Industry Standard Computers Home Page
    Industry Standard Computers
    St. Clairsville, Ohio
    (740) 695-1520
    30 Years In Business - 30 Years Experience with Computers - 25 Years with Networks & Security
    The oldest system builder in the area, maybe in the state!
    Best Labor Rate in the Area, $25 Shop, $40 Outside

    How to Write a Computer Bid
    Click here for the rough quote.
    Many people work for companies who have to deal with justification of every penny spent. Some have to take such things as "lowest bid" or "lowest qualified bid" for most if not all their equipment. These "bidding processes" are even worst to justify a computer expenditure of any kind. Then the junk dealers (so called discount stores) and their full page advertising with the rebuild special of the week (sorry new, ha ha) just makes the poor soul in the purchasing department's life even more miserable. Well, all said and done, let's learn how to write a computer quote and some general recommendations. (IF you are a company looking to buy 50+ computers at once, we can screen the bidding process for you for a consulting fee. We, of course, will exclude ourselves from the bids. We are not big enough here to do such bids.)

    First use extremely precise wording, no "about" or "like" or "similar". If you have to define your wording, do so at the end of the quote. "Integrated motherboard" to me means any motherboard that has the sound, modem, video, network chips mounted on it. To the salesman at Circuit City, any computer that has a card of some kind in it, whether that is modem, video or sound doesn't matter it then is "NON integrated." Next, if you are allowed in your "Quote," to name the brands you want like "AMD" "Intel" "Creative Sound Blaster" or "Western Digital" or "US Robotics" do it. Next you can be precise on parts by saying something like: "must contain" "better than".


    SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:
      If you upgrade your present equipment, you don't have to expense over a 5 year period. You may not have to place a public bid at all.

    A GENERAL NOTE TO ALWAYS STATE:

      Must not have rebuild, used, or previously sold parts of any kind.

    DELIVERY & SET UP
    Computer must be delivered and set up at our facility. It must be tied into our network initially. We will give specs for our in house network and user names. (That is if you have a network.) This will rule out a lot of dealers outside of your local area.


    Let's start off with SPEED. Try to determine the speed of processor you wish to have as minimum. For an example 800 MHz AMD Athlon or Intel P4.  Figure out what you don't want... Duron, Celeron, Cyrix, VIA etc.
      Processor must be better than or equal to 2.0 GHz, high cache chip.


    The "high cache chip" removed Duron and Celeron from the bidding process.

    OR
      Processor must be AMD Athlon or Intel Pentium 4.

    Now look at the CASE. You want expandability for DVD drives or CDRW's or Zip or Tape backups.
      The case must be mini tower standard ATX form factor configuration and must contain one extra external 5.25 inch bay and one extra external 3.5 inch, no smaller than 8 inches width and 12.5 inches high and 200 watt or better power supply.
    In one sentence you just removed most integrated motherboards, Compaqs, HP Pavilions, some Gateways, most Dell's. Most other brands that use the "Micro ATX form factor" motherboards of which are usually partially or fully integrated.

    Now we need to go onto the most important part the MOTHERBOARD.
     
      The motherboard must not contain on-board RAM, sound, video, network or modem. In common terms it is to be "non-integrated." ATX form factor with 2 standard serial ports, 2 USB ports, one parallel port with SPP or ECP or EPP abilities, dual IDE channels, 6 slots minimum (PCI, ISA, AGP), Ultra DMA 66 or better IDE interface, two or more memory slots, 1 AGP slot.

      In the final configuration the motherboard must have at least 2 open PCI slots, at least one DIMM slot empty.

    Yes, the above and Greek have a lot in common. These are minimum in most ISC configurations. Here you just have to trust us. So far the first three specifications have fairly much ruled out all discount stores and most mail order dealers.  (The two serial ports rules out most garbage.)

    More... SOUND CARD. Here there is almost no way except to name it. The closest generic is number three, of course 100% compatible is only Sound Blaster.
      The computer must have a Creative "Sound Blaster" sound card, no imitations, not Creative chips made onto someone else's card or motherboard. (You just excluded Dell and Gateway Sound Blaster cards and Intel motherboards with others.)
      OR
      Computer must contain "Sound Blaster Live Value."
      OR
      Sound card must be 100% Sound Blaster compatible.

    VIDEO CARDS fall into two classes, 3DFX games or everything else.
       
      Video card must be major brand with web sites for downloads of current or improved drivers and have 8 megabytes of memory or better.

    HARDRIVE
     
      Must be 5400 RPM or better, must be 20 gigabyte or better. Must be standard 3.5" form factor.

      It is hard to stop from getting a Hyundai brand (i.e. Maxtor or Quantum) or Samsung with a quote unless you absolutely say. Must be Seagate or Western Digital.


    MEMORY
      PC 133 MHz SDRAM or DDR PC 333 MHz or Rambus 400 MHz and bus speed must be 133 MHz or better.

      By saying 133 MHz bus or better removes a lot of Cyrix, low end Pentium III and Celeron processors.


    CD ROM
      Must be 52X or faster ISO 9001 compliant. Must be able to read CDRW disks.

      The lowest made is 52X at least that is "new." If you have a CDRW it is nice to have your CD ROM drive read the various disks it uses  without "finalized burning" of the CD.


    NETWORK INTERFACE CARD
      Must be name brand.

      These are the two most common good NICs in the industry. They also are the most expensive. The 3Com is about $30 more than the cheapest one out there. (Most in cheap computers are soldered on the Motherboard.)


    OPERATING SYSTEM
      Preinstalled Windows 98 SE or Windows ME or Windows 2000 or XP Professional with all current patches, updates, service packs, with the CD ROM, book and Certificate or Label of Authenticity from Microsoft.

      Here you just pick. If you are running older DOS programs, Windows 98 is your only choice. The idea behind stating a "Book, CD & Certificate of Authenticity" is to make sure you don't end up with an illegal version or no way to just install Windows and nothing else on your computer. After 15 years we have seen just about every trick under the sun.


    MODEM
      56k V92 standard. No Win or Soft Modems, no AMR modem.
    more to come later...

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