Wiring

In a recent conversation with a client I was asked what the most common issues needing resolution that I’ve found when adding a new company to our service. Without hesitation, I replied that it is network wiring.

We’ve recently added three new clients under support agreements, all three have extremely worrisome issues with their wiring. It isn’t always evident that there are issues with wiring when the network isn’t setup correctly..

As everyone who’s been under our service for any length of time knows, I’m a big proponent of not storing data files on local PCs. The downside to this policy is the increased amount of communications between the client PC and the server. If there are wiring issues, this type of communication can be severely impacted.

Since the second most common issue we find is that files are stored on the local PCs (and therefore typically not properly backed up) problems with the wiring aren’t always obvious.

For existing clients, It is easy for wiring and the communications infrastructure to get out of control over time. Switches temporarily added to give additional workstations access to the network can have negative consequences in performance and reliability. Small switches used to add additional workstations or printers should only be used as a stop gap measure. A wiring professional should be called to run new lines back to the central switch location as soon as it is fiscally reasonable to do so.

If you’ve added workstations with small switches at any time and haven’t contacted your wiring professional (or Larry Charrette at LC Electric) let us know so we can assess whether or not new lines should be run.

Also feel free to give us a call if you’d like to have your wiring reassessed and schedule a time to make whatever corrections are necessary.