Honest thoughts on owning a computer repair shop?

is it comfy?

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>hello my macbook has a virus pls repair before my starbucks date
>water damage
sure

It's Pajeet tier

I worked in a repair shop one summer, it was alright I guess. I was only 16 and wanted to earn a bit of money doing something I loved. Now I'm 22, a computer science graduate working a software dev job!

Do they even have those anymore? All I see these days are places fixing phones.

I think it would depend what area you live in.

most of the repair shops in my area also sell hardware I think they might charge you like 100-200$ to format or fix some driver problem but they would prob upsell you at the same time

if you live in some poor area I would imagine it would be shit because people would bring in stuff that's expensive to them that's broken and maybe unfixable and cry at you when you cant fix it at a low cost or with out replacing stuff and suggesting them to just get new system.

laptop repair for instance I had a 8600m gt laptop and the card died the get it replaced cost the price of a Alienware laptop that release 2years later that was smaller but had same performance.

I regret not getting the Alienware desu. but prob should have given up on the laptop and not got it replaced because gpu died again a year or 2 later.

theres 2 in my town, one of them is a small shop that operates similar to a market for selling refurbs and junk too for hobbyists.

then theres another one that i think only services boomers computer problems (they have good marketing i assume) and sells phone stuff to highschool kids who shop at the 7/11 right beside it.
i bet they also sell high end gaming gear too inside but i've never been in.

location is definitely crucial if you want to go for the young crowd. so selling a bunch of phone stuff to kids and gamer stuff to nerds, while doing outreach to old people with your repair services.

i think it's viable

i forgot my gmail password

phone screen replacement/repair is more lucrative if there aren't 15 of them already

Yeah, it's kinda comfy

But now most computer repair stores work under contract for small and medium companies. They get a monthly payment and the company gets some support hours.

i hear they launder money, personally i wouldn't focus on end user support, you can do things like sign up with the major OEMs and do warranties or sale for them, buy hardware in bulk and resell it online, etc

Am working at one in Germany atm, had a few cursed Windows XP machines come in but most of the time it's either just reinstall Windows because it's riddled with fake software, hardware upgrades like SSD or GPU stuff or put together a PC with parts the customer bought but is too stupid/lazy to put it together them self.

AMA if ya want

vid of the cursed winxp computer we got, yes it's vertical and yes the recording sucks

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neat
how do you fix those? just reinstall?
also do you have to buy windows keys or can you get away with pirating

If you own it, you have to deal with customers. Customers are retards so, no, not comfy.

There is one in my town. He just reinstalls windows when updates break the computer and gets rid of spyware for boomers. He charges $60-$120 just to fix a windows update. Looks easy as fuck, I'd start one if there wasn't him already in town.

Its not future proof at all. maybe if you could do some board repairs it could be lucrative but if you dont it is from my experience idealing with a lot of tards for not nearly enough money.

>how do you fix those? just reinstall?
When we get a weird pc in where even the customer has no idea what the fuck is wrong with it, we call them up first before doing anything major to it. With that one there were three different hard drives installed, one has four different windows XP installs (no idea how), on the second was seemingly nothing and on the last one was normal windows 10 installed but it would only boot if the second drive was plugged in as well despite having no traces of windows on it.
Super fucking cursed pc, we just changed the boot order and called it a day.
But yeah, we call the customer, ask if there is important shit, if no format all and install windows 10, if yes then back up data first, format it all, install win10 and copy the data back in a folder on the desktop.

>also do you have to buy windows keys or can you get away with pirating
We rarely buy keys, if the customer has a key they will give us one or it's already saved in the mainboard of the laptop/PC. However if nothing has been said about keys we use one that works every time, no idea what key it is and how it can be activated so often but if it works it works. We do the same with Office packages too. I guess you can count it as pirating.

Have another pic I took of when we """test""" a pc with a problematic gpu in it.

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I run my own. Don't do it. At the last minute they tell you to keep it, they got another one or using a tablet instead

it isnt fun thats all i know. honestly its such a burn out job unless youre not getting customers

I do house calls for tech support. I got kind of lucky and had good word of mouth where I don't have to do computers for gross bastards, mostly just old boomer ladies. Usually get like 60-100 bucks for an hour or two of sitting at their computer with them.

>Its not future proof at all
yeah, you hve to diversify your activity, that's why where i work we have a fiew server and externalize the informatic needs of little companies

(cont)
I also have to add that we don't just repair or build PCs, we also sell parts at a better price than what you can find here online and we also sell used laptops. Selling used laptops is probably the stupidest moneymaker shit.
Customer comes in, wants to either let the laptop get fixed or sell it to us, we take it for 50-100€ depending on specs and conditions, we fix whatever is wrong with it and then sell it for over five times as much as it was sold to us for. In addition to selling it used for a not too terrible price, people come to us because we also give a warranty on the laptop for the first three months, random craigslist or facebook market sellers would never do that.

more pics because I'm bored

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I don't think I'd want to work in one nowadays. Even just opening up lots of types of modern slim design shit is terrible, they obviously aren't designed to be easily serviced, or at worst are designed to actively impede you.

