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PC Repair Business???
DaveMMR:
This article sums up a lot of what others have said about working on home users' computers:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-guy-whos-fixing-your-computer-hates-you/
I've been fairly lucky; no one really bust my chops about my pricing, though I have since raised my price for straight Malware removal (unless they just let me wipe and reinstall). But I still get people wondering why I'm there for 3 hours for a "simple" job like taking off a "virus" or asking me to fix their stove since "I know so much about computers". ::)
yotsuya:
I'm the campus technology director for a local high school, so fixing stuff is pretty much what I do, but one side thing I do is computer repair for senior citizens who are local to the school. It's all done via word of mouth, as I helped a retired teacher fix something once, and she told all her friends. With them, I don't have a set rate. I just tell them to pay me whatever they they are comfortable with. Quite honestly, they tend to pay me more than I would have asked for, so it works out, but they are still saving money as opposed to calling a service, and they trust me. If it's something that takes a few minutes, I tell them not to worry about it. It's worked out well for all parties involved.
Howard_Casto:
There's one other thing that has crept up in recent years that I forgot to mention and it pretty much assures that you either won't get paid or won't be able to fix the computer fully.
It used to be that when you bought a pc, you got a physical copy of windows, office, and whatever else came with it. This is no longer the case. Now it's saved as an image on the computer and you have to run a special backup program to make your own dvd's of the install.
Now if the customer had sense enough to do this, then all is well. It'll actually make your job easier as specific tweaks you have to do for their hardware have already been done. Unfortunately they never do this.
Since the computer you will be working on will have either a failing harddrive or a barely functional system riddled with viri, you aren't going to be able to make those system restore discs.
So you have the following options:
1. Buy and keep multiple versions of windows and hope and pray that the customers at least have their liscense keys and that said keys will work on stock versions of windows and not just the crippled version that came with their pc. Customers will still complain because the 2 dollar flash game that came with their hp computer won't be included with a vanilla install.
2. Do #1, but install an illegal copy of windowze. Yeah that's a smart idea.
3. Try your very best not to format the pc. This will be next to impossible if the damage from the virus/idiot user is too extensive. Even if you can, you'll be doing things the hard way, which could take 5 hours or more if it is really bad off. You'll get a lot of money, but it won't be worth the damage to your soul.
4. Tell the customer to go buy a $200+ copy of windows... that won't have all the usless add-ons that they are used to and somehow need even though you can check their history and determine that they were never used. And then tell them that even with the expensive purchase their computer is STILL not fixed and you'll be charging them for re-installing windows and formatting the hdd.
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on January 03, 2012, 09:50:35 am --- ... or asking me to fix their stove since "I know so much about computers". ::)
--- End quote ---
Heh... I get that one a lot.
My family has asked me to look at their remote controller air-planes and their vintage vaccuum tube amps because those things are apparently the same as a computer.
About the only actual overlap is video game consoles, arcade machines and modern pcb-based tvs. Even then the overlap is that you are smart enough to work on pcs you you can sort of muddle through simple problems with the other devices.
Samstag:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 03, 2012, 01:35:45 pm ---1. Buy and keep multiple versions of windows and hope and pray that the customers at least have their liscense keys and that said keys will work on stock versions of windows and not just the crippled version that came with their pc. Customers will still complain because the 2 dollar flash game that came with their hp computer won't be included with a vanilla install.
--- End quote ---
Invest in a Technet subscription and you'll have access to more versions of Windows than you can shake a stick at, all the way back to 3.0 if I recall. The license key on a prebuilt PC will be on a sticker somewhere on the PC and will identify the version it's good for.
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