Retail Pro® Tips

Tech Tip: Preventative Maintenance

Preventive Maintenance is a very general term and many people think it is about defragging the hard drive, emptying out a temp folder or cleaning the registry file from erroneous entries. However, there is another kind of maintenance that can save you hundreds of dollars in repair and/or data recovery and it is the prevention of blocked airflow in your computers.

A common enemy of computers is dust. It accumulates and blocks vents from airflow, which in turn, creates excessive heat. Heat will cause the failure of system boards, hard drives and other components located inside the PC Box.

If you keep your computers in clean, climate controlled environments, dust may not be a problem. But, if your computers are located under counters or desks surrounded by other stuff, these systems may need a cleaning once or twice a year.

How can you tell if your computer is choking from blocked airflow? One way to tell is to look at the environment. Do you see dust balls hanging in the cracks of the CD or floppy drive? Can you feel airflow coming out of the back power supply vent? Have you experienced odd problems with the operation of any computer, such as corrupted files or intermittent shut-down? There are many other symptoms that are caused by blocked airflow and it will be only a matter of time before eminent failure befalls your POS, BackOffice or Server.

What can you do? Call J.D. Associates
1-800-564-4488x2