Use the following Tip AT YOUR OWN RISK! I apologize for the caps but we are not responsible for any loss whatsoever for following the tips on our site. If we do not personally do work for you, then we recommend that you only let a proven professional technician touch your computers. Choose a technician with at least 10 years of hands on experience.
We get so busy working on our priorities that we tend to take our computers for granted. In a restaurant during every minute of every day the computers are inhaling dust and grease. These small specs accumulate until they have become large, potentially static carrying layers inside the computer and can glue shut all the cooler air breathing holes. This leads to premature computer failure and systems that have to be repurchased much more frequently. Computers in industrial environments have had air filtering as an option for a very long time. I feel that restaurant computer suppliers should have supplied filtering as an option as they are well aware of the conditions.
For the short term please inspect the air "intake" holes of your systems. A portable vacuum cleaner can pull some of the gunk out. The "grease glue" will need to be cleaned with some type of non metallic insertion tool and even then when the power is off. Your professional technician could clean out the insides, but only after proper backups have been done.
For the longer term I am currently researching proper filtering for these systems. I have decided not to use some of the products that are on the market for dusty environments as these might be flammable either out of the box or once they are coated with grease. I may use window screen materials which while they still allow grease to accumulate inside they will clog up much more frequently than the larger air holes that are currently on the computer cases and thus will be a great improvement. This product http://www.acryan.com/_meshx/index.shtml and others like it also may show some promise. If you have a proven solution please let me know so I can share it with everyone.
Any filtering solution REQUIRES that the owner replace these filters on a regular basis just like they clean their grease hood as filters will clog up quicker and left unreplaced will themselves result in premature computer failure.
If you want to keep your existing RapidFire system then please call us - 636-939-1400.
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