Cold weather and computer problems

As cold weather approaches the heat inside is turned on and many users have space heaters under their desks. During this time we notice a sharp increase in over heated computer issues. This is usually caused by dirt clogging the fan and air vents causing the computer to go into a “thermal protection mode” and shuts down. This handy little feature protects your computer from overheating and damaging the electronic components by reading the temperature inside the computer. If it reaches the maximum threshold, it shuts the computer off.   The problem though is that if you are in the middle of a hard drive “read or write” (the process of reading or writing information to or from the hard drive) when it shuts down, there is a good chance that errors will be created on the hard drive. These errors create all sorts of issues like data loss, computers that won’t boot, computers that hang in the middle of an operation and many other problems.  

There is a preventive solution.  

During the colder months be sure to vacuum the air vents on the computer. Compressed air is not recommended unless you are a trained technician. The reason is because it is very easy to blow foreign objects into the system using compressed air. Something as small as a piece of foil from a gum wrapper could short out your mother board.

With the above being said, an often overlooked, underappreciated, in a room all by themselves is the server and surrounding components. This is an area that is and should be off limits to non-technical personnel. There are thousands of dollars in equipment that also get really dirty. In fact a lot of server room are filthy since no one cleans them on a daily basis like offices.   You really can’t send maintenance or housekeeping to clean these due to the complexity and hundreds of connections. One accidental bump of a wire or plug could cause system wide failure of your network.

The solution:   Hire a computer company that cleans server rooms.    We (Midtron Electronics) started cleaning computer rooms a few years back and it has made a big difference in performance and longevity of our client’s equipment. We send an engineer and a technician to clean and evaluate the room. The value of having both the engineer and technician is they know what to touch and in the rare event something accidently is unplugged, they know where it goes back in the cluster of cables. Be sure to check that who the company sends out is someone qualified. Remember we are talking about the heart of you network.

• Make sure all air vents are clean an un-obstructed so the air flows freely
• Vacuum the vents DO NOT use compressed air (unless you are trained technician)
• If your system starts shutting down, have it looked at as soon as possible
• Hire a qualified company to clean Server rooms. It’s well worth it and often overlooked.