OFFICIAL

CITE Managed Services

ICT Systems Maintenance Policy and Procedures

COPYRIGHT NOTICE & DISCLAIMER

This document is part of a comprehensive set of corporate policies and procedures.
These materials have been developed for the fictional company Centre of IT Excellence Managed Services
Provider (CITEMS) by South Metropolitan TAFE exclusively for educational purposes. It serves as a practical
and illustrative case study to facilitate learning, training, and discussions in various academic contexts.
Please be aware that CITEMS does not exist as a real company and any resemblance to real organizations is
purely coincidental.
This document is property of South Metropolitan TAFE. Any further reproduction or communication of this
material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act.

Do not remove this notice.

© South Metropolitan TAFE, 2023

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CITE Managed Services
ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

Contents
ICT Systems Maintenance Policy & Agreement ............................................................................................. 3
Purpose 3
Scope 3
Guiding principles 3
Roles and Responsibilities 4
ICT Systems Maintenance Standard Operating Procedures .......................................................................... 5
ICT System Maintenance Standard Operating Procedure 5
Section 1: ICT System Condition Check SOP 7
Section 2: Troubleshooting System Issues SOP 12

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CITE Managed Services
ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

ICT Systems Maintenance Policy & Agreement

Purpose
This maintenance procedure establishes the roles, responsibilities and critical processes for the
hardware maintenance and repair of all computer equipment and peripherals owned or serviced by CITE
Managed Services (i.e., printers, scanners, optical drives, network cards, multimedia equipment, etc.).

Scope
This policy applies to:

• All ICT systems or applications that store, process, or transmit information. This includes network
and computer hardware, software, mobile phones, and telecommunication systems.
• All aforementioned systems owned or serviced under a Service Level Agreement by CITEMS.

Guiding principles
• Affected internal employees or client organisation representatives will be notified at least 48
hours in advance before any planned maintenance takes place.
• Any maintenance services requested outside of the standard maintenance schedule will be
carried out at the earliest availability of the ICT personnel, but no later than 7 days after the
service request has been submitted.
• The use of non-standard equipment, applications or technology services must be approved by the
ICT Operations Manager.
• All computer hardware (as defined above) must be tagged by IT for identification and traceability.
• All stakeholders must protect IT assets against the threats of unauthorized access, theft, loss, or
destruction.
• Mobile computing devices (as defined above) must never be left unattended without physical
security protection in place, such as: security cable attached to the equipment, locked in a secure
cabinet, in a locked office, storage area, or vault.
• Before disposing or recycling IT assets, CITEMS will ensure all sensitive information is securely and
safely removed.
• CITEMS will replace IT systems and / or equipment that no longer provide an acceptable level of
performance as follows:
o Desktops and laptops should be replaced approximately every 6 years.
o Servers and databases should be upgraded to the latest O/S version every 3 years, where
possible.
o Smartphones should be replaced approximately every 3 years.

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ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

o Commercial applications must be upgraded to the latest version available every 3 to 4

years.
• Planned maintenance will occur during the scheduled maintenance window.
• Systems security updates and patches will be configured to be applied automatically in a timely
manner after they have been published by the vendor.
• Only authorized software and licensed products must be used and installed.
• All changes to hardware and applications must follow the IT Change Management Policy.

Roles and Responsibilities

Stakeholder Responsibilities
IT Director • Develop and maintain this policy.
• Review and approve any exceptions to the requirements of this policy.
• Take proactive steps to reinforce compliance of all stakeholders with this policy.
• Communicate with other stakeholders to:
o understand the needs and expectations in relation to maintenance of
the ICT systems,
o explain the capabilities of the existing technology in production,
o report on any issues, incidents or disruptions impacting the internal
employees or client’s organisations,
o report on how maintenance issues are addressed, and facilitate the
response to any requests from the internal employees or client
organisations.
• Manage IT projects, IT Service delivery, IT operations, IT incidents and IT
security.
• Ensure any disruption to the technology is addressed in a timely manner.

ICT Team • Ensure normal operations of the network infrastructure (Network hardware and
services) and applications.
• Review and address any problem, issue, or need from users or client
organisations.
• Escalate any issues that cannot be resolved by the standard IT processes to the
management for further action or to the vendors/suppliers in accordance with
the warranty or user agreement.

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ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

ICT Systems Maintenance Standard Operating Procedures

ICT Team must follow this procedure when carrying out maintenance on ICT systems.

START

Receive hardware
maintenance request
Fill in the ‘Work Order’ Use the ‘Windows Systems
form. Maintenance Checklist SOP’ to
complete this task and document
Determine maintenance the results in the ‘ICT System
service required Condition Checklist’.

