Computer Repair Hawaii (808) 676-1900

I’m not sure if this post is going to turn into one of my rants yet because I talk about this problem with customers on a daily basis, and nobody gets it. Anyway, a bad shutdown is when your computer is powered-off without properly shutting it down in Windows. Whether, you pull the plug, pull the battery, hold in the power button, or even have a power outage, it is a bad shutdown! It doesn’t matter if it was intentional, by accident, by confusion, or whatever, … a bad shutdown is a bad shutdown. It is an all too common Computer Repair Hawaii problem many of our customer’s experience.

We just announced our Free Computer Repair Promotion last week and we were going to announce the first winner this morning, but I guess the word didn’t get out early enough. I hate to say it, but whoever didn’t enter thinking they wouldn’t have much of a chance to win, lost out this week because [...]

Now that the parts identification lesson was over, I just said to bring the entire laptop in and I will take care of it. I asked again what was wrong with the laptop and then he said it fell off the counter while it was turned on. I explained how that would most likely damage his hard drive. He went on to say that the computer turned-on still but would not boot to Windows, which I explained was probably due to errors on the hard drive from when it fell. So now, I explained that the hard drive may be bad, that your data might be at risk and this job might not be a data backup job after all.

  I checked in a computer the other day for a customer that really grilled me over the phone about whether or not we could fix her computer problem. She mentioned how she had a CPU Fan alert at boot-up, but she was able to work around it by pressing F1 which would allow her [...]

The suffering economy has sure had a negative impact on the computer repair industry in ways I would’ve never imagined. This wasn’t because computers were breaking less, but because people began putting off repairs to save money. At first, we initially saw a decrease in customers as the price of gas skyrocketed. But as some of us started adjusting to a tighter budget, our computers became an increasing source of indoor entertainment which saved money on going out, as well as a great tool for finding online deals.

As people began to put more miles on their computers, some fell by the wayside as they got infected with viruses and spyware, some of which led to hardware failures. What once was just another high-tech gadget we had to have because it was cool and somewhat affordable, became an addiction we had withdrawals from when it crashed or couldn’t open up Facebook or YouTube. So the computer repair industry is still alive and kicking, especially as consumers try to get more out of the computer they have as long as it is cheaper to fix it than to buy another one. So where can you get a good deal on a computer repair?

The time it takes to fix a computer is variable. It could be 5 minutes or 5 hours or anything in between, even longer depending on the problem and what you want done.

Turn-around time also varies from shop to shop because of expertise, company policy and workload. It’s not unusual for the bigger companies with all their red-tape to take 2 – 3 weeks to repair what an independent computer shop can turn-around in 2 – 3 days. As for most computer problems that qualify to be repaired onsite, a seasoned technician can knock them out in 1 – 2 hours. So just what goes into the average computer repair?

Let me start by asking, have you ever switched car mechanics, barbers, hair stylists, even dentists or doctors? If so, and it wasn’t just because you moved, was it so you could get a better price or better service? I’ve found that people are always looking for the best price, value, and service for their computer repair needs. I’m sure that on Oahu, that you can easily find a cheap PC Tech very easily because they make a point of it. I’m sure that you can find the best value or the cheapest tech if you look hard enough, and maybe even the one with the best service if you get enough referrals, but I am also sure that you will “not” find a computer repair service that can offer you all three.

This is just a rant. If you don’t care about reading about some of the humbug we deal with, no problem, but if you do, please don’t be offended. We are imperfect humans, working on imperfect computers with imperfect customers, and we all have imperfect expectations, and somewhere in there is a “rant” wanting to be heard.

Anyway, I can’t keep this one to myself anymore because it is an “all to common” problem lately. No, not with the computer, but with the customer! We are seeing problems that are getting much more difficult to repair, and time is money, and I suspect the economy has something to do with it, such as making people put off repairs until they get so bad that they are forced to finally pay to have it fixed.