any cheap computer repair shop in London?

kobracai

Anyone know a reliable cheap computer repair shop in London? I used to go to one in Central London, but they charge me £45 just for diagnostic, so I'd still pay them whether they repair or not... just wondering if there are better alternatives

I don't mind if it's a bit far out from Central

Thank you for your help !

bluesnake

Looks like you don't get much for £45 in London.

What make and model do you have? Which version of windows? what is wrong with it, because someone here may know exactly what to do?

kobracai

it's a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo, it just switches off all of a sudden, then keep switching off after every 5 minutes

NiftyDigits

Are you still using it on the bed, leading to overheating?

Don't bother taking it to a shop, you'll be throwing good money after bad and likely they'll quote you a silly price and won't be able to fix it anyway.
Is it still running on 1GB of RAM?

Unplug the machine and remove the battery.
Anyway, in the middle of the underside of the machine there is a large hatch. Undo the screws to open the hatch and you'll see the heatsink and pipe, together with the RAM.

Take out the RAM and clean the contacts with a rubber eraser.
Remove the heatsink and pipe and clean/blow away any dust. CPU is underneath. Reapply thermal paste. Put back together. Thirty minutes work for which they would likely charge you a considerable sum and it might not work anyway.

This video should give you an idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGmxHy1VdIs
Look at the first minute at the beginning and then jump to around 10.30 for the removal of the heatsink. The rest shouldn't apply to you.

Browntoa

Another vote for fan heatsink clean and repaste

Le_Kirk

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Are you still using it on the bed, leading to overheating?

Is it still running on 1GB of RAM?

How do you know this? I know you are good and the advice you give is normally sound but this is scary - unless some posts have been deleted......

grumpycrab

Le_Kirk wrote: »

How do you know this?

There's a long history... https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5397603

Le_Kirk

grumpycrab wrote: »

There's a long history... https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5397603

Wow, Happy Birthday Thread!!

tweeter

Try Pix 4 in Shepherd's Bush, West London. See how they fared below. HTH

clicky

tweeter

This shop below repaired the computer for free and more people in the area now frequent the shop after Sky News exposed how its pot luck if one gets repairs at reasonable prices. I repair my own.

"Only one shop came out with a clean bill of health: Pix 4 in Shepherd's Bush, West London. The company popped the chip back into place, and for free."

"Richard Webb, the Trading Standards Institute's spokesman on web commerce, said: It's a big abuse of trust. If you were expert in computers you wouldn't have to hand in your machine to be repaired. They know that."