New College policy towards Macs

[thealexweb]

Well I'll give a little background info first, during the summer my college bought 25 new Macs for a the new Media suite. Apparently we spent close to ?40k (does this sound about right, not sure of the exact specs). Anyway for the last few weeks students and teachers alike have began steadily more frustrated with them. They claimed that they were the least reliable computer they'd ever used or that was the general feeling we were getting. I thought this didn't sound right so I went to try once for myself (as I'm doing Computing I can get in to the Media suite). I was surprised it wasn't some joke they were dreadful, the crashed every ten minutes or so, very disappointed Apple :-(

Anyway now the Principal has gotten involved, we spent so much on these and there totally unusable, the rest of our campus use HPs and Senior Management is annoyed that we colud have bought so many more HPs with the money we "wasted" (not use of the "s) on the Macs, overall there's a huge shortage of computers across the campus with every computer in the Library nearly always in use and a room full of macs being unused, seems a bit of a waste. Anyway our Principal has made his decision, the plans for two more Mac powered Media suites called off and we not allowed any more Macs period. Were not sure what's going to happen to the ones we already have, some of the computing teachers are saying they'll being removed next week, belief that when I see it.

[richardsim7]

Strange, my mac is awesome :s

-Rich-

[Raa]

If worst comes to worst, they could always bootcamp them and load Windows (only) on them!

Strange that they've all performed that badly though... And yeah, my Macs have been great too!

[master2k27]

bad batch of hardware, humm.

[fgsdfwerwer]

either they bought some mega crap ones from years and years ago or there not setup properly somehow?

my music course had old imac's setup in the rooms, all streaming off a cheap mac server and the reliability of them was excellent.

do you know what macs they are etc?

[thealexweb]

bad batch of hardware, humm.

What do you mean, I was thinking it more likely a software problem than a hardware, but who knows.

[seta-san]

well. first thing i would do is swap out a harddrive and have a clean install of the latest mac os for it without anything else installed.

if the problem persists i would be inclined to say it's either the ram or power supply. It is entirely possible that apple may have gotten a bad batch of components from their venders.

of course of the problem goes away with a fresh install i'd start to look at the software installed more closely. i'd remove any startup items and see if it still crashes. and then reactivate each piece of software one at a time to find which one makes it unstable. Something else to remember about macs is that they can only allocate memory in contiguous blocks. that said their could be simply a lack of memory on them.

[thealexweb]

If worst comes to worst, they could always bootcamp them and load Windows (only) on them!

Strange that they've all performed that badly though... And yeah, my Macs have been great too!

We cant do that, we could have saved a few thousand and just bought HPs but you never know that might yet be one of are only options.

[zhangm Supervisor]

So it is either a problem with the machines/OS, or it is a problem with the software running on them. Does anyone there actually know enough to tell the difference between the former and the latter?

[thealexweb]

well. first thing i would do is swap out a harddrive and have a clean install of the latest mac os for it without anything else installed.

if the problem persists i would be inclined to say it's either the ram or power supply. It is entirely possible that apple may have gotten a bad batch of components from their venders.

of course of the problem goes away with a fresh install i'd start to look at the software installed more closely. i'd remove any startup items and see if it still crashes. and then reactivate each piece of software one at a time to find which one makes it unstable. Something else to remember about macs is that they can only allocate memory in contiguous blocks. that said their could be simply a lack of memory on them.

This might be a wild guess but I'll through it in to the ring anyway, I Apple know they have a bunch of below average quality Macs I probably better to send them to a College rather than private companies because Colleges buy them at reduced rates.

I just checked with someone doing Alevel IT, they are brand new. This is actually slightly embarrassing.... *runs away*

[Boz]

Well I'll give a little background info first, during the summer my college bought 25 new Macs for a the new Media suite. Apparently we spent close to ?40k (does this sound about right, not sure of the exact specs). Anyway for the last few weeks students and teachers alike have began steadily more frustrated with them. They claimed that they were the least reliable computer they'd ever used or that was the general feeling we were getting. I thought this didn't sound right so I went to try once for myself (as I'm doing Computing I can get in to the Media suite). I was surprised it wasn't some joke they were dreadful, the crashed every ten minutes or so, very disappointed Apple :-(

Anyway now the Principal has gotten involved, we spent so much on these and there totally unusable, the rest of our campus use HPs and Senior Management is annoyed that we colud have bought so many more HPs with the money we "wasted" (not use of the "s) on the Macs, overall there's a huge shortage of computers across the campus with every computer in the Library nearly always in use and a room full of macs being unused, seems a bit of a waste. Anyway our Principal has made his decision, the plans for two more Mac powered Media suites called off and we not allowed any more Macs period. Were not sure what's going to happen to the ones we already have, some of the computing teachers are saying they'll being removed next week, belief that when I see it.

Yep, sounds like a Mac to me. Same experience. They far from "not crashing" as all the BS ads are portraying Windows.

Finally smart logic. They should just dump all of them and get 3 times more PCs with Windows 7 and be done with it.

[thealexweb]

So it is either a problem with the machines/OS, or it is a problem with the software running on them. Does anyone there actually know enough to tell the difference between the former and the latter?

Not really our main guy at IT support just knows about Windows and a bit about Macs and we can't really afford someone just to manage 25 Macs.

