Halloween is on the horizon and there have been numerous reports of spooky PC performance slowdowns out there. We present a tale of our own here.
One of our client offices, an architecture firm, began generating numerous tickets that all had to do with slow laptops. Responza’s team looked at drivers, network connections, and PC performance. After troubleshooting, we confirmed that PC performance was indeed slow with processors averaging operation at just 40% of capacity, but the source of these slowdowns was unknown. Many of these laptops were even new – scary!
Jack, an associate of the firm, reported that his laptop slowed down drastically when he attempted to present in the conference room. Others using the conference room reported the same issue. Finally we had a lead. Poltergeists? No, this nightmare scenario is not attributable to the paranormal.
Long story short, our team suspected ghosts weren’t to blame. Although individuals used their own laptops to present in the conference room, they were all using the power supply controlled by the conference room laptop, an older piece of equipment that just happened to be outfitted for 90W power supplies.
When Jack docked his laptop (which normally uses a 240W power supply and a 280W power supply for the dock) to the older docking station, he simply wasn’t getting enough power to run his laptop, let alone to run any external peripherals like a projector. When we switched the presentation docking station to the more robust power supply, everything worked like a charm. Line of business operations opened and ran without issue and Jack’s presentation went off without a hitch.
Hopefully if you encounter a similar situation—scary slowdowns in a conference room or some other location—first, see what power supply is being used in the location. It might save you from the frightening situation of lost productivity and unnecessary troubleshooting.
Still if those steps don’t exercise your demons, and the ghosts of windows past are haunting your productivity, contact Responza for some professional ghost-busting.
Contact Responza today to set up a FREE Information Technology Audit.
Recent Comments