Army friend needs some help

chucky9

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so a friend of mine is a techy out in afghan and he has been given £30,000 to build 25 computers but these pc's are going to be on for between 15 and 20 hours a day and 3 of them need to have 3 screens. he also has a mega problems with dust and sand getting into the current systems he manages and has no idea what he can do to prevent this as all of the systems are fan cooled. i have around 48 hours to get back to him with a few solutions and im completely stuck. any help would be amazing.
 

molletts

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I'd look at industrial cases designed for use in dusty environments for those systems (or, indeed, pre-built industrial PCs), although the budget may be a problem. I'm not sure whether there are any mainstream cases that have air filters good enough for anything more than normal household/office carpet-fluff.

Surely the MoD has a contract with some big supplier that can provide that sort of thing?! Then again, we are talking about a Government department and they'd no doubt be overcharged by a factor of at least 3...

Just a thought...
Stephen
 

COLGeek

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For the non-multiple screen units, I would suggest laptops. They run cooler and use less power than desktops.

For the multi-display systems, are they looking to build systems or buy pre-builts (like Dells)? What local vendor support do they have available in theater?
 

chucky9

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well the original budget was 15,000 but he told them that unless they wanted computers that took 30 mins to start up and would notepad better than any of the data processing programs they use, they found the sense to increase the budget and as far the as the big suppliers are concerned i have no idea and i doubt he ll be able to tell me and the cases i was talking about are server cases that already have 6 120mm fans with filters that have to be cleaned every 4 hours on them already so would he be better to put them in just pull from both sides rather than push pull?

also if anyone has any ideas for specs tht would be a great help but i doubt he ll get a bigger budget than tht n yh the goverment are very cheap
 

tobyben

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If your friend is working for the MOD in Afgan, they will have an IT contract with someone like HP. I know the MOD in the UK do. Any new kit like this must go through HP and they should already know what will be suitable.
 

chucky9

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thats a good idea actually i dint think about that. and in regards to the systems they intend to build them on sight as it would be cheaper and there is him and 3 others below him.

 

chucky9

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i have honestly no idea he just asked me to come up with 3 or 4 ideas
 

COLGeek

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From personal experience, desktop machines with dust filters are a must for those units. In the US Army, we have existing contracts to procure PCs and laptops and for tech support. This includes Afghanistan. I am sure the UK has the same sort of arrangements and your friend should consider what is available to him in those regards.

Part of my organizations protocol included cleaning out dust filters and intake and exhaust ports on a daily basis. We also had to teach users (especially in remote/isolated areas) to protect systems from the elements.

We really did find laptops to be the better tool in many cases (except when driving multiple displays), thus the earlier recommendation when appropriate.
 

tobyben

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I agree completely with COLGeek here. Your friend must use the IT Services and procurement provided by the company who support the MOD account. All kit must be assetted too.