Ask DCist: Computer Repair Shops
DCist reader Torrey writes:
I was hoping you knew of a good local computer repair shop. It's for my personal laptop. I have been looking all morning and I cant find anything but GeekSquad in NW.
Computer repair is an awful business to be in, and an even worse one to have to patronize. NBC4's Liz Crenshaw did a piece on it a week or two ago and reached a depressing conclusion: faced with a dead-simple tech problem, only about half the businesses got the diagnosis right.
Computers are simply too cheap to replace and debugging is too time-consuming to provide a repair industry that's very good. Besides, anyone with any significant degree of technical talent is likely to trade in their Best Buy polo shirt for a real IT job as quickly as they can. That leaves underqualified retail drones as your likely compu-saviors: they'll slowly work their way through a flowchart in a binder, then charge you $99 (plus marked-up parts) for installing RAM that you may not even need — an operation that's only slightly harder than placing a game cartridge in an NES.
If you're very lucky, you'll end up with a precocious high school kid who hasn't yet gotten sick of installing AdAware. But why roll the dice on retail when precocious kids can be had for free? The great underground economy of nephews, nieces and neighbor kids can serve you well. It's why I always have at least one relative patiently waiting for me to come by and reinstall Windows for them. It sounds overly simple, but the truth is that there's very little that Geek Squad can do for you that a smart teenager can't — it's not as if there are SMD soldering stations and disk-disassembly cleanrooms available behind the counter at Circuit City. If you've got a software issue or a hardware problem with a desktop system, a nerdy kid armed with a web browser can probably tell you what needs to be done, then do it. They might be wrong, but the same can be said for the pros — and a kid is likely to be more shy about wasting your money.
Photo by ElveretBarnes.With that said, the resiliency of desktop systems means that many of those seeking help will need service on a laptop with a hardware problem. It stinks, but the best solution is to send it to the manufacturer, or whomever they recommend. Laptop components are tightly integrated, hard to get at and much less interchangeable than desktop parts. If you find a technician who says they'll do hardware repairs on a notebook, odds are good that they'll need to order the parts from the manufacturer — or troll eBay looking for broken laptops of the same model that can be picked apart. Skip the middleman.
For those with a truly mystifying software problem like Torrey — his wifi adapter disappeared from Windows one day — a little research will be worth your time. We haven't been on it in a while, but the mailing list for WAMU's "Computer Guys" used to be packed with folks helping one another diagnose tech problems. Other sites like Experts Exchange may be able to help, too. The same goes for Google Groups: pretty much every tech problem has been discussed on Usenet at one point or another.
If you haven't got the time or inclination to do research and you can't find an amenable teenager, our best advice is to avoid chains and focus on small businesses. Northwest-based Computer Geeks has amassed a lot of positive reviews on Google. Rios Computer Associates fared well in NBC4's investigative piece. And the folks out at Microcenter generally have a better idea of what they're doing than the average electronics retailer.
But perhaps we're overlooking someone. What do you say, commenters? Has anyone got a particularly helpful repair shop to recommend?