Need to buy 40 small-form-factor high-end, ridiculously rugged PC's

[DanTMWTMP]

Sigh, Falcon-NW/Shuttle/HP shuttle/Stealth Computers are the closest thing I can find to what we need, and their small-form-factor doesn't look all that rugged enough. Plus I seriously doubt their offerings can handle harsh environmental conditions (from artic freezing to southeast asia hot and humid).

We need windows xp clients to run demanding science software in a very small labs (and also, of course, for general purpose computing) and some field work.

I can't, for the life of me, find any vendor (local, nor national) w/ my stupid google skills that provides what I need:

-a high quality motherboard brand (asus, gigabyte, preferably gigabyte) in microATX,
-a very high quality, rugged, small-form-factor case that can take absolute total abuse, yet provide sufficient cooling in an abusive environment (hot/humid south-east asia).
-any dual-core+ processor
-A video card that isn't about high performance. Actually, any good, 2D workstation graphics card with decent 3D openGL capability would be perfect. the Intel integrated 3100 seems decent enough.


Cost isn't too big of an issue, but this is also your tax dollars; so a good combination of cost without sacrificing any bit of quality is very important.


EDIT: ok lol.. as soon as I posted this, I found more of the offerings of Stealth Computer Corporation. We'll probably go with that, but if you guys know of any other vendors, please let me know.

EDIT2: oh and this is another important thing:
You guys have seen "The Deadliest Catch." Ya, it has to survive that kind of environment... so sea-water-proof lol.

 

[IlllI]

how rugged do you need? panasonic makes some rugged-ized laptops. i think 'toughbook' brand http://www.panasonic.com/busin...toughbook-products.asp

i think dell does as well http://www.dell.com/content/pr...=biz&~tab=highlighttab

thats the most rugged things i can think of at the moment

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: clandren
how rugged do you need? panasonic makes some rugged-ized laptops. i think 'toughbook' brand http://www.panasonic.com/busin...toughbook-products.asp

i think dell does as well http://www.dell.com/content/pr...=biz&~tab=highlighttab

thats the most rugged things i can think of at the moment

i was gonna suggest toughbooks as well. im a little surprised that someone who *needs* so many has never heard of them, but *shrug* whatever. its probably exactly what he needs

 

[LOUISSSSS]

u want it to be waterproof? (surviving deadliest catch?)
u want it to be able to withstand being thrown around? (total abuse)

gtfo

 

[smoothvirus]

I use a couple of these, also paid for by Mr. & Ms. US Taxpayer:

http://www.getac.com/getac/English/products/a790.aspx

 

[Peter]

Proper rugged computers don't use standard mainboards. Any socket, slot and cable connector compromises shock, vibration, humidity and other parameters.

There's a whole industry doing these things properly (which I happen to be working in). And yes, we do -40 to +85 degrees Celsius, conduction cooling, everything-soldered shock/vibration resistant, fungus and humidity protective coating and all that. Oh yeah, and we do have an underwater box as well.

Be prepared to pay serious money, and then you'll get serious stuff - in all shapes and sizes.

Best you can do with off-the-shelf "normal" components is a MiniITX box using a board from VIA - they're at least soldering the processor onto the board, and have a wide selection of completely fanless boards that nonetheless have a reasonable temperature range.

Extreme temperatures (outside 0 to 50 ambient) means no battery and no traditional harddisk btw.

 

[corkyg]

Go with the Panasonic Toughbook - Mil-STD-810F. You won't get much more rugged in a small package.

PTB

Anyway - look for Mil-STD-810F in whatever you decide on.

810F

Yes - the Dell Latitude ATG-130 is Mil-STD-810F qualified. Go for the best vaule.

 

[SunnyD]

Did you ever look at Dell's ATG series?

http://www.dell.com/content/pr...T&cid=33588&lid=796648