Techie Sofware and Hardware

doggerry

Hi all

I wonder if anyone can help me.

I am looking for a bit of advice on what software and hardware I would need to go about repairing PC's. Looking at things like diagnostics and hardware testing.

I am trying to raise a bit of extra cash and was thinking of turning my hobby into a part-time venture.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Cheers

Ged

aerostar

I would suggest that if you do not know what you need then perhaps you are not competant to diagnose/repair computers and charge for it. You would also have to take out some kind of insurance so that in the event you do mess a customers machine and they sue you for damages.

doggerry

aerostar wrote: »

I would suggest that if you do not know what you need then perhaps you are not competant to diagnose/repair computers and charge for it. You would also have to take out some kind of insurance so that in the event you do mess a customers machine and they sue you for damages.

Oh I am competent enough and can repair virtually any computer but it it is time consuming. I was after techie software not generic diagnostic tools. The hardware I need is fault finding on the motherboard and I was generally thinking of what the best one is and trying to gauge people's opinion.

aerostar

Most motherboards are just not worth repairing or are unrepairable. You probably would never get circuit diagrams from the manufacturer.

The boards are multilayer, and many ic's are often bespoke, trying to buy just 1 chip is not cost effective, even if available, most of the chips are surface mount with many (100s) legs, you need surface mount de-solder/solder stations, and experience to use them.

By the time you have costed in your time and labour you could probably have bought a new motherboard (or 2).

Diagnostic cards http://www.uxd.com/hardware-diagnostics.shtml Google for others

cit_k

You could always get into reballing laptop motherboards if you have a grand or so to spare for low end equipment and enough skill to do it.

But generally, most boards especially in pc's are not worth the time to repair imo. Just replace boards, and you dont really need more than experience usually to do that.

Perhaps some decent drive utility tools to recover data, learn perhaps how to replace backlights in lcd panels etc etc.

zenmaster

Something like this might be useful. I bought one years ago. Never used it in anger though. Possibly make up some kind of breakout lead for it.

A couple of IDE/SATA drive caddies in different sizes.

An antistatic mat and wrist strap.

Memtest.
Ultimate Boot CD.
Aida - there is free version available but I would think it's hopelessly out of date. It was Aida, then Everest and now back to Aida again.