Computer Repair prices

[alkemyst]

I report my income, that said for a friend and having the machine brought to me: $50-75 depending if it was a headache or not.

If I am traveling: $100-150 for the same two hours.

I do a lot of two hour jobs. They are usually all brought to me and picked up in 2-3 days. I charge about $60-75 depending on what they need.

 

[waggy]

I charge $75 for format, install windows, windows updates, office suite and free antivirus. Of course I don't sit at the computer the whole time, but it is typically a 2+ hour job. I charge extra if I have to backup/restore, price depending on how much data.

I just called my local Best Buy. Geeksquad stated $129.99 to format and install windows only.

yeah thats why i say a 100. i do the same i backup shit etc. but lets be honest its not hard and really don't have to watch it. just do it and go do something else. sure it takes a while but anyone charging an hourly rate is insane.

I charge and make that. Of course a lot of what I do isn't really computer repair (maintenance, upgrades, network design and security, installations, backups, training, etc) but I make that all the time. My side job grossed over $500k last year.

But you need to be really fucking good at what you do and get in with the correct type of people who need your services, whose business depends on the computers running, and who can pay the fees.

what you are talking about is NOT basic computer repair and the rest is nothing more then a way to brag. so errr what does i thave to do with the topic at hand?

also if your "side job" grossed over 500k last year why is it a side job? make it a full time job..oh wait i know because odds are you are full of shit.


As for geeksquad doing it people believe they are worth it. why? i really haven't figured it out.

 

[Crusty]

I report my income, that said for a friend and having the machine brought to me: $50-75 depending if it was a headache or not.

If I am traveling: $100-150 for the same two hours.

I do a lot of two hour jobs. They are usually all brought to me and picked up in 2-3 days. I charge about $60-75 depending on what they need.

What the fuck does reporting ones income have to do with how much he should charge?

 

[ShawnD1]

Seriously? I wouldn't touch that for $50.

I take pride in my work and provide a top notch level of work, but it takes about $100 for me to set wipe and set up a PC

When I last did this for my dad's computer, the entire process took less than 1 hour.
-copy the C:/users/ folder to a backup folder, I generally use C:/BACKUP/ (all caps so it's easier to see)
-reinstall windows
-install antivirus
-install MS Office
-double check that windows automatically installs updates, not just download them
-done

I just called my local Best Buy. Geeksquad stated $129.99 to format and install windows only.

Man what a rip off. My local computer store will assemble a computer from parts for $40. For $70 they will assemble it and install Windows and all available updates.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

yeah thats why i say a 100. i do the same i backup shit etc. but lets be honest its not hard and really don't have to watch it. just do it and go do something else. sure it takes a while but anyone charging an hourly rate is insane.



what you are talking about is NOT basic computer repair and the rest is nothing more then a way to brag. so errr what does i thave to do with the topic at hand?

also if your "side job" grossed over 500k last year why is it a side job? make it a full time job..oh wait i know because odds are you are full of shit.


As for geeksquad doing it people believe they are worth it. why? i really haven't figured it out.

Because gross doesn't mean shit. He could have sold a 499,999.00 piece of equipment and his net profit would only be $1 when he grossed 500k in sales. He never mentioned his margin.

 

[waggy]

Because gross doesn't mean shit. He could have sold a 499,999.00 piece of equipment and his net profit would only be $1 when he grossed 500k in sales. He never mentioned his margin.

very true. I'm thinking small cheaper parts. a huge expensive unit would do it. but really don't change it much..

 

[waggy]

Man what a rip off. My local computer store will assemble a computer from parts for $40. For $70 they will assemble it and install Windows and all available updates.

wow thats insane.

no way would i do it for anyone for $70!

 

[Apple Of Sodom]

yeah thats why i say a 100. i do the same i backup shit etc. but lets be honest its not hard and really don't have to watch it. just do it and go do something else. sure it takes a while but anyone charging an hourly rate is insane.



what you are talking about is NOT basic computer repair and the rest is nothing more then a way to brag. so errr what does i thave to do with the topic at hand?

also if your "side job" grossed over 500k last year why is it a side job? make it a full time job..oh wait i know because odds are you are full of shit.


As for geeksquad doing it people believe they are worth it. why? i really haven't figured it out.

No, it isn't basic computer repair, but it falls into the same category. My point was that I DO charge that much, people DO pay it, and it can be very lucrative. Why brag? I'm just another faceless, nameless asshole on the internet. Believe it. Don't believe it. It doesn't really matter either way.

It isn't my full time job because of stability and a variety of other reasons. My day job is a great job, provides awesome medical benefits, etc. By keeping my side job a side job I don't have to pay medicare, social security, insurance, etc. Plus, who knows how long it will be this lucrative? It could dry up and I would've thrown away a perfectly good job.

