How to Regularly Maintain Your Equipment with Houston IT Companies

Houston IT companies can help you maximize technology investments, but you need to remember all modern technology comes with a shelf-life. Depending on the intensiveness of your operations, you may or may not want to give your fullest effort to certain traditional maintenance practices. Still, for the most reliable and secure operations, routine maintenance is a requirement. Following is a checklist of things you should consider as you maintain your tech solutions:

• Cleaning components
• Ensuring cables are cleanly managed
• Updated and reviewing inventory necessary
• Keeping printers maintained

Cleaning Components

Houston IT companies often recommend technology overhauls at intervals of between three years and five years. This happens sooner in certain scenarios, dependent on how intensive your technology needs are, and how close you are to the cutting edge. Moore’s law predicts a doubling of computational ability at regular intervals: currently the interval is estimated at around eighteen months. What this means pragmatically is that after about three years, what computational advances were made will eventually trickle down to the public. Within five years, what was the “hot thing” will soon be “old hat”.

Still, if you’re careful to keep your devices clean, they’re likely to work better for longer. Provided you don’t have computationally intensive, or data intensive, needs, you may be able to keep a computer system going ten years without losing productivity. That’s a stretch, but it’s not impossible. Also, if you have multiple networks for various needs, you may be able to concentrate your maintenance efforts on exterior networks to maintain longevity, while changing out the core networks which experience higher levels of computation.

One of the best ways to maintain those legacy networks is by dusting the equipment with a special static-free cloth to wipe down screens, using canned air for the keyboards and internal components. Create an enforced system of maintenance to proactively facilitate such action for best results.

Cables

Dovetailing from the cleaning advice, make sure cables are cleanly stored and run where they need to be. If they’re in a mess, they can become unplugged without your knowing it and cause trouble. Additionally, bent or mangled cables can erode structural integrity of internal components, which can break power supplies and initiate fail-safe solutions which keep your computers from routine booting or damage sensitive components. These problems can be avoided through proper cable maintenance.

Inventory, Update, and Review

You need to know what needs to be serviced when and enforce your maintenance policy on that schedule. Update your inventory as new machines are added, review it periodically to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Printers

Most business professionals remember the (NSFW) scene in Office Space where the poorly-functioning printer experiences the revenge of employees. This kind of issue is all-too-common and can influence how computers work, as printers too old for modern communication systems become troublesome. Maintain and upgrade your printers to avoid office-wide frustration.

Solutions

Houston IT companies through ICS can help you maximize your investment for both computer hardware and support. Contact us for strategic, regular maintenance fixes.

Jason Simons

ICS is a Texas-based 40-year-old technology company specializing in Managed IT, VoIP, Video Conferencing and Video Surveillance solutions for US and International businesses. ICS has over 4000 regional installations and specializes in multi-site businesses between 25 and 2500 employees. ICS’s customers enjoy the experience of ICS’s Total Care program which provides clients flat fee services with obsolescence and growth protection. Whether a customer elects to deploy their IT, Video Conferencing or VoIP in the cloud or on the customer’s premise, ICS can provide a full turn-key solution for our clients under one flat monthly fee.