One thing I've been running across here lately, at least with Dells, and because its hot now, is that Dells will slow down the processor if it gets hot. It seems that when the fans get dicey, the only symptom is inexplicably slow performance.
This is a good point. Matt, are you doing any physical inspections, cleaning out dust, etc?
On the last one I did just that. The inside of the computer looked very clean, but that doesn't mean it didn't have those hardware design issues you mentioned. In general if I suspect dust I do take it outside for a good blast of canned air. I've certainly had several clients with computers that outright died because the CPU fans were caked in dust. Gross.
You might want to add a CPU test of some sort to your toolkit, ramp up processor usage intentionally, and watch the clock speed to see if the processor is slowing down due to thermal protections. Some sort of disk test would also be good, since a slow hard drive is going to slow a computer down too.
I've used Prime95, but it never seems all that useful to me, and it doesn't give me clock speed as far as I can tell. Do you know of a good alternative? As far as disk tests go, I'm always very hesitant to use one because I was under the impression it could run an iffy disk into the ground. The only tool I'm aware of there is Spinrite. Is that still the best tool for the job?
As for disk imaging, I don't have any good suggestions for what you would need. The IT departments where I have worked tend to use enterprise only tools, built around having just a few standard types of machines minimizing drivers needed. They also are more set up towards recovery over the network via PXE boots.
Ah, that was the only thing I liked about my IT job at the law firm I worked for. It was SO easy to get a user set up. I didn't even have to leave my desk. I'll have to look around for a good alternative.
Okay, now that we've settled on "nuke from orbit" approach, what tools do you folks recommend for such things.
Depends on how "nuke from orbit" you want. You can just bang the Windows ISO onto a USB stick. Job done. Free.
In my case, I think what I'd want is something that would take a full install of Windows, with all applications and settings as the client might want it, and save that to an image we can go back to. Plus, where would I get the ISO? Most of these computers don't even come with the damn reinstall disc anymore. I hate that.
One thing I'd add: many computers have too little RAM, and use the HD swap file too much - and it doesn't show on task manager. I've gotten a lot of life out of older computers (and happier clients) bumping to 2 GB on XP or 4 GB on Vista/7.
Oh trust me, I'm a huge proponent of upgrading through RAM. The first thing I do is check the clock speed and amount of RAM, but these are cases where the computer has what I would consider enough RAM.
I agree buying a Mac isn't always feasible, unless the user is ready to upgrade their hardware anyway, but installing Linux is very feasible with normal home computer users. You do your customers a disservice if you aren't asking them what they do with their computer, and if they'd be willing to consider it. I've found that the majority of "normal" home computer users I know don't use it for much more than web-browsing (and web-based email), Skype, downloading pictures from their camera, and maybe a bit of light word-processing. Lay out the pros and cons, and let them decide.
I'm sorry, but I really couldn't disagree more on this. It would be extremely rare that I'd feel comfortable setting up a client of mine with Linux. Trust me, it's my job to know what my customers need, and they need things to just work. If I'm going to transition them to a platform that I can't support them with, it's to a Mac. At least in that case I know they can go to the Apple store and get some training.
In fact, in a few cases I've recommended that if they aren't comfortable learning a new OS, but are attracted to the Mac hardware, they could get a Mac and put Windows on it. At least that would solve the problem of poor hardware manufacturing
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