 

[Apple Of Sodom]

Because gross doesn't mean shit. He could have sold a 499,999.00 piece of equipment and his net profit would only be $1 when he grossed 500k in sales. He never mentioned his margin.

Correct. I won't divulge that but it is a good margin.

My point is that you can make a killing IF you know what you're doing. This goes beyond just installing AVG and Malwarebytes and formatting a hard drive. This goes into networking, equipment and software sales, data backup, and proper configuration, as well as essentially being "on-call" for companies and providing pro-active maintenance (not just fixing it when the shit breaks.) The point is that without computers, they don't make money. And without someone good their computers don't work.

Hourly work, while good pay, sometimes sucks. You want people to pay for your knowledge. If I have a slick way of doing something for an office, even though it may only take me an hour to do it for them, it may have taken days to figure it out. A lot of times I will try to sell a solution for a set of problems at a set price instead of hourly. Works out better for me.

"I'll solve this problem for $4,000." If they are happy with that, then great. And if it only takes me 2 hours because I know what the fuck I'm doing, then that is awesome.

 

[aigomorla]

I recently fixed a computer for a person at work and am wondering what I should charge her.

I don't want to undervalue myself and I don't want to seem like I charge too much.

All I did was reformat and reinstall windows, drivers, OpenOffice and AVG. It was probably around 2 hours of work or so as a rough estimate. There was no backing up, it was just simply a format and install. I just want to get a feel for how much that process should be worth and how much other people on the forums end up charging their customers.

Thanks in advance!

Yeah did she say she will pay you?
To be honest, i usually dont charge my friends / coworkers if they can get me out of my seat and start working on there computer.

I think that much effort is enough for me to "take" a look at it.

Id say if she is someone your friends with, have her take you out to dinner and call it even, or a cup of coffee, or maybe even hook you up with one of her friends.

A favor is best paid back with another favor and not money.

Did she already agree to pay you something before you did the work? If not you did it for free.

Yeah i was asking that same question.
Which is why i said if my friends or coworkers can get me off my ass, and start looking at the computer, they prepaid most of my services with a bribe to get me off my ass.

 

[TruePaige]

When I last did this for my dad's computer, the entire process took less than 1 hour.
-copy the C:/users/ folder to a backup folder, I generally use C:/BACKUP/ (all caps so it's easier to see)
-reinstall windows
-install antivirus
-install MS Office
-double check that windows automatically installs updates, not just download them
-done

I never just back up the users folder, it isn't a default storage location for way too many programs. Also if you just do that then you aren't going to grab their bookmark files for Chrome / Firefox / IE. Plus if they use Outlook you are going to miss valuable data or at least make it hard for them to find if you don't manually reload it first.

I like to give a mountable image, in case they ever have issues with missing data it is recoverable.

The driver hunt / install for computers can be the most annoying and time consuming part. Though most manufacturers have made it easy to find the drivers it is still a pain in the tush. If they do an OS upgrade then some drivers need tweaks (Dell Laptops and that craptastic sound driver that needs to be manually installed through the device manager..just little stuff) that takes time.

Those are just two basic things I wanted to mention.

 

[TruePaige]

wow thats insane.

no way would i do it for anyone for $70!

I got $200 last time I did that, but I threw in installing his various software programs to make his life easier. Repeat customer, easiest customers and know what they want.

 

[ShawnD1]

I never just back up the users folder, it isn't a default storage location for way too many programs. Also if you just do that then you aren't going to grab their bookmark files for Chrome / Firefox / IE. Plus if they use Outlook you are going to miss valuable data or at least make it hard for them to find if you don't manually reload it first.

This is not true at all. Every single one of those things you listed is stored under C:\Users\
Google Chrome files are - C:\Users\Shawn\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome
Firefox files are - C:\Users\Shawn\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
Internet Explorer is stored in several folders. For example, IE bookmarks are stored under C:\Users\Shawn\Favorites

All of your saved games for things like Borderlands and Fallout 3 are stored under C:\Users as well. For example, Batman Arkham Asylum is saved under C:\Users\Shawn\Documents\Square Enix\Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY\



What happened with my dad's computer is that I helped him build a new computer. Obviously you can't just pop the hard drive from one computer into a completely different computer, so we had to install fresh. We copied C:\Users\ into C:\BACKUP\. Install Windows (only took about 10 minutes because I have Vista on a high speed flash drive and his new computer uses an SSD). Copy your entire profile from the backup folder into the active folder, so copy C:\BACKUP\Users\Shawn\ into C:\Users\. Overwrite? Say yes to all. Now you'll have all of the settings you previously had. Firefox is exactly the same as before, and it even opened the same session that he had going on the old computer. All the extensions are there, all of the bookmarks, everything. Outlook retained all of its settings and was able to fetch his email without asking for a password or a name.

