Have you started to notice your computer’s issues are growing more severe and more frequent over recent months? These issues can annoy both you and your staff daily, stop you from doing critical tasks and even put your data in danger. It may be time to book in your computer in for a service check to get it back on track.

When booking your PC in for a service, a clear description of the problem will enable the technician to get straight to the root of the problem – a few simple notes is all it takes.

IT technicians have years of experience to bring an ageing machine back to health but even with tools and experience, without a clear description of the problem, troubleshooting is a far more time consuming and expensive. Just like in the medical worlds, the best doctors can’t diagnose a medical condition without a clear explanation of the symptoms.

With just a few simple steps, you can save time and money while ensuring you get your computer back with the problems fixed.

Take Note of the Issue Every Time It Happens

Some computer problems only crop up every now and again. A machine might freeze or shut down suddenly. Intermittent issues can be frustrating and seemingly impossible to solve, but these occurrences may not be entirely random.

When these events happen, you can help to resolve your issues by jotting down what you were doing and the programs running at the time they happen. Information about what you clicked on last or any settings you changed recently can reveal unexpected links to the actual cause of the issue.

Detailed notes can help technicians to reproduce the problem and see the crash or error for themselves. This can lead to faster fixes, more lasting solutions and less time spend diagnosing problems. Simple notes scribbled down on a piece of paper or smartphone app can save you a surprising amount of money.

Keep an Eye on the Environment as Well as the Computer

It’s not just things within the computer we need to note down. External factors can play a huge role in how electronic equipment operate. Hot and humid days can cause extra issues with PC’s that have issues with cooling.

Even the time of day can raise different computer related issues. There have been occasions where users have reported issues with connecting to the internet around lunchtime. When dug a little deeper, they discovered staff where using a microwave at the time. Wi-Fi, which relies on radio waves to send and receive data, uses a frequency of 2.4ghz to communicate with devices – by coincidence, the same frequency is used inside of a microwave.

Microwaves, particularly when poorly positioned or faulty, can cause Wi-Fi issues that disrupt communications every time they are used.

Another similar issues was with a home user who liked to garden. Every 6 months of so the home user would have an issue with his Wi-Fi. The person would take the computer back to the shop which could find no issues or problems. When the user took it back home it was fine but the issue would arise again about 6 months later. Eventually the issue was tracked down to a large shrub. When the user took his computer into the shop for repair he would go out into his garden and cut back the bushes and plants – thus making the wireless signal work until the shrub was large enough to block the signal approx 6 months later!

Problems that come and go and are seemingly randomly, can have a strange link to the computer’s environment that can be very difficult to diagnose.

Take the Right Hardware at the Right Time

The easiest way to fix issues is for the computer technician to visit your office.

But if you want to bring it to the tech or ourselves it is as simple as picking up the box itself. We don’t need the screen or peripherals such as the mouse, or keyboard unless those are the things causing the issue. Bringing in a laptop is as simple as you just need the unit itself along with the power adapter.

When deciding on a time to fix the issues remember that the sooner is always better than later (we don’t want you to lose any data!). Computer issues can often get worse over time: fans gather more dust, the hard drives become more corrupt and other issues can drastically lower the lifespan of a machine.

Remember that a machine that gets less and less stable over time puts your programs and your critical data at risk. Updates applied on a shaky foundation can cause any number of issues. With data, there’s often zero warning before it’s gone. Can you afford to delay?

If you are in Adelaide, South Australia, give us a call on 08 8326 4364 or via email at

su*****@dp*********.au











to book an appointment and give your computer a clean bill of health.