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When your computer is not functioning, where do you take it to repair? the computer service department in a large electronic store? or the computer shop in your neighbourhood? I pick the later because it is most often very costly if going to the large electronic stores. They charge $100 per hour for just a few clicks. Is that justified? I don’t think so. And most of the time, if it is a software problem, they usually just wipe out your hard drive and re-install everything with the recovery disc and you just lose all your data. So I recommend you to take your computer to one of the neighbourhood computer shops (because I own one myself). Usually

they are cheaper because the price competitions. More importantly, they get the job done.

However, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

1. Do they charge by hour or by job?

I think it is more fair to charge by job. For instance, re-installing Windows cost $50 - no more and no less. If they charge you $80 per hour and tell you that it will take 3 hours to complete, then you can go to the next shop. Spending $240 on re-installing Windows? I would suggest you add some money and get a new desktop. In those 3 hours, 2 hours are just going to be waiting time for the Windows setting up itself and only

1 hour is actual work done by the technician.

2. What will happen to your data?

If they are wiping out your OS, are they going to backup your data first? Many technicians think that it is the user’s responsibility to backup his data. But I think if you want to provide a reliable service, you should care about the data and backup the data before wiping the hard drive. (My shop has a RAID 5 system just for backing up my customers’ data before we touch anything!)

3. What if the problem persist?

If you got your computer back but the problem persist, don’t pay the money until you have them actually fix it. Most computer problems are gone

if they are fixed, except for the virus type problems that may come back from your network at home (I would advise my customer about this before hand). So before you hand over your PC, ask them first whether they would charge you if the problem is not fixed. Make sure you test the computer in the shop before you take it back home. (My shop does free inspection and no charge if problem not fixed!)

4. Licensed Windows become pirated Windows?

I know some computer shops, when re-installing the OS, they just blindly install a pirated version. They don’t care whether the original Windows is genuine or not. I had a customer coming to me and said that his

Windows has been pirated. It is a Toshiba notebook and I see there is a genuine sticker on the machine. I asked him what he did. He told me that he brought his notebook to the computer shop across the street for repair. So what happened? You know it.

5. No questions asked?

If the technician is not asking you any questions, then you better find another one. If they don’t ask you what happened, what the symptoms are, what you were doing at the time of the problem started, how can they know what to troubleshoot? I can not re-engineer the situation myself. I always ask questions to my customer about what happened. It is always nice if a

customer take notes on the problem and the error messages. So if the computer guy only tell you that it’s going to be fixed, without asking you any questions, don’t trust his words! He is going to break more than what he has fixed.

So these are my tips on how you pick a computer shop for repair service.

Find out more about my computing and gaming experiences at: http://www.lebokov21.com