Really, reinstalling Windows takes very little effort. It's only slow because there are several gigabytes of updates to download. The service pack for Office was something ridiculous like 600mb.

 

[Loop2kil]

$50 if I don't have to drive anywhere to pick it up...$75 if I do

 

[Lanyap]

$40 should be an ok price in this case.

 

[olds]

The good thing about this, you'll be seeing a lot of her.
Because from now on any time anything that goes wrong with her computer, she will blame you.

 

[alkemyst]

This is not true at all. Every single one of those things you listed is stored under C:\Users\
Google Chrome files are - C:\Users\Shawn\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome
Firefox files are - C:\Users\Shawn\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox
Internet Explorer is stored in several folders. For example, IE bookmarks are stored under C:\Users\Shawn\Favorites

All of your saved games for things like Borderlands and Fallout 3 are stored under C:\Users as well. For example, Batman Arkham Asylum is saved under C:\Users\Shawn\Documents\Square Enix\Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY\



What happened with my dad's computer is that I helped him build a new computer. Obviously you can't just pop the hard drive from one computer into a completely different computer, so we had to install fresh. We copied C:\Users\ into C:\BACKUP\. Install Windows (only took about 10 minutes because I have Vista on a high speed flash drive and his new computer uses an SSD). Copy your entire profile from the backup folder into the active folder, so copy C:\BACKUP\Users\Shawn\ into C:\Users\. Overwrite? Say yes to all. Now you'll have all of the settings you previously had. Firefox is exactly the same as before, and it even opened the same session that he had going on the old computer. All the extensions are there, all of the bookmarks, everything. Outlook retained all of its settings and was able to fetch his email without asking for a password or a name.

Really, reinstalling Windows takes very little effort. It's only slow because there are several gigabytes of updates to download. The service pack for Office was something ridiculous like 600mb.

if they had steam or most modern games, you'd have lost all their data. Hell my dad has steam.

 

[ShawnD1]

if they had steam or most modern games, you'd have lost all their data. Hell my dad has steam.

Nope. All of your saved games are in the Users folder. It's been like this since Windows XP due to permission issues. Games never save to the program folder because then the game would require administrator access.

bioshock save folder?
"hey are stored in the My Documents Folder in a sub-folder named Bioshock."

borderlands?
"My Documents/My Games/Borderlands"

Batman Arkham Asylum
"Is in your documents... you have to find there a folder called 'Eidos/Batman Arkham Asylum/SaveData/' "

GTA4
"(C)>Documents and settings>your name>local settings>Application data>Rockstar games"

Wolfenstein
"C:/Documents And Settings/"Your computer name here"/Local Settings/Application Data/id Software/WolfSP/base/savegames"


In XP the folder is called Documents and Settings. In Vista it's called Users. If you copy the entire folder to your new computer (or the re installation on the same computer), you will retain all of your save games, all of your firefox bookmarks and settings, all of your Outlook settings, all of your Folding@Home GPU data, and all of your MSN and AOL messenger settings.

When installing Steam on top of itself, it will need to reinstall GFWL and .NET libraries, but the games themselves do not need to be reinstalled.

 

[alkemyst]

Well my steam and my dad's steam were all under Program Files\Steam

my WoW folder is all self contained.

Saying one can just copy the profile directories is laughable.

 

[mb]

Well my steam and my dad's steam were all under Program Files\Steam

my WoW folder is all self contained.

Saying one can just copy the profile directories is laughable.

Steam files are in Program Files\Steam. Saves are still in the Users or Documents folder.

 

[alkemyst]

none of my steam goes to profile directories

 

[piasabird]

It depends how much you guys make. With work being done what kind of a guarantee do you offer? Windows almost reinstalls itself. Just because you said it took say 3 hours or whatever, that doesnt mean you did 3 hours of work. Generally you click a couple of buttons and then you watch TV or play a video game while the computer is sitting there running itself.

You have to Itemize:
Did you Have to open the computer?
Did you replace any parts?
Did you clean out the inside with a can of Air?
Reformat Hard Drive?

You get my drift, You have to itemize for consumers.

 

[ShawnD1]

Saying one can just copy the profile directories is laughable.

How is it is laughable? I did this just a couple weeks ago when I bought my new computer. The thing works fine. I was playing Batman right after all of the Windows updates were installed. I didn't need to re-download 216GB of Steam files.

 

[mb]

none of my steam goes to profile directories

You must only have games that save to one spot because most don't stay in the steamapps folder. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9629139

 

[gophins72]

As for geeksquad doing it people believe they are worth it. why? i really haven't figured it out.

i think it's because it's a brick and mortar type of place with a brandname (best buy) and logo -- all psychological.