - You want the good news or the bad news?
Me - Good news first, I guess.
Tech - I'm finally replacing your PC. It will be one of the better ones in the Hub.
Me - Orsum! What's the bad news?
Tech - I'm replacing it because your old PC crashed and the data on the drive is unrecoverable. Windows doesn't even recognize the drive.
Me - But I have years worth of work on that disk that's not replaceable...
Tech - .....
Me - :cry:

It's the drive is that valuable, you can get professional HD recovery service for it, chances are you'll be able to get your data back.

It won't be cheap tho.

[Racket]

Skizo, check the nzb section. I would try Spinrite (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-spinrite-v6-0-winall-retail-quartex-234118) first, then getdataback (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-runtime-getdataback-ntfs-v3-03-12-multilingual-retail-arn-234119) second. Getdataback supposedly will recover even if windows doesn't recognize the drive. I assume the drive is NTFS as your system was windows 2000. I also posted ontrack data recovery (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-ontrack-easyrecovery-professional-v6-10-07-retail-zwt-234121) for you.

[Skiz]

Skizo, check the nzb section. I would try Spinrite (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-spinrite-v6-0-winall-retail-quartex-234118) first, then getdataback (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-runtime-getdataback-ntfs-v3-03-12-multilingual-retail-arn-234119) second. Getdataback supposedly will recover even if windows doesn't recognize the drive. I assume the drive is NTFS as your system was windows 2000. I also posted ontrack data recovery (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-ontrack-easyrecovery-professional-v6-10-07-retail-zwt-234121) for you.

I assume the disk is buried in the trash by now. Spoke to the tech tonight; said he took it home last night and worked on it in way he couldn't at UPS, but to no avail.

Odd thing was, he said Windows saw it for a moment and then it went away.

Another note was, the drive would show in BIOS, but was flashing. :unsure:



Just got a phone from the tech guy at work.

*Paraphrased*

Tech - You want the good news or the bad news?
Me - Good news first, I guess.
Tech - I'm finally replacing your PC. It will be one of the better ones in the Hub.
Me - Orsum! What's the bad news?
Tech - I'm replacing it because your old PC crashed and the data on the drive is unrecoverable. Windows doesn't even recognize the drive.
Me - But I have years worth of work on that disk that's not replaceable...
Tech - .....
Me - :cry:

It's the drive is that valuable, you can get professional HD recovery service for it, chances are you'll be able to get your data back.

It won't be cheap tho.

UPS is too cheap to pay for that. :dry:

I'm certainly not going to dish out any money for it. If they don't feel it's worth it, they'll have to wait when it takes me forever to recreate Excel/Access sheets. :snooty:

[Racket]

If the drive was showing in the BIOS, you might have been able to recover some of the data. oh well.

[srahman]

yea i think its possible to recover some data from it since it is still detectable. maybe you will lost 50% of your data to bad sectors though.

[JordoR]

Luckily I dont have to deal with this. At work I have two 21" dual flatscreen monitors (got upgraded from 19's) and a quad core comp, 4 gb ram, with an insanely nice workstation vid card: ATI FireGL V7200 to be exact.

[kazaaman]

Luckily I dont have to deal with this. At work I have two 21" dual flatscreen monitors (got upgraded from 19's) and a quad core comp, 4 gb ram, with an insanely nice workstation vid card: ATI FireGL V7200 to be exact.

Holy shit, thats a hell of a workstation. You work at home JordoR?

[JordoR]

Luckily I dont have to deal with this. At work I have two 21" dual flatscreen monitors (got upgraded from 19's) and a quad core comp, 4 gb ram, with an insanely nice workstation vid card: ATI FireGL V7200 to be exact.

Holy shit, thats a hell of a workstation. You work at home JordoR?

Nope I work at an engineering firm in Vancouver.