Refer to ‘Windows Preventative Conduct

Systems Maintenance maintenance ? troubleshooting
Checklist SOP’
(Section 3)
Determine if equipment
repairable
Carry out maintenance
Repairable ?

Recommend
Carry out repairs
replacement / disposal

Return ICT system to

the owner for approval

Turn over the system to Accepted ? Review feedback and

the owner take corrective action

END

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ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

ICT System Maintenance Standard Operating Procedure

How to use this procedure?
1. Follow this procedure when carrying out maintenance on computer hardware.
2. Document the outcomes and results from this process in the ‘ICT System Condition Checklist’.
3. Save the completed ‘ICT System Condition Checklist’ and any ‘Work Orders’ in the cloud storage
folder named ‘System Maintenance’.

Preparation
GENERAL SAFETY GUIDELINES WHEN WORKING WITH HARDWARE:
• Check exterior covers for damage (loose, broken, or sharp edges).
• Keep the parts in protective packages until they are inserted into the product.
• Avoid physical contact with other people.
• Wear a grounded wrist strap against your skin to eliminate static on your body.
• Prevent the part from touching your clothing. Most clothing is insulative and retains a charge
even when you are wearing a wrist strap.
• Use a grounded work mat to provide a static-free work surface. The mat is especially useful
when handling ESD-sensitive devices.
• Before the computer is powered ON after maintenance, make sure all screws, springs and any
other small parts are not left loose inside the computer.
• Always follow manufacturer’s safety guidelines.
NEVER attempt to open up or repair the Power Supply Unit (PSU).
After being powered even for a short period of time, the PSU will accumulate
electrical charge in the capacitors and store it temporarily. Accidentally or
deliberately touching a capacitor has a high chance of causing an electric shock
or electrocution.
NEVER attempt to disassemble, repair, throw in a fire or water or short-circuit
a battery pack.
Laptop batteries may leak poisonous liquid and gas when they expand due to
internal faults. More serious faults may cause the battery to get extremely hot
and spontaneously catch fire.

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ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

Section 1: ICT System Condition Check SOP

Current system specs identification & initial boot check.

1 a. (If using desktop PC) Plug in the power cords, keyboard, mouse, and a monitor to the
computer system.
b. Power on the system to evaluate its current state.
c. Record the outcomes of all checks in the ‘ICT System Condition Report’.
d. While the system boots up, observe any error indicators such as beep codes, on-board
LED indicators and/or POST messages.
i. If the system successfully boots into BIOS, go to the Next Step.
ii. If the system does not successfully boot into BIOS, go to Section 2
Troubleshooting Hardware Issues SOP.

2 a. Boot into BIOS or into Operating System environment.

b. Collect and record system specifications in the ‘Work Order’ form.
System Specs must include the following information:
i. CPU model, gen, speed, core/thread count.
ii. RAM model, DDR type, capacity, speed.
iii. Motherboard model, socket type.
iv. Main GPU model, GDDR type, capacity, speed.
v. Storage drive model (or models if multiple storage drives are present), type,
capacity.
vi. Optical drive (if present) model and drive type.
vii. Any other expansion device model (e.g. additional network, wireless adapter,
GPU, PCIE SSD card etc.) and their brief specs.
viii. OS edition, version and build number.
ix. If an Optical Drive or an Expansion component are not installed, write N/A next to
the item.

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Hardware checks (visual inspection)

3 a. Power off the system and discharge the residual current.

i. While the PC is connected to a power outlet, set the power outlet switch to ‘OFF’
position.
ii. Ensure the PC is POWERED OFF and the power supply’s switch is in the ‘OFF’
position (position 0) at the back.
iii. Discharge any residual power in your PC by pressing the ‘POWER’ button on your
PC repeatedly 4-5 times.
b. Open the chassis.
c. Visually inspect each component and cables inside of the computer case for any visible
damage and the overall physical condition.
d. Check the chassis interior, fans, heat sinks and radiators for any accumulated dust.
i. Take photos of all connectors that are plugged into the motherboard and
between all internal components.
ii. Take an overall view as a record of how parts were originally assembled.
iii. Take photos of any obvious damage to internal components (e.g. worn out cables,
snapped off connector lock mechanisms, pinched cables, broken CMOS battery
housing).

Hardware & software checks

4 a. Take photos and screenshots as evidence of completed procedure tasks and save them
in the ‘ICT System Condition Report’.

