What do I need ?

[Non-Driver]

My wife is setting up a preschool in a building with no landline. I have acquired a couple of old CF18 toughbooks running XP Pro and a MiFi wireless dongle running 3 network. She also has a newish laptop running W7 and an Epson SX535WD wireless printer. The idea is to let the kids use the toughbooks as tablets for basic stuff like Paint, some interactive DVD games and some secure internet access for sites like CBeebies. She will use her laptop for printing docs & e-mail etc. What kind of router do I need that can access internet through the MiFi (connecting wirelessly rather than through USB) and create a wireless network for all the devices to talk to each other ? We will also need a couple of DVD readers for the toughbooks and am conscious XP Pro won't necessarily work with current generation plug-in drives. Can anyone recommend a model that should work.

The spec of the toughbooks appears to be 40GB hard drive, 1GHz Intel, 512MB RAM. I have been given some 2GB RAM modules to install as an upgdrade, but not sure if they will work in the age of CF18.

Thanks.

[le Pingouin]

"What is the storage/memory capacity for the CF-18 Toughbook?
This depends on the specific model number:

CF-18B/C (Mk1) -- On-board 256MB. Expandable to 768MB

CF-18D/E (Mk2) -- On-board 256. Expandable to 1,280MB

CF-18F/G/H (Mk3)-- On-board 256MB or 512MB. Expandable to 1,280MB or 1,536MB

CF-18K/L (Mk4) -- On-board 512MB. Expandable to 1,536MB

CF-18N/P (Mk5) -- On-board 512MB. Expandable to 1,536MB"

Toughbook Support

1GB extra appears the limit so the 2GB modules can't be used. The type of RAM (DDR or DDR2) is a little ambiguous as earlier models appeared to use DDR & the later DDR2. I'm guessing yours are DDR going from the 1GHz CPU and 40GB drive.

Assuming DDR, extra RAM will be relatively expensive but running XP in 512MB on a slow processor won't be very nice. 1GB should be sufficient, particularly as they won't be overtaxed Hopefully the 512MB RAM already installed is all on-board so the RAM slot is free to take another 512MB.

Model type: Locating Toughbook Model Information

Collection of info: Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 Thread/FAQ

[Mike-Bracknell]

Firstly, I would say going without a landline would be a mistake. Reason for this is that whilst it will technically work, wifi/3G/etc is always going to be less reliable than a landline and you will spend a not-insignificant amount of extra time setting up, managing, and troubleshooting such a connection.

That said, a Draytek router (2830n) which would probably be useful for you as it allows you to choose between ADSL, Cable(Ethernet) and 3G as 3 forms of WAN connection, and would allow you to change to a landline later on if things change. The 3G is via USB port (so takes a USB 3G dongle) so the Mifi may need swapping for a USB stick instead (but at least the Draytek can cope with more than 5 clients unlike the Mifi).

It also allows you to set up OpenDNS or use it's own built-in keyword filtering.

As regards USB DVD drives, these should work with no issue on XP.

Any problems, give me a shout on PM.

[Non-Driver]

Can't install a landline as its shared used building and she's renting per hour. I will see if I can find out whether the MiFi will route over USB cable, it certainly charges over it.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Originally Posted by Non-Driver

Can't install a landline as its shared used building and she's renting per hour. I will see if I can find out whether the MiFi will route over USB cable, it certainly charges over it.

What I meant was that if the school was to grow/change etc and it moved sites to somewhere with a landline, you wouldn't need to change any hardware.