[VoX]

Strange, my mac is awesome :s

-Rich-

Define "Awesome" lol

I'm a PC.

[thealexweb]

Yep, sounds like a Mac to me. Same experience. They far from "not crashing" as all the BS ads are portraying Windows.

Finally smart logic. They should just dump all of them and get 3 times more PCs with Windows 7 and be done with it.

It's to late for that now where stuck with them now, anyways anyone doing Media has a room change now so the Macs won't be used at all. I've got Computing tomorrow second lesson I'll see if theres been any updates over the weekend.

[jonhapimp]

this what happens when people listen to i'm a pc commercials, can you tell the diff. between software or hardware problems,not the other guy?

[Xilo]

My record uptime for my PowerBook G4 is like 150 days before I got tired of the updater popping up.

Only time I've had it crash is when I was mucking around in the terminal.

[thealexweb]

My record uptime for my PowerBook G4 is like 150 days before I got tired of the updater popping up.

Only time I've had it crash is when I was mucking around in the terminal.

You lucky git, most media students here would love uptime of 30 mins without something going wrong.

[hotdog666al]

I find OS X frustrating to use, sure, being a Windows user...

I've got a couple of modern (and classic!) Macs and I've only seen them crash now and then, they run into far less trouble than my relatives who all use Vista OEM-crapware laptops from PC World.

If multiple Macs are failing for you, then it has to be something you guys are doing with them. I can't think what though, it's a very strange issue... and also a tasty snack for the mindless Apple haters around these boards. Hurr derp! Windows 7 neva failz!1

Care to explain exactly how they were set up? Fresh installs I presume, what software are they running, how are they networked, etc.

[Xilo]

I agree. I really suspect it's a software/configuration issue or a bad batch of hardware.

Did you guys ever call Apple support (still under warranty?). Usually large volume customers get better support than regular customers as well.

[thealexweb]

I find OS X frustrating to use, sure, being a Windows user...

I've got a couple of modern (and classic!) Macs and I've only seen them crash now and then, they run into far less trouble than my relatives who all use Vista OEM-crapware laptops from PC World.

If multiple Macs are failing for you, then it has to be something you guys are doing with them. I can't think what though, it's a very strange issue... and also a tasty snack for the mindless Apple haters around these boards. Hurr derp! Windows 7 neva failz!1

Care to explain exactly how they were set up? Fresh installs I presume, what software are they running, how are they networked, etc.

Speaking of 7 the tech guys (the guys that practically live in the basement, not the buffoons from PC world) are stilling evaluating the possibilities of a full Windows 7 roll-out.

I agree. I really suspect it's a software/configuration issue or a bad batch of hardware.

Did you guys ever call Apple support (still under warranty?). Usually large volume customers get better support than regular customers as well.

I'm not sure we count as large volume, and I presume some contact has been made with Apple, also yes they are defiantly under warranty there to new not to be.

[Argi]

My uni (one of the biggest in Aus) has mac mini's setup in every lecture theatre with OSX and Bootcamp, along with a handful iMac labs around campus. Your college is doing something very wrong. :s

Edited November 8, 2009 by chAos972

[DanielZ]

I find that to be rather unusual, because in my experience, I've had no issues with my Macs. My MacBook Pro once went about 60 days without restarting (the only reason I had to restart was because I needed to update OS X), and the Macs in my school run flawlessly. At my school there are about 16 G3 iMacs, 8 Power mac G4s, 3 Power Mac G5s, and 3 Mac Pros. None have had any problems; I spend about an hour a week running basic maintenance on them and keep them well-updated. They run faster than the new Dells.

This isn't the first time I've heard of this story, with Macs being terrible at school. I can only trace it down to two main factors: the students are completely mac-illiterate, or that there's no tech guy to fix the small problems that eventually cause the crashes. I don't find it plausible that 25 brand-new Macs are complete lemons.

[Simon Veteran]

Gotta be the software they're using. Is it possible that your school is pirating the Media software?

I know that's a far fetched, and maybe even offensive, idea. But if your school just got a bunch of new Macs, for a media lab, then it really wouldn't surprise me. The media software is damn expensive. I wouldn't suggest it if I hadn't heard of schools doing this before.

Because that isn't the OS X I know. No OS I've used has been unbearably unstable, unless it's a beta/alpha... and even then I usually find it somewhat workable. What you're talking about sounds more like ReactOS :p

[sn00pie]

I've had no real problems with my Mac, until I bought a HP c5580 printer last week. My Macbook has bluetooth, the printer has bluetooth, so why in the world don't they work together. I gave it a quick google and since Snow Leopard has been released a significant amount of people have had all sorts of printer issues.

[zhangm Supervisor]

I know that's a far fetched, and maybe even offensive, idea. But if your school just got a bunch of new Macs, for a media lab, then it really wouldn't surprise me. The media software is damn expensive. I wouldn't suggest it if I hadn't heard of schools doing this before.

Having experienced the fun of dancing around software protection policies, I have to mention here that the software doesn't need to be pirated to be mucking up the system. One classic case is Adobe CS packages. Absolutely awful, and essentially requires that all users have administrative rights unless you actually modify both the installer and applications. It just doesn't play nice in a lab setting.