5 a. Use the BIOS settings or OS built-in ‘System Information’ utility to check the current BIOS
version.
Expected result:
o BIOS version is up to date.

6 a. Use the built-in ‘Task Manager’ and ‘Resource Monitor’ utilities to check the current CPU
capacity and usage during idling and during normal use.
Expected result:
o CPU capacity is the same or above the recommended system requirements policy.
o CPU utilisation must not exceed 70% during idling and light use.

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b. Check the CPU for health, errors, and functionality (e.g. you may use tools such as built-
in ‘System Diagnostic Report’ and a combination of HWMonitor and CPU-Z).
Expected result:
o Checks completed without errors and performance is the same or similar to
advertised specs.
o Temperature 40-65°C – under normal workload, 70-80°C while stress testing.

7 a. Run a memory diagnostic test to check for any errors with memory modules (e.g. you
may use tools such as built-in ‘Windows Memory Diagnostic’ or ‘Memtest86+’).
Expected result:
o Checks completed without errors.
b. Use the built-in ‘Task Manager’ and ‘Resource Monitor’ utilities to check the current
RAM capacity and usage during idling and during normal use.
Expected result:
o Memory capacity is the same or above the recommended system requirements
policy.
o Utilisation must not exceed 70% during idling and light use.

8 a. Check storage devices for health, errors, and functionality (e.g. you may use tools such
as ‘CrystalDiskInfo’ and ‘CrystalDiskMark’).
Expected result:
o Checks completed without errors and performance is the same or similar to
advertised specs.
o Temperature 20-50°C while idling and under normal and heavy use.
b. Use the built-in ‘Disk Management’ utility to check the current storage capacity.
Expected results:
o At least 30% of free space.
c. If the system has any HDDs, use the built-in ‘Defragment & Optimize Drives’ tool to
analyse the fragmentation of data on the disk.
DO NOT USE ON AN SSD!
Expected result:
o Fragmentation rate does not exceed 10%.

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ICT System Maintenance Policy and Procedures

9 a. Use any built-in battery diagnostic tool to verify the battery health status.
Expected result:
o Checks completed without any errors.
o ‘Full Charge Capacity’ is at least 50% of a ‘Designed Battery Capacity’.

10 a. Test all attached peripherals for functionality.

Expected result:
o Checks completed without any errors.
o All keys are working on a keyboard. Mouse buttons and sensor are correctly
detecting input. Web cam (if connected) shows clear image. Microphone (if
connected) pics up sound. Monitor has no dead pixels and set to a
correct/recommended resolution.

11 a. Check the file system for any logical and physical errors (e.g. use the built-in ‘Command
Prompt’ utility with a ‘chkdsk’ command or use MiniTool Partition Wizard surface test).
Expected results:
o Checks completed without errors.

12 a. Run an anti-virus scan and remove any software marked as potentially unwanted (e.g.
use built-in ‘Microsoft Defender Antivirus’ tool or third-party a/v ‘Malwarebytes’).
Expected results:
o No viruses found.
b. Check to ensure the latest anti-virus databases have been installed and Firewall
enabled.
Expected results:
o Latest security databases are installed.
o Firewall enabled.

13 a. Use the built-in ‘Windows Updates’ utility to check for the latest system updates and
patches.
Expected results:
o Latest Windows updates installed.

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14 a. Check if there are any updated chipset drivers by searching ‘<Motherboard

manufacturer> chipset drivers’ (e.g. AMD chipset drivers).
Expected result:
o Latest chipset drivers are installed.

15 a. Check for any missing, faulty, or outdated drivers (e.g. use the built-in ‘Device
Management’ utility or a third-party ‘Snappy Driver Installer’ tool).
Expected result:
o Latest drivers are installed, and no new driver updates available for critical
components.

16 a. Use the utility such as ‘BleachBit’ to analyse the space taken by system junk files.
Expected result:
o System junk files do not take more than 100MB of space.

17 a. Check the age of the latest system backup and restoration point.
Expected results:
o System Recovery Image has been created and is not older than 6 months.
o Regular backups have been configured.

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Section 2: Troubleshooting System Issues SOP

Hardware issues (issues found during boot).

1 Discharge the power from the PC.

a. While the PC is connected to a power outlet, set the power outlet switch to ‘OFF’
position.
b. Ensure the PC is POWERED OFF and the power supply’s switch is in the ‘OFF’ position
(position 0) at the back.
c. Discharge any residual power in your PC by pressing the ‘POWER’ button on your PC
repeatedly 4-5 times.

2 Unplug the PC.

a. Disconnect the power cord.

