New processor or new computer?? Which would be cheapest?

nickmack

T4i wrote:

nickmack,

Would you pay £80 for a £25 CD-RW fitting? Thats what the shops round here charge.....

I agree that is very steep. It takes all of 15 mins to do, even with one of those awkward cases that I can never seem to get open without a fight! :mad:
By my reckoning, that's over £200 an hour for labour though and that is a rip off.

Would you pay £100 for data to be recovered from a HDD to CDRW?

If this was a straightforward job, no corruption, then again it's excessive.

If you go into a shop and make sure you know what you are talking about then fair enough, but for the average user who goes in asking for a repair etc then the above examples are true.

I've even 'tested' staff in shops using my other-half as a mole. She has gone in and come across completely thick and they have TRIED to rip her off completely.

I see it mostly with the elderly and women.......they come to me after paying above the odds and I charge £5-10hour depending what time it is.

This is a good one, our lass's gran goes into a shop where they had built her a p.c, it wasnt working right. Lock-ups, slow etc etc......

Shop had it for 1week, they charged her for new motherboard and new hdd, over £100 in costs. She paid it, the motherboard was never changed, the HDD was never changed, XP was re-installed.

As I said before, this applies to some shops. I have a good little computer shop near me. They don't charge the earth and in my 'test' of them, they were knowlegeable, helpful and did small jobs for free.
Sounds like you're doing a good job helping people out anyway, so the people who know you are the lucky ones!

Maybe I should of worded that differently, i dont rip people off, im just sick of dealing with people who have just been ripped off.

I understand what you were doing. Trying to warn the OP about getting ripped off, after all this is a money saving site. As you say maybe it should have been worded a little differently, your post just sounded a bit strong to me and perhaps generalised slightly.

If the OP doesn't know any IT people, then obviously a recommendation of someone would be the way to go in order to help prevent being ripped off.
If you do need to find someone from a local directory etc, then you are somewhat at their mercy, but wolfmans advice was sound about getting a quote etc. I don't have a problem with people paying a professional rate for IT work if that's what's needed. After all most skilled manual trades such as Plumbers, Painters, Mechanics etc will charge £50+an hour. Not necessarily a rip off if they do a proper job.

What I would say is, try not to get someone you know who 'knows a bit about computers'. These people are sometimes more dangerous than you think. I lose count of the amount of PC's I've sorted out, that have been looked at by someone I described and they've made a right pigs ear of it and made my job even harder.

T4i

I spent about 40mins once trying to get the 2nd case side open......only to find I didnt need to as there wasnt any screws holding the drives in on that side :mad:

wolfman has the best idea, if you do need to take it somewhere try and get a quote, make sure they ring you first before doing any additional work you didn't agree to. Just like a MOT on a car really.

thewizard

nickmack wrote:

A bit harsh, I have not robbed anyone in my time. All friends get their PC's sorted for free. A couple of drinks if they insist. Even my clients get work for free if it's a reasonably quick fix. Not everyone is out to rob you.



An IT friend is a good option, if you know someone. Just make sure they do know what they're doing, or they could cause more problems than they solve.



You obviously haven't dealt with any nasty Trojans that require knowledge rather than running a scan that doesn't detect them.



You must have had a bad experience with someone in IT. Don't tar everyone with the same brush.



That's why I offer my advice for free on here, I will gladly help when I have time. However if the OP does not feel comfortable trying suggestions or they do not fix the problem, then the only choice is to find a IT friend for free or pay someone to do a professional job. Granted, there are some cowboys in any industry, but making generalised comments such as those above only frightens people.

I have to agree with you on that one, if you have an friend who thinks hes an IT Pro but really he just changed the desktop wallpaper on his grandma's pc then you're probably going to end up with even more problems. But most genuine IT people are really nice and will do work for very little as we know how to really make money with PC's!

carrie483

T4i wrote:

Computer:
CPU - Spec
Speed (Ghz/Mhz), amount of installed RAM.

Under computer it says: Intel Celeron Processor
400 MHz and 384 MB RAM.

Is this bad? Doesn't seem very much

Also just checked and it says windows firewall is active so i have no idea how these things are getting through.

T4i

Is this bad? Its old, outdated. But it works.

You have to weigh up the cost of a new system against ur current system and what u want to do with it.

T4i

thewizard wrote:

I have to agree with you on that one, if you have an friend who thinks hes an IT Pro but really he just changed the desktop wallpaper on his grandma's pc then you're probably going to end up with even more problems. But most genuine IT people are really nice and will do work for very little as we know how to really make money with PC's!

Don't think u quite got the jist, never mind fella.