How much should I pay for pc help at home?

Slinky

I'm getting so many problems with my computer, I was thinking of getting somebody in to take a look at it to see if they can sort the problems. How much should I expect to pay - is there an hourly rate for this sort of thing?

peter_the_piper

Why don't you list the problems you are having. Theres a good chance you can get help here without paying. A great Moneysaver.

Slinky

I had thought of that Peter, but there are so many problems, and I'm not that technical, so I've made my mind up to pay somebody to fix it (providing it is cheaper to fix than buy a new one)

Noobie_2

I go with peter - after all, it might just be one thing causing lots of problems. And I'd much rather trust the guys here than the 'experts' in some computer shops. If they can't sort it for free, well, you're no worse off. In which case, best advice I can give - get at least three 'per hour' quotes and hope... and it'll probably be less expensive to take it in than have someone come out.

If you have it done in a shop / at home - run your anti-spyware pretty soon after - has been heard of.

£$&*"($£&(

My neighbours latched onto a great moneysaving scheme. They asked me!! Fact is I can't resist helping out and have ended up with plenty of bottles of free wine. ;D

condyk

For information, I charge £29/hour which is really the minimum I charge for any of the work I do (most of which is business planning/process consultancy and Internet project management and much better paid). I only do it as the time is usually flexible and so I plug free space I have with this variations on this kind of stuff.

Online advice is a great free way of getting info. but you need to be very good at searching/Google to get a good response and, to be honest, you often need to know what to look for and to make sense of what you find!!

Subscribing to something like experts-exchange.com is also useful ... I pay an annual subscription for help with some pretty high-techie type problems that I can't figure out quickly and easily myself. You can search on the site for Q&A's for free tho'.

Several of my clients problems recently had been caused by the same 'well-meaning friend' type person who installed every 'freeware' application going in attempts to cure systems of virus and spyware problems ... and also gave them pirate copies of software. Took 3-4 hours to sort out each time, but systems transformed.

I advise people keep their systems as clean and lean as possible: Windows XP (Pro ideally!) Office 2003, Adaware, Norton Systemworks Pro and built in XP Firewall highly recommended base system for small business/hone office types ... plus any additional applications used.

Do NOT engage in random downloading of unknown applications or file-sharing. If you want to download something, check it on Google first. Freeware stuff you can check quickly via download.com as users quickly flag anything dodgy.

In my experience 90% of computer issues are 'human error' related. Hardware these days is ultra reliable on the whole. I try to sort people out AND give some simple advise of how to avoid doing dumb things in future ... and at least try to get people to add a backup routine to what they do each week!!

BTW I'm not advertising ... I don't normally work with private individuals, just companies. My rates are probably higher than your basic 'troubleshooter' types. Some offer a no fix-no fee rate, but if all they do is reformat and reinstall 99% of the time they will fix ... you can do that yourself!

Figment

£15.00 - £25.00 per hour is the 'going rate'

Slinky

Thanks for the replies

gk172

What i do is run a virus scan then adaware then go clear out my internet cookies and then defragment my hard drive all of these things are easy to do and if im still having problems then i look to forums for advice as spyware and full cookies can cause loads of differant problems and when i did need further help some people/shops  took it as an open cheque which i wasnt very happy with you really need someone you can trust not to rip you off, so i suggest going through the above and then if your still having problems phone around or ask friends if they can recomend someone in your area.

Adaware can be got from download.com and you can defragment from start/programes/accesories/systemtools/discfragmenter. It might solve some of your problems  ;)


PS A friend of mine was having so many problems with her pc applications and such not opening pc shutting down or crashing and i put adaware on her pc ran it and it found so many spyware that once they were cleared her pc was running much better

Tony_H_3

I had thought of that Peter, but there are so many problems, and I'm not that technical, so I've made my mind up to pay somebody to fix it (providing it is cheaper to fix than buy a new one)

Why don't we start with something simple & see how we get on. ;D What operating system does your computer use eg Win95, 98, 98se, 2000, XP or something else?