Looking for a good PC repair service in Austin, TX
November 7, 2014 6:30 PM Subscribe
Need recommendations for a reputable and affordable PC repair service in Northwest Austin. My friend is having problems that are beyond our abilities to fix.
My friend has a PC that is having serious problems, and we have been unable to troubleshoot it effectively after much effort. He is asking for professional help at this point. He was thinking about Best Buy but I was telling him “NO! They’re terrible!”, so he needs a good alternative.
Preferably in the Northwest Austin / Cedar Park area.
Have any recommendations?
My friend has a PC that is having serious problems, and we have been unable to troubleshoot it effectively after much effort. He is asking for professional help at this point. He was thinking about Best Buy but I was telling him “NO! They’re terrible!”, so he needs a good alternative.
Preferably in the Northwest Austin / Cedar Park area.
Have any recommendations?
Wow, since having moved to chromebooks I now consider hardware as a disposable commodity. In any case, what is the problem? Is it hardware or software? What is the OS? I am in the area and I haven't done any repair stuff in years but may be able to help with a bit of information. I was once a sys-admin and built network terminals so I'm not a total tyro in the field...
posted by jim in austin at 7:36 PM on November 7, 2014
posted by jim in austin at 7:36 PM on November 7, 2014
Response by poster: Well, hmm. He really didn't want me to get into all the gory details because he is just really sick of messing with it at this point. He just wants to hand it off to someone else, pay some money, and get it back fixed.
The computer is a three year old custom-built gaming PC, bought online from a company that builds them. Anyway, the issue involves random freezing. The whole thing locks up with the last image frozen on the screen, and becomes completely unresponsive. Any music playing stops. Doesn't seem to depend on what is being run on it. It's a bitch to test because it will act fine then freeze up 1-2 hours later sometimes. We have reinstalled Windows 7. That took a few tries because it would freeze during the install. So it wasn't Windows. We have taken out the memory and blown out the slots and blown off the memory. He has tried using just one memory stick in one of the slots (2 4gig sticks). Still no luck.
Googling around, it seems a huge number of things could cause this problem. It's kind of maddening to try to narrow down and troubleshoot. It's beyond our skills at this point. And beyond his patience. He just wants a working computer, and doesn't want to spend more and more hours trying different things. Especially since each test takes hours to even show if the problem persists.
So surely there is something better than the Geek Squad in this town? Someone who won't rip him off?
posted by marble at 2:29 PM on November 8, 2014
The computer is a three year old custom-built gaming PC, bought online from a company that builds them. Anyway, the issue involves random freezing. The whole thing locks up with the last image frozen on the screen, and becomes completely unresponsive. Any music playing stops. Doesn't seem to depend on what is being run on it. It's a bitch to test because it will act fine then freeze up 1-2 hours later sometimes. We have reinstalled Windows 7. That took a few tries because it would freeze during the install. So it wasn't Windows. We have taken out the memory and blown out the slots and blown off the memory. He has tried using just one memory stick in one of the slots (2 4gig sticks). Still no luck.
Googling around, it seems a huge number of things could cause this problem. It's kind of maddening to try to narrow down and troubleshoot. It's beyond our skills at this point. And beyond his patience. He just wants a working computer, and doesn't want to spend more and more hours trying different things. Especially since each test takes hours to even show if the problem persists.
So surely there is something better than the Geek Squad in this town? Someone who won't rip him off?
posted by marble at 2:29 PM on November 8, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kickback at 7:27 PM on November 7, 2014