What are the most common problems?

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Originally Posted by Major Kong

Part time computer repair services run out of homes! ;)

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This is worth more discussion than

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Originally Posted by Wayward Clam

ROFLMAO!!!!!!

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but I do agree :D ... :thumbs:

I dunno exactly how to put this, I suppose 'beware over efficiency', maybe not in your exact circumstances, but if you become dependant on the income, it may be important ;) especially in a small town where there must be only so much work ...

I've typed about six replies now but I keep deleting them :rolleyes: ... I can't improve on the beware over efficiency line, someone told me a long time ago & I thought it was 'harsh' ... but as time goes by I agree more & more ... perhaps someone else can put words in my mouth for me ...?

The biggest problem with trying to run a comp repair business on the side is that once the word gets out about how cheap you are, people will start expecting you to do things you aren't prepared to support. Although it is true that the large majority of problems you will see are stupid user errors, you will also see some that are way over your head. If you commit to the job then you are stuck because the client has a deadline and you can't get the problem fixed in time. At first this challenge may seem like a good learning opportunity. But if this situation happens enough you eventually will get a reputation for incompetance. So if you are interested in gaining some experience it is probably better to start out working part time for someone else so that if you goof up, it will be on their dime and not yours. After that, if you are still interested in running your own part-time computer biz you will not find yourself blind-sided with problems you cannot solve.

1) see my sig....

2) always always take a usb or external dvd or cdrw on site to back up - it does not matter that you are not going to touch the data - and that backup will probably never be used, but the day you don't do it and say run a perfectly harmless defrag to find the next morning the hdd died you are up the perfect creek without a paddle. While you can have a policy of "the data is your problem" the customer doesn't like losing their emails and documents. It takes a few mins to back up those personal items (screw their mp3 and porno collection, thats going too far) and when the worst happens you look very good!

3) Never believe the user when he tells you what the problem is. Always have the first 30 mins labour as the diagnosis, if you fix it within that 30 mins, all well and good, you look like a hero again when you only charge them the diagnosis time.

4) Never laugh in the customer's face - they take offence when they find out you think they are stupid.

5) Distinguish between training issues and other issues. If you have told them not to use a particular program or do something a particular way because it crashes the machine and they promptly do it again, charge them. The quickest way to make a man learn is to attack his wallet. (PS this does not work on women)

Most common problems I see are (I.D.10.T) errors as well. The worst problems I have seen is by those who think they know just enough to solve it themselves, and screw it up even more. Then they dump it on you and want you to make it all better. The only advice I can give you for that is cover your A$$!! Document everything you do from inital powerup, to evey error message, to what the resolution was and the time involved in reaching that resolution.

i've been thinking about doing that for years and in fact, I have had some side jobs where I'll cahrge $50/hour for whatever service. I'm deciding more and more that I don't want to do that.

One of the main reasons for this is one of my latest housecalls. This older lady wanted her PC cleaned up and pr0n adn stuff removed. No big deal right. $50 tune-up. It's an old pos running ME and takes damn near the full hour to run adaware and delete crap progs. I get out of ther with my halfa bean and figure everythigns fine.

Call back from customer few days later accusing ME becuase her msn Hotmail isn't delivering her nay new e-mails. It was a vocie mail that I never responded to becuase she is not going to pay another $50 or more for me to come back. Most others go fine, but how do you explain to somebody that you need $100 or more for fixing their PC when they were watching you watch files delete or scan disk run?

I think I'm jsut gonna be a bartender instead.

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Originally Posted by BurnFEST

Intermittant Faults are your worst enemy.

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I've frequently told customers that the only thing they could do is wait untill it gets worse, then call again.

Thanks for some good ideas and advice from everyone.
Noonoo your idea about a usb burner sounds like a great idea. Until I buy one though I am making sure that each customer signs a well worded data disclaimer form and that I explain to them the concept of backing up their data.
Your comment got me thinking though, I know how to back up in Outlook but its been years since I used Outlook express and cannot remember how to back up e-mails from OE. Is it just a matter of saving the .dbx files? or is there more to it.
Thanks again,

Trueman.

You can use the export, but I much prefer just copying the entire directory that holds the dbx's and zipping it... then you can unzip and import from oe5 and then choose import from oe6 store directory.

Thanks Noo noo.

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Originally Posted by riddellcomp

Thanks for some good ideas and advice from everyone.
Noonoo your idea about a usb burner sounds like a great idea. Until I buy one though I am making sure that each customer signs a well worded data disclaimer form and that I explain to them the concept of backing up their data.
Your comment got me thinking though, I know how to back up in Outlook but its been years since I used Outlook express and cannot remember how to back up e-mails from OE. Is it just a matter of saving the .dbx files? or is there more to it.
Thanks again,

Trueman.

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I use a USB 2.0 hard drive myself. Makes it easy to ghost entire hard drive image from user's comp. CD-RW or DVD-RW won't do you much good if the user's data exceeds 4.7Gb (or whatever DVD-RW are up to these days).

You can pick up a conversion kit for about $40 and convert an existing IDE hard drive to USB (external).

Lecturing the customer about backups won't do any good in most cases. All they hear is "blah, blah, blah, AOL, blah, blah, blah". I've never tried the disclaimer thing, but I would think that a new computer repair guy who asks me to sign a disclaimer might scare me away.

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

4) Never laugh in the customer's face - they take offence when they find out you think they are stupid.

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:grin: ... I have real trouble with this one, especially with 'I am an amateur nerd' types ... the temptation is often far too much, especially when they've ignored 'good' advice several times ... :knife:

The alternative to getting your customers external backup devices (or indeed internal ones) is to offer a 'full' data backup service (which you can charge for ! - remember that 'over efficiency' line ? its things like this it applies to ...) ... I've never even dreamt of getting my customers to sign 'disclaimers' - most definately counter-productive, the customer is always responsible for their data, you never want to be, unless they pay for it ! ;)

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Originally Posted by KINGofBLEH

I use a USB 2.0 hard drive myself. Makes it easy to ghost entire hard drive image from user's comp.
You can pick up a conversion kit for about $40 and convert an existing IDE hard drive to USB (external).

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That sounds like what I need. Is what you use this item here.

http://www.verbatim.com.au/products/...l.cfm?ID=KW592

or this item here

http://www.byterunner.com/cgi-bin/ca...ct_match=exact

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Originally Posted by riddellcomp

That sounds like what I need. Is what you use this item here.

http://www.verbatim.com.au/products/...l.cfm?ID=KW592

or this item here

http://www.byterunner.com/cgi-bin/ca...ct_match=exact

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Second guessing the answer ;)...

Link one can't be ... its usb 1.1 not 2, so much much slower & thus less practical ;) ... but you might need usb 1 compatibility, with older stuff ... time to make your mind up on 'trade off' ...

Link two may be it, but remember 'run of the mill' hard-drives aren't shock proof and are subject to 'unexpected' data loss ;), this might lead to some interesting situations where you think you've backed it up but you haven't 'sucessfully', that's why an external pre-done drive is much better (dearer ! though).

Personally I use a tape drive & charge customers for the tapes I use for them.