Campus Computers and Upcoming Power Maintenance 

power surgeSMU has been informed that Oncor needs to perform preventative maintenance to upgrade equipment during both the weekends of April 10-11 and April 17-18. This maintenance will briefly affect power on the SMU campus. Two brief power fluctuations and possible wired and wireless fluctuations will occur twice during each weekend.  The first will occur around 7 a.m. on Saturday, and the second around 6 p.m. on Sunday. While the power will simply flicker, out of caution we are recommending all computers and classroom equipment be powered off Friday evening.

  • What to do before you leave campus (Friday, April 9, and 16): Please make sure you power down all computers. OIT will check for office computers that are still powered on at approximately 8 p.m. Friday evening. These office computers will be shut down remotely. If you are using your computer at this time, a shutdown message will appear, and you can cancel the shutdown if needed. Classroom and lab computers will be powered back on for Monday morning classes.
  • Remote desktop users: Remote desktop connections will be unavailable on both weekends as computers will be powered off. If you need your computer turned back on Monday morning, please coordinate with someone in your office to power that on for you in advance.
  • Research Computers should be powered off in advance or protected with an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). Should you have any questions, please contact your Academic Technology Service Director in advance so they may assist you.
Cox: Christina Churchill
Dedman College: Faye Walter
Guildhall: Levi Sterling
Lyle: Merlin Wilkerson
Meadows: Mousumi Tanha
Perkins and Law: James Pan
Simmons: Jennifer Culver

Documents stored in cloud-based services like Box or Office365 will remain accessible. Documents that need to be retrieved from an SMU computer that is powered off are available through Crashplan. Instructions on how to recover a file that was backed up to Crashplan may be found on our service page.

The IT Help Desk will continue to be available for weekend support. As always, feel free to contact them at 214-768-HELP (4357).

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Laurene Klassen

Laurene is the Director of SMU’s IT Training & Communications Team. She enjoys reading, writing, and outdoor activities with her family in her spare time.