Mathematics Department

The Information below is intended for UH Math staff and faculty.  Although this information may be useful to others, requests for help from the Administrators is only supported for UH staff and faculty.  Please do not email the Administrators unless you are working for the UH Math Department.

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Request Maintenance for Department Issued Equipment

Maintenance can be done remotely or physically, on-campus.

To request maintenance from us, you must be a UH Math Department employee.  The equipment must be UH owned and issued to you, or if using personal equipment, must be used for teaching or business purposes.

For personally owned equipment that is used for University purposes, such as for teaching or research, assistance is limited, these instructions may still apply.  However, that equipment will receive lower priority than University owned equipment.

To receive maintenance, Users must schedule an appointment.  No exceptions!

Instructions for scheduling are below the maintenance schedule calendar.  If there is some physical problem with the computer or you would like to have it physically cleaned, you should request that the maintenance request be done on-campus.  Otherwise, you can request remote maintenance.

For personally-owned equipment, only computers with Windows Operating Systems and the ability to use Remote Assistance will be accepted for remote maintenance requests.  Maintenance requests for non-Windows OS computers, or Windows computers that cannot use Remote Assistance, will have to be approved for receiving maintenance and then schedule an appointment to physically bring their computers to our office.

For us to conduct maintenance on any computer, we must have administrative access.  For computers issued by us, this is already available.  For personally-owned computers, this will have to be provided or we must be allowed to make this possible and we may need to install additional software.

Work on personal equipment at an employees home is not authorized by the University.  Although a University employee might be willing to be hired as a consultant, this is outside of the normal employment at the University and is up to the individuals involved to arrange on their own time.

On-Campus Maintenance Requirements

1. Users will need to drop off the equipment needing maintenance prior to or at the time scheduled for maintenance.  For instance, users can drop off the equipment the night before the scheduled appointment.
2. Due to many variables, maintenance can take at least 3-4 hours or up to 6-8 hours, so please keep this in mind when making the appointment.  We do our best to finish the maintenance as quickly as possible, but cannot guarantee any length of time for completion.
3. If equipment is not UH-owned, but approved for maintenance, we must have administrative access to the computer.  This will mean either sharing a admistrative account password, enabling the default Windows admin account or creating a new admin account.
4. The power adapter must be included.

Remote Maintenance Requirements

1. The computer needs to be turned on.
2. The power adapter should be plugged in.
3. The computer must be online.  For computers using a wired/ethernet connection, this is automatic.  For computers using Wireless networks, the computer must have previously joined the wireless network before.  It should not be necessary that users be logged in, unless wireless network service requires it, but that is only for rare cases.
   
   

   If for some reason the computer cannot get online, or there are any issues that require physical, hands-on maintenance, then an on-campus appointment will need to be scheduled.  In this case, equipment can be brought to our office, by scheduled appointment only. Our office is in the PGH building, room 660.

4. The users should have a way of staying in communication with us (email, phone or text), so that we can have you physically do something to the computer that we cannot do remotely.
5. The user cannot use the computer at all until the maintenance is completed.

To request equipment maintenance:

1. Choose whether you want on-campus or remote maintenance.  For on-campus maintenance, the equipment needs to be returned to our office prior to the scheduled time.
2. NEW  Appointments are made using Microsoft Bookings.  Follow the instructions on the Bookings webpage.  It will only allow you to choose dates and times that are open and available according to my work schedule.  Appointments can only be made 1 day in advance and up to 30 days later.

If you are scheduled for on-campus laptop maintenance, please be sure to bring the AC adapter ( and tablet with cable, if that was issued to you), so we can make sure all is working properly.  For desktops, you only need to bring the PC, no cables or anything else is needed, unless requested to do so.

The minimum time it takes for remote maintenance is 4 hours.  The minimum time for on-campus maintenance is 6 hours.   With luck and no interruptions, I may finish sooner.  However, it will usually take longer.

For on-campus maintenance, I start maintenance by 11:00am and the earlier you drop off the equipment, the more likely I'll have it ready for pickup later that day.  Best if the equipment can be left overnight and I can be sure to have it ready by the next day.

If there is a problem with the Bookings website, please use the older method to Request maintenance.

Last revised: January 22, 2024 13:23