Some Lab PC Upgrades

Roughly six months ago I submitted a request for various items for our lab.  E.g., some video cables and RAM upgrades for a few PCs and two G5 Power Macs.  The request finally made its way through my employer's bureaucracy and we got the items earlier this week.

Three of the PCs which we use for evaluating software and networking hardware in my lab are boxes that we got a couple years ago from Intel.  They have 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo CPUs, 120 GB SATA hard disks, and DVD burners.  Graphics and sound aren't anything special, but they are solid, well-built boxes.  Unfortunately, they only had one gig of RAM eachs.  So, I upgraded two of them with an additional 2 GB of RAM, bringing them to a total of 3 gigs.  This is the most that 32 bit XP will recognize, so maxing the boxes out with 8 GB (the maximum supported by the hardware) would be pointless.

I added another 4 GB to the remaining PC, however, for a total of 5 GB.  That box will get a fresh install of 64 bit Vista Enterprise.  I currently have 32 bit Vista Ultimate on it and with only 1 GB, it runs like a dog.  It's currently being used for some browser testing by another groups. Installing Vista x64 will have to wait until their current project is finished, however.

The G5s only had 512 MB of RAM each.  One is running OS 10.4.11 while the other has 10.5.5.  Tiger was OK on 512 MB but Leopard was pretty pokey.  Both boxes are noticeably snappier with 2 GB of RAM.