Tools used for degradation
Posted by Accomplished-Tie-407@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 35 comments
Hey all,
I was wondering if anyone uses any tools to show degradation on machines?.
The reason I ask is that I have a joined a new company and the feel is all 8gb surface pro 7’s. These are no where near up to the job in 2026.
The highs ups believe it’s fine , but naturally none of them are running on them as they were slow. They all have laptops.
I need some sort of way of giving them proof as my word and the teams word is not good enough.
dafoomie@reddit
We have about 500 Surfaces, 7's and older have almost all been replaced and our 7+'s are attriting out as they fail or break. What's your process for replacing a failed or broken device? If a device is unusable due to extreme slowness (thermal throttling) or low battery life it has failed. The Surface Diagnostic Toolkit will give you an estimate of remaining battery life, other tools can tell you if the CPU temp is high and clocks are low when they shouldn't be.
Unexpected_Cranberry@reddit
Additionally, with 8GB of ram, if they're running any Microsoft software they're gonna have a bad time.
Granted, there are some optimizations if less ram is detected, but on my machine running windows 11, freshly booted, started Outlook, Teams and Edge with one tab showing SharePoint online open I have over 14GB committed.
On the last call with SD they were talking about making 32GB the new standard for laptops. They're getting too many complaints from users on new machines about our performance because 16GB is not enough.
dafoomie@reddit
32 was our standard for that use case until prices exploded. We have some on 8 that are essentially kiosks or thin clients, but they're useless as even basic office machines.
SevaraB@reddit
The magic word is "depreciation." Not "degradation." Every time an asset "comes into the shop," you deduct the labor cost for the hours spent troubleshooting from the value of the asset. Once it's used up, replace it because it's literally more trouble than it's worth.
Hangikjot@reddit
98723589734239857@reddit
that's an excellent way to look at it. i might implement something in our asset management to track this
CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit
Quantify the amount of time lost and equate that to money lost.
Bosses look at money lost and right now they’re looking at money lost buying new equipment. Show them the money lost is in time and work, not equipment.
Beach_Bum_273@reddit
Just gonna say, that title game me an entirely different idea about the content and what sub this was in.
Of course I guess I'm telling on myself that I clicked it.
LesbianDykeEtc@reddit
Yeah I was extremely disappointed when I opened the post.
OptimalCynic@reddit
Ditto. Of course there's no reason we can't do our own crossover thread.
Make them wear a sales rep ID badge on a lanyard.
SnayperskayaX@reddit
Get both a Surface and a newer device, set up a screen recording software with a timer on both and have the user do a couple work routines on both.
98723589734239857@reddit
cant imagine having to use a surface device. i am almost inclined to say theyre the worst of the worst for business use. on almost all of ours the batteries have swelled up, the alcantara models get disgusting to touch after a year or two of use, on the newest models were now running into constant audio & webcam driver issues and best of all, the memory is soldered! so you essentially have to spring for the 32gb model NOW and spend the extra $$$ or be out of luck in a few years with a machine that's not upgradable
i will never understand why anyone would ever pick a surface outside of home use. and yet they're management's favorite. figures.
Neutrino2072@reddit
Nothing cures stupid Bosses. I learned to write a dull mail with the information in it and wait until the problem blows up.
lelio98@reddit
Communicate your concerns and move on. Blame every performance and security issue on the age of the machine. Close every ticket with “no resolution available, machine is performing as expected according to its age”. Don’t lie, but don’t try to fix the unfixable.
A4720579F217E571@reddit
if...
...then it's not a fight worth having...?
sure, they should be higher spec, but the simple truth is that if that costs, say, $€2K / user, and then there's no difference to their productivity / reliability, then that reflects badly on you...?
of course, if they are slow and unreliable, and users are complaining, and/or not compliant (not patching; not completing AV scans, etc) then that's different; even then, it's only significant if the bosses say so; if they tolerate it, then so be it? It might not align with what you think is 'proper'; definitely understand that. But equally, it's not your money...?
