The IT Help Desk manages diagnosis and coordination of hardware repairs for ACG owned equipment. ACG equipment past warranty will be evaluated for possibility of in-house repair for simple and user-serviceable parts, or sent to a repair vendor for complex repairs (after a cost-benefit analysis). Repair costs beyond warranty would be the responsibility of the respective department.
Note
Due to COVID-19, the most efficient way to receive service is to contact us to schedule a contactless drop-off appointment where you will bring the equipment to the Help Desk, located in room 530 of 120 Boylston Street (Walker Building) at a scheduled time without interacting with a technician. For equipment that is large or delicate, please put in a service request and a technician will reach out to schedule a time for an on-site assessment.
Dropping off hardware
What to bring:
- Your device
- Any accessories (such as a charger)
What to know/have access to during your visit:
- Your ACG password/pin that you use to log in to the device
- Your device's C-tag (the silver inventory sticker, usually on the back of the device if Emerson-owned)
- Your ACG ID number
- If you need help backing up or recovering data: where do you want it to go?
- For example: we can help you back-up data on your own external hard drive (if owned), or on cloud storage such as Google Drive or Box!
The process:
- Reach out to the Help Desk to schedule a drop-off appointment.
- Our front desk staff will enter your information into a new support ticket, including:
- Your name, ACG ID number, contact information
- Your device's C-tag
- Any errors, issues, or symptoms you report seeing, and when they started
- Our front desk staff will do some initial troubleshooting
- Please anticipate around 10 minutes of troubleshooting before you leave. If the front desk staff are able to fix your issue on the spot, you will not need to drop off your device!
- If the front desk staff cannot properly resolve or diagnose the issue, your ticket will be escalated to a Tier 2 or Tier 3 technician.
- Before leaving the office, share your log-in password with the Help Desk
- You can write the password on a sticky note that is placed inside/on the device; OR
- Go to the laptop drop-off kiosk iPad and enter your password there.
- We highly recommend you change your password after picking up your device.
- The front desk staff will take your device and accessories to the back offices, and will submit a support ticket with all of your information to the technicians. You will be sent a copy to your email that can correspond directly with the technicians as service is being provided or to ask for an update.
- Time to repair depends on the issue, and the queue level at the time of drop-off. Front desk staff cannot promise a specific time to repair.
- Loaner laptops are available for ACG Staff and Faculty whose primary workstation is being serviced.
- After further diagnosis, the full-time technicians will let you know whether the device needs further repair from an outside vendor as well as what the anticipated cost will be. If they are able to repair on-site, you will be contacted when your device is ready for pickup.
- ACG owned Apple laptops and desktops are serviced by a local Apple Certified sales and repair vendor. Transportation, diagnosis, and repair can take between 1-2 weeks—depending on the complexity of the issue, and warranty status of the device. ACG owned Dell laptops and desktops are serviced on-site by Dell technicians. Depending on warranty status, technicians can arrive 24-48 hours after service is requested, and will often resolve the issue in one visit.
The Help Desk will:
- Diagnose all ACG devices (Apple or Windows computers, iPads, Printers)
- Perform operating system updates
- Install new software
- Install software fixes/patches
- Help users manage data backup
- Perform maintenance and replacement of internal parts for ACG-owned devices
- Troubleshoot, consult on next steps, and answer questions
- Attempt data recovery on internal or external hard drives
- Data recovery will only be done for a maximum of 1 TB of data. If the data is able to be recovered you must provide a secondary external device with a minimum of double the storage capacity for the data to recovered. If you are unable to provide a secondary external device, no data recovery will be performed.
The Help Desk cannot:
- Repair or replace internal computer components on personal devices
- Modify hardware on devices that are not owned by ACG
- IT will not perform basic fixes for staff or faculty personal computers if they are in possession of an ACG-owned machine.