3 Open the PC case.

a. Remove the side panel of the case/chassis.
b. Lay the computer flat on the table, ready to have components removed.
c. Take photos of the inside for reference.
i. Take a photo of all connectors that are plugged into the motherboard and
between all internal components.
ii. Take an overall view as a record of how parts were originally assembled.
iii. Take photos of any obvious damage to internal components (e.g. worn out cables,
snapped off connector lock mechanisms, pinched cables, broken CMOS battery
housing).
a. Record the outcomes of this check in the ‘ICT System Condition Checklist’.

4 Troubleshoot and correct hardware issues.

a. Refer to manufacturer’s guides to identify the nature of hardware faults by searching the
meaning of the beep codes and on-board LED indicators.
b. Resolve any immediate issues with the hardware.
c. If the system detects an issue with the CMOS battery, replace the battery.
d. If the system or any of the components are under warranty:
i. Record evidence of the fault (screenshots, photos, or video recording),

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ii. Take out and pack the faulty parts (e.g. cables, RAM, PSU, CPU cooler etc.),
iii. Email the information about the fault and hand over the faulty components to a
Senior ICT Technician.
iv. Install new/fixed components to finish the preventative maintenance.

5 Correcting issues.
• If the system is older than 3 years, replace the CMOS battery.
• If the system or any of the components are under warranty:
o Record evidence of the fault (screenshots, photos, or video recording),
o Take out and pack the faulty parts (e.g. cables, RAM, PSU, CPU cooler etc.),
o Email the information about the fault and hand over the faulty components to a
Senior ICT Technician.
o Install new/fixed components to finish the preventative maintenance.
• If unable to determine the fault, escalate the issue to a Senior IT technician.

Other issues troubleshooting steps.

Note: It may only be necessary to run only some of these steps to troubleshoot and correct the
problem.

HDD Depending on the issue you may try the following approaches:
• Run data backup.
• Remove junk files.
• Run a surface test.
• Run a system diagnostic test / SMART test.
• Complete disk defragmentation (if using HDD).
• Check for updated drivers and install new drivers if necessary.
• Uninstall applications that are no longer needed.
• If storage is full:
o Install a new drive.
o Migrate user data, system files, program files, or entire system on to a new
drive.

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• Run anti-virus scan.

• Run the ‘chkdsk <drive letter> /f’ command (e.g. chkdsk f: /f) to fix any corrupted
files.
• Run ‘sfc /scannow’ command to scan and fix any corrupted system files.
• Check running programs in task manager to see what processes are using up disk.
End any unnecessary processes or close applications using up the disk.
• Check computer case for dust and clean if necessary.
• Check cabling inside of the computer and tidy it up if necessary.
• Check current fan speed configurations in the BIOS settings.
• Install an additional case fan.
• If unable to determine the fault, escalate the issue to a Senior IT technician.

RAM Depending on the issue you may try the following approaches:
• Reseat RAM.
• Check BIOS to ensure working RAM sticks are configured with a correct speed.
• Run memtest on each RAM module separately to find the faulty one.
• Restart the system.
• Disable unnecessary start-up programs.
• Check for and install updates for commonly used apps.
• Check which apps are running in the background and disable unnecessary apps.
• Reduce visual effects or allocate virtual RAM.
• Clean system junk files.
• Run a system diagnostic test.
• Run an anti-virus scan and remove any suspicious software.
• Check the internal temperature of the system.
• Clean computer case from any dust build-up.
• If unable to determine the fault, escalate the issue to a Senior IT technician.

CPU Depending on the issue you may try the following approaches:
• Restart the system.

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• Disable unnecessary start-up programs.

• Check what tasks are running in the Task manager and end any application
processes that may be using up the most CPU.
• Shut down any web browsers and office applications.
• Check the CPU temperature.
• Check computer case for dust and clean if necessary.
• Check cabling inside of the computer and tidy it up if necessary.
• Check current CPU fan speed configurations in the BIOS settings.
• Run an anti-virus scan and remove any suspicious software.
• Clean and reapply thermal paste on a CPU.
• Install a different CPU cooler.
• Replace/upgrade CPU.
• If unable to determine the fault, escalate the issue to a Senior IT technician.

GPU • Restart the system.

• Check if drivers were installed correctly.
• Uninstall old drivers.
• Check for most up-to-date chipset and PCIe drivers.
• Install the most up-to-date drivers.
• Check display settings.
• If problem persist, try using a different cable to connect to monitor.
• Check if GPU is properly connected to motherboard and power.
• Use ‘dxdiag’ utility to check for any hardware related issues.

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