Accomplished-Tie-407@reddit (OP)
Only people happy are the bosses , spoke Head of Desktop earlier today and he said he kept track and 15 walk-ins a day for the last week of complaints about downtime, boot time, general slowness, not to mention teams crashes.
Seems the company has always been this way, the buy hardware and run it into the ground well past their prime. Found out
They only upgraded from server 2012 last year , and have a TPM botch to allow win 11 through PXE
I’ve only been here for 6 weeks, what have I joined….
eleven_brews@reddit
The Surface Pro 7 (not 7+) is end of life as of October 2025. That alone is disqualifying in my book since it means no driver and firmware updates, including security updates.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-driver-firmware-lifecycle-support
Ssakaa@reddit
Ask if they'd like to try one out for a while to see how the rest of the office works. Get them to state that they're too slow, waste time they're being paid for, and just unpleasant to work with. Then ask if they want productivity from their staff.
countsachot@reddit
Show how many man hours are spent on troubleshooting slow machines. Include labor and parts costs.
It'll probably be substancial, but less than replacing them all, don't mention that directly.
Burgergold@reddit
High management need tonuse the same device
Quantum_Daedalus@reddit
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/endpoint-analytics/?pivots=intune
autojack@reddit
Plan on looking at this again when they include the advanced analytics in E5 but it’s pretty basic but better than nothing. Also looked at ManageEngine DEX which was quite a bit better but still didn’t scratch the itch. Currently taking a look at NexThink which is leaps and bounds better than the competition - so far. ControlUp was a decent runner up.
ayebuhlaze@reddit
My old company had those for sales people. They would avoid using Teams because it would slow down the machine so much. I would spin it that way if you can. Find out if there are any internal tools that people aren't using due to the device being slow.
Zealousideal_Ad642@reddit
Endpoint analytics or nextthink if you want to spend $$$ and be overwhelmed with data
Helpjuice@reddit
Just pull performance metrics into your SIEM and show the dashboards of the performance issues especially the hangs, startup time of applications, memory pressure, IO wait, cpu availability, etc.
If this is being done right you should be able to show a stark difference between all the system types in use across the entire fleet.
Accomplished-Tie-407@reddit (OP)
Again, they have never done this and can’t get them to part with the money…. Bear in mind asset manager is a sharepoint list ….
Helpjuice@reddit
You keep saying they, you need to do work to actually show it is a real problem. This has nothing to do with how they manage assets. You come with real data show it is a real problem then you have something to bring to the table. Just saying it is a problem is not enough, you need to show how it actually impacts the business, show how long the issue has been going on, and what the company is actually loosing by going this route.
Accomplished-Tie-407@reddit (OP)
100% agree , that’s what I am trying to do. But with absolutely no budget for tools, or licenses it’s proving hard. I have kept a track of all issues / downtime for users / impact etc but without statistics to prove it, it’s dismissed
Helpjuice@reddit
Well you have some form of infrastructure right either on-prem or in the cloud you can use?
Setup OpenSearch and setup your logging and collection.
No licenses needed and you can set this up and get collections going pretty quickly along with the associated reporting and dashboards.
This is something all companies should have as without it flowing into a SIEM you'll have no clue what your performance is on endpoints and I feel or I think is not a metric we can use in a professional environment to make change happen.
Accomplished-Tie-407@reddit (OP)
Appreciate the advice , thank you
12Superman26@reddit
I have used exactly that type of Surface for school 4 years ago and It was not fast even back then. I could not Imagine working with it
ryalln@reddit
Can you buy a new one and compared times between old and new then math the cost. Business thinks in $$
MathmoKiwi@reddit
Yup, estimate the downtime per day an employee is waiting around for the computer to act.
Then multiple that by their salary. Show the figure to management.
daedroth28@reddit
You need the end users to do start complaining to upper management.
Accomplished-Tie-407@reddit (OP)
Oh it’s coming and I know for sure when it does they will blame us. I have an email set to go tomorrow morning, to cover my back. It’s also noted in multiple lead meetings thankfully. Just wanted to try to be ahead as this is ridiculous