Get a new machine for the lab.
I'm a huge fan of these off lease small form factor PC's that are all over eBay. I own two, and plan on buying a third very soon.
While they generally don't have tons of ram, or gigantic hard disks or disk burner, there fast, small and reliable.
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&dfsp=32&catref=C6&from=R40&satitle=IBM+thinkcentre+S50&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&bs=Search&a14=-24&a26443=-24&a26444=-24&a12=-24&a25710=-24&a10244=-24&alist=a14%2Ca26443%2Ca26444%2Ca12%2Ca25710%2Ca10244&pfmode=1&reqtype=1&gcs=1504&pfid=1810&pf_query=IBM+thinkcentre+S50&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=ZIP%2FPostal&sabfmts=1&saobfmts=insif&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=32%26fsoo%3D2&fgtp=