Another Texas summer will be here soon. If you have visions of gulping down cold drinks and fanning yourself like crazy to survive the Austin hear, imagine how your business's IT equipment must feel. Overheated servers, workstations and other equipment can lose data, lose power or fail altogether. Here are some tips from our Austin tech support team on how you can protect that valuable hardware from excess heat.

• Space out your servers. If you've jammed several servers up against each other on an undersized rack, you're just asking for an overheating crisis. Make sure air can circulate freely between components, and jeep the windows closed so the air conditioning can do its job. Monitor the server room's temperature carefully and add extra cooling equipment if necessary.

• Ditch the dust. Clean your server room and around your PCs on a regular basis so dust bunnies don't end up jamming their air vents. Don't forget to clean out the room's air filters as well, since much of your air quality problem may originate in your AC vents. For best results, seal the server room off completely and equip it with its own cooling modules.

• Fan your PCs. If you feel hot, stagnant air sitting around your PCs despite your best efforts to boost circulation, you can always add case fans. These extra fans help push cool air into and/or out of the unit. Do not keep your PCs in those tight little cubbyholes built into so many office desks – they just don't provide adequate breathing room to maintain optimal temperatures.

If you're worried about your ability to protect your IT setup when the mercury runs high, talk to our business IT support team in Austin. We can evaluate your system and make the right recommendations to help your system keep its cool!

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