About Hall Computer Centers...

Residence hall computer centers are operated by University Housing and free to our residents.  Open 24 hours a day, our fast computers, large software library, and high resolution laser printers can be important resources whether you have a computer in your room or are waiting for a later purchase. Get stuck? Ask a consultant to help.

• Locations & Staffing
• Opening and Closing Schedule
• Laser Printing Information
• Printing from Room to Lasers in Lab
• Help with Lab Printers

• Getting Computer Help
• Hardware & Software
• User Guidelines & Tips
• Scanners

Locations & Staffing

University Housing provides a computer center in each residence hall complex.

  

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Opening and Closing Schedule

Graduate housing computer labs do not close over breaks. This includes Sherman Hall, Goodwin & Green, Daniels Hall, and Orchard Downs. All other halls follow the schedule below.

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Printing

For questions about printing, please email printing@ics.uiuc.edu.

In each computer center, there a Print Station.  When ready to print from any site computer, send your print job to one of the laser printers. Walk to the Print Station and you'll see your print job in a queue, listed by your Netid.  Follow the directions on the screen: highlight your job to release it, enter your campus CITES password, (same one you used to log in to the lab computers).

Black and white laser printing costs 5¢ a page and color laser printing costs 25¢ a page. Any Housing resident can use the printers and any print jobs will be billed each month to your student account or until your total reaches $3.  If you get a poor print job, take the page to consultant who will give you a credit.
 

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Printing from Rooms

Housing residents are also allowed to print to lab printers from their rooms.   For detailed instructions go here: http://www.ics.uiuc.edu/ics-printing/

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Help with Lab Printers

Check out these troubleshooting tips:

• Refresh the Print Station - The print station will refresh every 45 seconds.  If you sent a print job you may need to click on the "home" button at the top to refresh the print station page for you job to show up. 
• Different Printer - If you have a problem printing a certain file or to a specific printing you can try another printer.
• Adjust the File - If you are printing pictures or a file with lots of graphics you can try removing the pictures, make pictures grayscale, or smaller in size. Also many applications allow you to optimize printing for black and white printers. Look at the print settings to see if your particular application has this feature.

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Getting Computer Help

PCCs, or Peer Computing Consultants, are in the labs 5 nights a week during the school year to help students with the software on lab computers. PCCs also monitor the laser printers. See the Locations & Staffing table for times.

NetTechs are in the lab for one hour, generally from 7-8pm Sunday-Thursday. (See signs in the labs for the specific schedule.) NetTechs are here to assist students with their personal computer needs. They help students connect to URHnet and make sure they are protected for viruses and hackers. For more information on contacting a NetTech please see: www.housing.uiuc.edu/technology/help

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Hardware & Software

Housing's computers are on a four-year replacement schedule, so every summer approximately one-fourth are replaced. In Summer 2008, we purchased approximately 100 top of the line new Dells and installed new iMacs in some labs.

We offer students the most popular software applications along with some required for classes.

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User Guidelines & Tips

• You must log in using your NetID and your "CITES" password (you can not share your campus login credentials). https://passwords.cites.uiuc.edu/.   Each lab has a machine dedicated to reset your password. Click on the CITES Password button, log in, and check the box for CITES Instructional Computing Services Password.
• Educational use takes priority.  Please be aware of people needing to use the computers for school work.
• You need your own disk to save files. All machines have floppy drives and CD writers, or you can use a USB thumbdrive. Files left on the local hard drive will be erased. Write your name on your disk in case it's misplaced.
• Save files early and often. Computers do freeze and crash! It's frustrating to lose data when deadlines are close and nerves are frayed!  Use https://netfiles.uiuc.edu.
• Got a really important project? Reboot the computer before starting. This resets it to a standard configuration no matter what previous users changed.
• All print jobs have to be released by your CITES password at the Print Station.  https://passwords.cites.uiuc.edu/.
• Just barely struggling through? Ask a Peer Computing Consultant, PCC, for help. That's what we're here for!

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Scanners

For several years, we've offered students flatbed scanners in our sites. Directions for their use are found printed out on the lid. For help with scanning to Photoshop watch our helpful video.

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