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Radio Automation

Laptops can make good emergency back-up units but shouldn't be relied-upon for continued use. They're mostly plastic, have limited ventilation and also limited sound capacity unless used with some USB outboard gear. They're fine for OB (remote) use and many small stations over here use them - In fact, depending on the staff doing the OB, will often dicate what software is used!

Despite many laptops having the right spec to run some of the "big boy" playout systems, I wouldn't run one long-term purely because of the heat/wear 'n' tear issues. Would you do the Daytona 500 in the family station-wagon?!
 
The other issue with laptops is that it is much more difficult to replace a failed component (if you can at all) in a laptop. Desktop PC's are not only cheaper (esp. refurbs) but can also use commodity parts. Unless you have a parts shelf with model-specific components, if you have a failure, you are in a difficult place -- especially if the vendor obsoletes something.

For remotes, laptops are great. In fact, since we only have need for web browsing and VNC on remote, we are looking at replacing our remote laptops with tablets. It would be great if someone made one with a wired ethernet connection, but that is another story...
 
DudeFan said:
The other issue with laptops is that it is much more difficult to replace a failed component (if you can at all) in a laptop. Desktop PC's are not only cheaper (esp. refurbs) but can also use commodity parts. Unless you have a parts shelf with model-specific components, if you have a failure, you are in a difficult place -- especially if the vendor obsoletes something.
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If you're addressing "white box" PCs you're correct, otherwise it doesn't. I can go to the local computer store and pick up a generic power supply or processor fan but if you have a name brand computer the usual generic part may not fit inside the unit. For my school station I took generic white-box Pentium 4 pc's that were "end of life" for curriculum use and installed the systems into rack mounted cases. I also took a number of working machines and parted them out and stored the parts for future spares and repairs. The couple of out-of-warranty Dells I have in the studios for audio editing and general web access will be considered throw-away when they die as I'm sure attempts to get parts for them will cost more than just replacing them.
 
I ended up buying several refurbished Dell Optiplex GX620 P4 3.2+ ghz desktops with XP Pro....updated to SP3...when I found them with warranty....
I have placed a couple on shelves...
All in all they are quite easy to work on and interchange parts including hard drives quite nicely...
My only experience with a white box was a local IT person's custom computer for a prod room of mine that was noisy, ran hot and eventually crashed....
That's when I started the Dell connection....
What I hear is all models are not the same...
 
And I do the same, I build my automation PC systems unless needed in a sudden hurry. And I build mine like the BSI supplied systems I have dealt with and been happy with their reliability.
 
chriscollins said:
I just order parts and roll my own boxes. The only thing I buy is Windows Servers... More economical.
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And I buy two extra motherboards just in case, since they are most likely to end production.
 
Most of the commercial Dells you can use fairly generic parts in the mini tower/tower cases. Slimlines, no so much, but pro soundcards will not fit in the slimline cases.

I don't know about anyone else on the board, but in my experience trouble comes down to: power supplies, hard drives, and the occaisional network card that takes a transient for some reason.

I generally will order two spare power supplies and keep a spare harddrive and a spare refurb machine. As for motherboards, generally if you had a failure, the machine is well past EOL and it's time to replace the whole machine for less than the cost of the motherboard.
 
DudeFan said:
As for motherboards, generally if you had a failure, the machine is well past EOL and it's time to replace the whole machine for less than the cost of the motherboard.
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I disagree on that my machines are way over powered. I can easily get 5-9 years from these before my software will need more. The spare Motherboards save me... I like all my automation boxes to be the same. It makes it easier with images and such...
 
5-9 years you are well past the availability of motherboards and memory modules. At this point, I am seeing it becoming more and more difficult to source IDE hard drives of any really usable size. The market has moved on to SATA drives. When you can buy a refurb for $150 with tested components, why not standardize on more recent vintage machines?

Our automation workstations were very happy with machines with 1.8gHz processors and hard drives, but when they succumbed to Chinese Capacitor issues earlier this year, it made no sense to go through all the labor of replacing a motherboard and the hours of work (and cut knuckles) that entails. a refurb unit cost less than the motherboard and in 20 minutes with the OS and media drives placed in it, the drivers updated to the new hardware, we were ready to go. Frankly, the speed of the newer machines with 3GHZ processors was noticeable and made enough of a bump in response time and ingestion times.
 
DudeFan said:
5-9 years you are well past the availability of motherboards and memory modules. At this point, I am seeing it becoming more and more difficult to source IDE hard drives of any really usable size. The market has moved on to SATA drives. When you can buy a refurb for $150 with tested components, why not standardize on more recent vintage machines?

Our automation workstations were very happy with machines with 1.8gHz processors and hard drives, but when they succumbed to Chinese Capacitor issues earlier this year, it made no sense to go through all the labor of replacing a motherboard and the hours of work (and cut knuckles) that entails. a refurb unit cost less than the motherboard and in 20 minutes with the OS and media drives placed in it, the drivers updated to the new hardware, we were ready to go. Frankly, the speed of the newer machines with 3GHZ processors was noticeable and made enough of a bump in response time and ingestion times.
Click to expand...

That's what I am saying. My automation boxes are so far 'above' grade right now, they will still run anything in 5 years.
 
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