Confessions of a Computer Repairman 387
nk497 writes "What really happens to your PC when it's handed over to computer repair cowboys? We reveal the horror stories from computer repair shops — the dodgy technicians that install pirated software, steal personal photos, lie about hardware upgrades, upsell to the unsavvy, or simply steal your PC to sell on. Plus, we tell you how to avoid such dodgy fixers and find a trustworthy repairman."
Confession Time (Score:5, Informative)
It's true that you really shouldn't take your computer to most GS places, but the reasons why might be different than what you think. There's always the chance of getting an idiot who has no clue what they're doing. But more often than not, the GOOD people can't really prove themselves because their hands are so tied by corporate policy. The "Diagnostic & Repair" service is a complete and utter joke unless someone who knows what theyre doing actually does the work (and the actual person doing the work will likely NOT be the one who checked it in). It goes something like this:
So no, even if the tech is competent, they don't want you spending a whole lot of time actually SOLVING the problem. They want you to spend maybe 10 minutes at most of actual touch time on a computer, then either get it on the complete shelf, or sell them a new one. Now of course they don't SAY this, but the pressure is there in the form of departmental budgets, and "revenue per transaction" goals. Basically, it's a matter of "if we can't fix it, we're discouraged from actually looking for a solution instead of upselling to something else."
The sad part is, it didn't used to be this way. But with Geek Squad being seen as just an extension of Customer Service (functionality checks on ALL returns, sending store-stock items for repair, and having to ring up ALL computer sales because corporate doesn't think the actual salespeople are capable of selling the much exalted "complete solution" of computer/software/cables/services), there's also no TIME to give each client the attention they deserve. Best Buy Mobile is actually fairly decent, because they're actually allowed to operate as a "store within a store", so to speak. They can't get pulled to other departments (which ALWAYS happens to GS people), and they're allowed to run their department as they see fit. This is why BBYM is one of the few departments that actually makes money on a consistent basis.
So no, not ALL the problems with Geek Squad are caused by incopmetent "Agents." I'll admit that a lot of them are, but corporate has basically castrated the department into nothing but sales drones who can "speak computers."
Re:Geek Squad. (Score:3, Informative)
I used to work at Geek Squad and we'd play around in people's computers out of boredom and were even told to look for things that are illegal. This was back before the whole case about that person who had CP on their computer and Geek Squad ratted on them so I don't know if they still do it. We wouldn't install anything that they didn't signed up for at least our store didn't because it was a waste of time but we'd try to convince people that they had to get these things installed because they would break it again if they didn't have it. I really hated working at best buy/geek squad. To lie to your customers or else risk getting little to no hours to work, to be told in the training room that you need to target specific races and old people because they have money and to avoid indians at all cost is insanely racist. We also would rarely get breaks because of the way they managed staff at particular times of the day but there was a lawsuit and we won so i think most people who took part of the class action lawsuit got like $60.
To anyone who wants to buy anything at Best Buy, don't. Their markups are insanely high, especially accessories like cables, their extended warranties "service plans" are nothing but a joke and good luck getting your hardware fixed through it. If you go through Geek-Squad they charge an insane amount to do the simplest tasks. Seriously, spend like a week to learn about computers and don't ever worry about it for the remainder of your life. It's true that certain things change gradually, but what you learn in a week like how to use google to find a fix to your problem is universal across time. You're not a monkey, you're a human and even if you have a very low IQ of 90, it doesn't mean that you can't figure it out with video tutorials.
Face time (Score:4, Informative)
Am I qualified to be a PC technician? I have no certs (yet) and I majored in English. But I'm amazingly good at figuring things out, and I've been tinkering with computers for over a decade. I've met people with half a dozen certs behind their names that know a fraction of what I do. If nothing else, I can always do my own PC repairs and avoid any of these scams.
Re:Confession Time (Score:5, Informative)
Well can you blame them? From a business perspective, that is.
I've been 'repairing' somebody's computer the past few days. Yes, days. Admittedly I also have another job, but it allowed me to walk over to that debacle and press buttons and such once in a while, so it wouldn't be sitting idly very long.
Their Vista machine was slow, wouldn't properly run things anymore, not even log in (light blue screen), responded to ctrl+alt+del only sporadically, etc.
So.. they brought it in.
Step 1: Boot, make sure you can reproduce the problem. Yup, reproduced.
Step 2: Try a different user (Guest account, say). Same problem.
Step 3: See if, within the reproduced problem, you can still access diagnostic tools. Nope.
Step 4: Try a different user.
Step 5: Try safe mode. Same problem.
Shit.
Step 6: Open laptop, remove drive, put into dock, mount to a different machine (make sure autorun is off!), check disk for viruses malware. Some stuff found, but in AVG's quarantaine. But that scan sure took bloody forever.
