Good inexpensive Computer Repair shop in London?

kobracai

roddydogs wrote: »

You did discharge the PC by pressing the on button with the battery off, didnt you.

yes I've tried several times, like in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqg5wQpkK14

it happened already in the past and this always worked until now

GunJack

it wouldn't surprise me if the fan needs a bloody-good cleanout too if you're leaving the poor lappy on sat on a blanket of any kind, it'll have been sucking in fluff and fibres to bung up the heatsink....

The name says "lap", but you shouldn't use them on a non-hard surface

Jivesinger

kobracai wrote: »

Fact is, I paid the laptop around £320 18 months ago, it might be cheaper to just buy a new one

I know it's more than 12 months since you bought it, but a laptop should last more than 18 months unless you abuse it.

So you may be entitled to a fix or compensation from the seller as part of your consumer rights, because it hasn't (in my opinion anyway) worked for a 'Reasonable' length of time.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/consumer-rights-refunds-exchange

londonTiger

Fightsback wrote: »

Less overheads you see and service with a smile

it's not like the cost of living up north is like Lithuania or something. I travel around the country. Although London is ridiculously expensive the rest of the south isn't and the rest of the south isn't hugely contrasting to the North. Food prices in the north aren't hugely cheap compared to London either.

Tottenham court road is prime central London real estate so their prices will be higher. But people dont realise that diagnosing PC problems and fixing them can be a problem.

Fightsback

londonTiger wrote: »

it's not like the cost of living up north is like Lithuania or something. I travel around the country. Although London is ridiculously expensive the rest of the south isn't and the rest of the south isn't hugely contrasting to the North

Au contraire:

http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cut-your-costs/family-life/the-south-really-better-the-north

londonTiger wrote: »

But people dont realise that diagnosing PC problems and fixing them can be a problem.

Really ? Never thought that.

londonTiger

Fightsback wrote: »

Au contraire:

http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cut-your-costs/family-life/the-south-really-better-the-north



Really ? Never thought that.

LOL I was meant to say time consuming. There are a myriad of differnt causes for a simple No power on symptom.

Case in point. I had a really nasty crash on my computer. Avast has been killing my web video (I didn't realise at the time it was caused by avast). Lots of crashes on youube etc. Well it caused a serious crash recently and windows won't boot. WIndows would attempt to boot and then say startup failed and referenced a corrupt file.

In all my experience of computers I was certain that the file got corruped and a startup repair would fix it.

I created a windows 10 install ISO.
Found another computer with a burner to burn the CD.
Tried to run startup repair but it wont. Upon further inspection it appears that the drive that contained windows was locked.

Googled locked drive all over the place. Looked up locked SSD causes for my specific SSD model. etc.

Tinkered around in BIOS to check the boot option speicifc to SSD. Noticed the boot order had a storage dirve as primary. CHanged over and it booted.

So in conclusion the motherboard had a protection feature where during a crash it will reset to motherboard defaults (it's a overclockers motherboard). It had switched the boot order and set a data drive as primary. But for some reason there was a windows file in there which had some boot instructions.

tl:dr Long story short, the error messages took me around a wild goose chase and the fix was actually a quick 5 min fix.

In an IT technician role, do I invoice for the fix or my diagnosis as well? A huge amount of time is spent in diagnosis

kobracai

GunJack wrote: »

If you've been quoted £50 for labour, that's fair enough. As FB said, cost of parts for DC jack is minimal, even if it's on a plug-in board won't be much, so there's your £50-£70 cost.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ACER-ASPIRE-5250-E304G32MNKK5250-E304G50MIKK-REPLACE-BROKEN-DC-JACK-WITH-CABLE-/291635983195?hash=item43e6dbf35b:g:zwUAAOSwv-NWaaKX

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acer-Aspire-E1-531-E1-571-DC-POWER-JACK-HARNESS-Socket-with-Cable-/261402215471?hash=item3cdcc9442f:g:JL4AAOSwl9BWHQ6a

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/POWER-JACK-DC-SOCKET-ACER-ASPIRE-E1-521-E1-531-E1-571-CABLE-50-M09N2-002-E145-/231455063971?hash=item35e3cbffa3:g:OaYAAOxy63FS7qYU

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ORIGINAL-NEW-ACER-ASPIRE-E1-521-E1-531-E1-571-DC-JACK-SOCKET-CABLE-65W-YELLOW-/371498442973?hash=item567f0860dd:g:U1oAAMXQC-tTFO-T

part is a fiver or less, you could buy it yourself and just get the shop to fit......

perhaps silly question , but will all of these fit an Acer Aspire E1-570 ? slightly different model to the ones in the ads ?

GunJack

kobracai wrote: »

perhaps silly question , but will all of these fit an Acer Aspire E1-570 ? slightly different model to the ones in the ads ?

should do, same series share most common components.

LazyD

Yeah just make sure you disconnect the battery and hold down the power button for about 20 - 30 seconds. Then connect and try to power it on.

Depending on whether the mboard has a daughter board for the DC jack or not, the fix can be relatively simple or a PITA. I know shops that do them (not always neatly) for £25 a go, but £50 for a good job is not a bad price.

EDIT: Sorry didn't see that, your model is just a simple jumper connection, I'd advise you buy the part (any of those you linked) and do it yourself or get someone you know to do it who is confident with opening laptops.

GunJack

londonTiger wrote: »

In an IT technician role, do I invoice for the fix or my diagnosis as well? A huge amount of time is spent in diagnosis

It really depends.....

are you working for a company or yourself?

If a company, your hands are tied to what the business charges - I know one locally that charges around £45 for the first half-hour and £35 for each half-hour following. To me, that's a total rip-off, but then they do have a shop and associated overheads to cover.

If for yourself - you can be far more flexible, depending on the fault and what the customer base can stand. e.g. if I tried to charge as much as quoted above, you'd never get any recommendations or repeat business, so you have to use your judgement....