OptiPlex 780 USFF has COA sticker hidden on pull-out tab
Yesterday I was ranting on Twitter when I found that the 20 new OptiPlex 780 USFF machines I’d purchased to refit one of our ICT suites appeared to be missing their Windows COA stickers. Normally I detest stickers as an affront to product design, but given that these are legally required as eligibility for our site-wide Windows 7 upgrade licence under the Microsoft Schools Agreement, I was… unimpressed.
However, thanks to a tip-off from @manwithnoname, I have found that they are there after all – on a concealed product information tab that pulls out at the back:
And there I was thinking that was some kind of fastening hook for cable ties…
I’ve seen these on Dell servers before, but not on workstations. That’s what I get for unpacking boxes at 6pm when I should be at home eating a Kit Kat. Still, this should at least help with the kids trying to pick off the stickers when the teacher isn’t looking… at least until they find it too.
11 responses to “OptiPlex 780 USFF has COA sticker hidden on pull-out tab”
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The Angry Technician 
Glad to help, took us a while to find it as well. Did you get the all-in-one stands as well?
They are such a pain in the ar*e to assemble comparied to the old style. (I’m @manwithnoname if you haven’t guessed)
I got the wall/desk mounting brackets instead; the machines are being mounted on the underside of the desks, so only the keyboard, mouse, and monitor will be on top.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with them. Considerably smaller than the previous USFF models, and they are so quiet. However, the switch back to 2.5″ hard disks makes me a bit nervous – I remember the reliability of the SX260 hard disks being horrible, and the switch to 3.5″ disks for their successor was a big improvement.
We got 760s last year and 755s year before so lets hope they are better hard drives. I’ve already had to replace a few in those models that seem to fail and not be detectable by the BIOS :-(
I’m sure they will have solved all the problems by now *laughs out loud*
“Still, this should at least help with the kids trying to pick off the stickers when the teacher isn’t looking… at least until they find it too.”
By looking at your site, perhaps? :)
Just joshing, Sir.
Those USFF beasties look nice.. I think our council were looking at the HP ones that you can bolt onto the back of the monitors… As is the way, though, it came to nought – presumably because of cost. Tch.
These have a similar arrangement available: the all-in-one stands that ICT_Tech was talking about above. Personally I think all-in-one arrangements just make it easier for cack-handed children to knock as much expensive kit as possible on the floor in one go.
Hey AngryTech,
Have you come across any problems with the CD drives in your 780s??
We have had a few that when ejecting or closing the CD tray it gets caught on the case !?!
So you have to sort of push in and to the side at the same time when you do it :-S
I didn’t buy optical drives for ours, so I wouldn’t know.
Oh ok :-D
Maybe we should start doing that this year
I only leave them out of pupil workstations in the lab, but that’s the only place I deployed 780s this year. Even the teacher workstation in the same room is a different model, and has a DVD drive.
I have 3 hours tied up in locating the CoA on the 780 SFF, dell tech support was useless, customer support asked me to remove the battery cover, and the sells rep had no idea, what ever happened to product training.
I didn’t have a PC delivered to my location that I could put my hands on, wish I could have those 3 hours back in my day, but thanks to your blog, problem solved.
We are in the same situation as you are (upgrading to Windows 7 based on OEM licenses) and man was it hard to find until I saw the picture :) Thank you!