How To Avoid PC Failures in Your Pharmacy

PC failures can be costly, potentially resulting in losing your pharmacy both time and money. For a busy pharmacy, a working PC can mean the difference between keeping and losing a customer. The PCs within your pharmacy are essential and one of the most fundamental pieces of equipment you use, it is therefore important they are cared for to ensure they are running at their best at all times.

Particularly during the hottest months of the year, overheating can become a problem for some PCs, but good housekeeping and taking care of your PCs can ensure that you can get the best from them, not just during the summer, but all year round!

We’ve put together some top tips with our in-house experts to ensure you get the best from your machine and avoid any issues:

Avoid Overheating

DO NOT place the tower near heat sources or in a confined space. This includes power supplies from printers which can get warm, so should be kept as far away from the PC as possible.

Make sure no vents are obscured leaving at least 10-15cms of space around the base unit. Check for dust blocking the vent at the back of the unit. (Do not spray any liquids or polish on your PCs). Cool air flows in the front and hot air out of the back of PCs so remove any post-its or labels stuck to the front of the PC. Keeping a well ventilated work space will help to stop your machine from overheating.

Hard Drive Optimisation

DO NOT power off at the plug or hold the power button down, always shut down through the Windows Start button.

DO NOT defragment the SSD (C drive) disk as this can shorten lifespan and decrease performance and ensure there is at least 15-20% free disk space available on drive C for optimal performance.

If you see a warning from the Intel Rapid Storage adapter (yellow triangle icon) please call Cegedim Service Desk as soon as possible on 0330 303 3340, so that we can investigate further before any issue worsens and becomes more problematic.

General Performance

Only have Cegedim approved devices plugged in – your backup USB stick is ok, but charging phones or other unapproved devices can lead to performance or security issues.

Avoid using streaming services as these will slow down your internet connection (radio, news, YouTube etc.).

DO NOT ‘daisy chain’ power adapters together as this can cause a fire risk.

Tidy Cables will help to make for a safer work space and also make it easier to diagnose any problems if they do arise.

Ageing Hardware

Technology develops fast and if your business is using older hardware, be honest: is it up to the task? It is important to ensure that your pharmacy can keep up with the latest advancements in technology and that the performance of an older PC in your pharmacy is not slowing you down. One Cegedim customer who recently upgraded their whole network reported saving up to 90 minutes each day, due to the improvements to the speed and performance of their machines.

Cegedim customers can contact our service desk on: 0330 303 3340

If you are not currently a Cegedim customer, but would like to know more about how we could help you, book a demo now: