The following is general guidelines for PCs that will
be networked and general advice for such. These recommendations are
described here to help you maintain better productivity on your future
network and less down time or major catastrophes.
Attaching a computer to a network later has 1 of 4 possibilities.
First, it will work flawlessly. Second it will not work at all. Third,
it will be slowwww or fourth it will work irregularly or cause other better
compturers to work in the same way.
-
100 MHz Network card, good name brand like 3 Com, Intel,
not the no-names at Slopples.
-
All computers must have the newest and most up to date anti-virus
program, especially on Microsoft networks.
-
Adequate RAM, 128 Win 98, 256 Win 2k, 512 XP Pro.
-
"Middle of the road" or better computer. Networked PCs drop
10-40% in speed over non-networked PCs. The cheaper the quality PC
the slower and more unstable they become, generally speaking. Be sure the
PC is workstation grade; not the lower end home PC.
-
Never buy the "Nationally Advertised" special. They are always
the lowest of everything the manufacturer builds. (ISC's cheapest
and biggest/badest are just different options not actually any quality
difference. In most cases the same motherboards are used in all AMD or
Intel processor ranges.)
-
Never a Celeron or Duron processor (most low end processors
have even worst main boards and general specs). They bog down quickly when
networked. They can drop over 50% in speed.
-
AMD Sempron, Athlon or Pentium 4 Processor.
-
Cheap Network PCs are like cheap windows; only the
very rich can afford. (Because of the heating bills. Because of the service
calls or productivity failures.)
-
No on-board VGA card. These most often share main
memory that can give you more grief after networking them.
-
A computer that has a clean Windows on it before the PC was
connected to the network. (This is very important. AOL or MSN preinstalled
is a nightmare sometimes to remove and get the Windows back to normal for
use on a DSL line. Some of the major manufacturers' proprietary software
or their own scaled down version of Windows costs you lots of money in
configuration time and trouble. True Story: A brand new Gateway
laptop took longer to get on the network and install the other network
software than the other 5 PCs in the building. Even sadder is that it was
the fastest processor in the building.)