Much as we love to hear from our customers, there are certain procedures that you can try before you need to call for help. We’ve listed five check points that may save you having to pay for IT support.

5 Things To Try Before Calling In The IT Guys:

Test IT: If your mouse, your printer, your digital camera just does not want to talk to your computer, is it the computer that is at fault or the other piece of hardware? If possible, try and use the mouse, printer, or camera with another machine, or with an alternative cable or power socket, to narrow down where the fault may lie.

Scan IT: If your computer is misbehaving itself and you have a decent anti-virus installed, then have a go at running a virus scan. With any luck it will report back that all is well, but if you DO have a virus, it’s best to know about, and to act upon it, as quickly as possible.

Update IT: When your computer pops up messages about updates being required, don’t ignore them. Updates are essential, and a huge part in keeping your computer, laptop, tablets, and phones secure and running smoothly.

Power Cycle IT: Ah, the ‘secret’ of the IT Support trade – have you tried switching it off and back on again? Be it computer, printer, or router, it’s always worth ‘power cycling’ it before calling for help.

Save IT: Your computer will fail. That is a certainty. What is not is whether you will be able to retrieve your data. Your photos, your sound files, your documents, your work. If you have a robust, secure backup procedure in place then when the worst happens you can still retrieve your data and transfer it to a new machine.

And if all else fails…….