Step 7: Check the disk. Oh dear - read errors in various places.
Step 8: Ask if person made backups recently. Nope.
Shit.
Step 9: Download Unstoppable Copier (UC) and set it to work in its fastest mode (skip everything that so much as introduces a pause in the copy process - this is faster than Windows copying files itself). This still takes a good bit of forever.
Step 10: Hear that a drive image was made of this machine right after installation of user programs, customization, etc. Using ODIN. Regret their choice later; for now, believe you can restore the image, at least it'll be back to their personalized settings/etc. at the time of imaging.
Step 11: Check drive size. Custom label, says it's 250GB. Get new 250GB drive. Mount.
Step 12: Run ODIN. Restore Drive. ODIN crashes. Why? Dunno.
Step 13: Fine. Restore partition instead. ODIN restores partition. Use MbrFix to reset the MBR using ODIN's copy.
Step 14: Mount newly restored drive in machine. Boot. Boot fails - blank screen with blinking cursor.
Shit.
Step 15: Go back to ODIN. Figure out what's going wrong. Wait. Why is it saying the selected partition is only 7GB? There's 70GB of image files data in that directory. Realize there's three partitions under different series.
Step 16: Select second partition. See size as 250GB. Add 250GB + 7GB. Realize the original drive is not the custom label's claimed 250GB (to match with apparent available size in Windows, presumably). There's another 7GB in a restore partition (let's get back to this later), and some more GB in a hidden Acer 'D2D' partition. Realize also that maybe that's why ODIN is crashing - it needs equal or greater drive size.
Shit.
Step 17: Return 250GB drive, get a 320GB model instead. Thank store for their courtesy in taking back the drive at no charge, given that they now have to sell it as 'slightly used'.
Step 18. Re-run ODIN to restore the entire disk. ODIN restores entire disk. Hooray? This takes a good while.
Step 19: Mount drive in laptop, boot up in Safe Mode.
Step 20: Do a victory dance as Vista boots up in Safe Mode.
Step 21: Try to log in. Oops. User gets black screen with mouse cursor. Ctrl+alt+del responds just fine, but starting e.g. Task Manager does absolutely nothing.
Shit.
Step 22: Try Guest account. It logs out immediately.
Double-shit.
End of Day 1.
Step 23: Hit the internet. Find potential causes for problems under 21 and 22. Graphics drivers? Not authenticated Windows? UserInit for either issue? Try them all - to no avail.
Triple-shit.
Step 24: Try a few more things, and ultimately give up, as none of the suggestions or original ideas work. Cu
Re:Trustworthy repairmen? There Aren't Any... (Score:5, Informative)
I lot of computer people have a hard time charging for services. It is just so natural and easy for us to fix some problems that we feel bad charging for it. It took me a long time to get in the mind set that my time was worth money and to ask people to pay me. I pay repair men a lot for all kinds of work that I cannot or will not do my self. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and even lawn care providers.
I was paying someone $54 a few times a year to fertilize my yard. They would pull up with a truck and a long hose and just spray the yard down. They were in and out in about 10 minutes. When my yard was over ran with weeds, I could justify it. I found that it was cheaper and not all that much work for me to do it myself. I still over pay for someone to change my oil and rotate my tires.
Once I decided that I was done with part time home repair work, I used my prices to drive away work. I would charge higher and higher prices and would be very up front with them. I even had a minimum charge of one hour. I was surprised at how much people were willing to pay. I eventually moved away from the area and was able to call it quits.
Re:Meh (Score:3, Informative)
Piffle. Every hardware failure I've had in 30 years of computing has been just something up and dying for no apparent reason other than old age. Hardware fails. It ages, even things without moving parts. That's a fact of life with anything.
Professionally, I work in a field where the hardware I design needs to be available with rates approaching 99.99% for years, so we have to do MTBF abnalysis involving every component and, yes, every component has a MTBF rating. It's basically impossible to meet rates like that for those spans for a single circuitboard, so so we design in redundancy and, as a fundamental part of the design, make replacing a failed unit with a spare take less than a minute in the field. A chassis with a backplane and hot swap capability helps here.
Re:Meh (Score:2, Informative)
And all these "if you don't know X" are so damned full of shit! Do you know how to rebuild your engine? Then you shouldn't be driving! Can you operate on your legs if you break them? Then you shouldn't be walking!
Dumbasses nobody can know everything
I'd say you're the one full of it. Knowing how to check your RAM isn't like knowing how to rebuild your car engine. If we want to stick with a car analogy, I'd say it's more like opening up the hood of your car and being able to tell if the mechanic made off with your engine. Which if you don't know how to do that, yes, you prolly shouldn't own a car.