Indeed but that is moving to bigger things then i think OP assumes computer repair shops do.

>despite having no traces of windows on it
Bootloader was installed on that drive or something like that probably.

own a fast food restaurant instead

maybe, it only had one partition though. If it had multiple smaller ones then it would be obvious but it didn't..

that would be the only way to keep it interesting, you'd want to move up to that anyway

In the MBR, not on partitions, at least on older non-UEFI shit.

>dealing with morons all day
>comfy
lol yeah right

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Looks like sata configuration. I would try switching between IDE and AHCI.

Seems like it would be a pain in the dick. My friend tried running one for a while, he absolutely hated it. Too much work, too little money to be made, outrageous amount of hassle, and people are straight up retarded. He barely kept afloat to pay the rent for the shop despite working his ass off, and he was living at home, so the bar was low. Most of the "fixing" he did involved ordering replacement parts for people and charging them extra for them, or backing their shit up and reinstalling Windows. If they came in with Apple shit he told them to take a hike, and sent the phone/tablet faggots to one of his friends who was into that shit.

I dunno how people can be so fucking stupid after being raised in an age where computers are ubiquitous. My own sister, who was born in 1992, grew up with computers for her whole life, is a complete moron with computers. She was scammed by someone after having a panic attack over a "You have a virus!" popup and paid $200 for someone to remote access her PC and install a copy of some shit anti-virus.

>of some shit anti-virus
That's probably actual malware.

it sucks and everyone thinks you're ripping them off even when you aren't

>I dunno how people can be so fucking stupid after being raised in an age where computers are ubiquitous. My own sister, who was born in 1992, grew up with computers for her whole life, is a complete moron with computers. She was scammed by someone after having a panic attack over a "You have a virus!" popup and paid $200 for someone to remote access her PC and install a copy of some shit anti-virus.

This exact shit right here is the reason I want schools to teach everyone that this shit is not only fake, but also teach them why it's fake. Force people to learn the basics of a fucking computer, not everything is done with a smartphone or tablet in 2018. It's such a common scam too that I have to wonder why the police or something doesn't do a PSA telling everyone how fucking retarded they all are.

Only if you're an NPC who's work does not need to be meaningful.

Buying a new one is 'murican tier

have to have firm prices with no pay next week bullshit, though i don't do stuff like that anymore

I think watching Louis Rossman's videos would give you an accurate picture of what it's like to run a repair shop, although he is dealing with people who have invested a lot of money by purchasing a Mac, works in the largest city in the US, and has a YT following which drives his business. Obviously most shops can't have those things, except the first.

I work in a camera repair shop...

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oooffffffff
I hope your charge a lot for that, that has to suck

Dealing with people is not comfy. They will deny liquid damage...

and yet you are on Jow Forums all day long

I enjoy it

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Those very police are probably just as retarded as the people they are protecting. There should be a national police organization that is responsible for all the digital crime in the country, operating all the databases that the other police organizations use, tracking down malicious hackers, conducting sting operations against online scammers, issuing guidance to the public, etc. Ordinary cops have problems with jurisdiction and their budget is for tackling local problems, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be dealing with these types of things. Can the FBI actually be relied on to handle all that?

As for education, children should be taught the basics of computers and the internet in school. When I was in highschool, we had classes about touch typing and using Microsoft Office. Did we really need a fucking class about how to properly use Microsoft products? That touch typing class should have been done in elementary school, while middle school should have a class about what computers are, how they work, their history, how the internet works, etc. High School would have more advanced classes that explain what's going on in the background. Just think about how many influential adults have no fucking clue how any of this shit works, yet they spout their mouth off like "HEY, LET'S BAN ENCRYPTION, WE'LL SHOW THOSE FILTHY CRIMINALS!"

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They will deny anything.
>Work IT job at medium-sized company.
>Ticket comes in saying "my computer is having problems." That's it.
>Pissed because I have to call to find out what the fuck this means.
>Call no answer.
>Fuck it. I'll send email.
>Email no response.
>Finally have to get in car and physically drive to the office.
>Have to hunt down employee. Takes 15 minutes.
>Points to her computer "It doesn't work. Fix it."
>Turn on PC, boots, HDD not found.
>HDD making noises I've never even heard before. Shit is FUBAR.
>Employee is pissed "How does that even happen? I didn't do anything. You gave me this computer. What's wrong with it? What did you do? I didn't do anything, I swear."
>Don't even bother asking her if she touched the box, moved it, etc. I've learned not to ask such things. It doesn't fucking matter anyway.
>Finally she breaks down: "I guess I dropped it while I was moving it this morning. But it didn't fall hard! But, yeah, right after the drop it stopped working. So maybe that's it."
Fucking people are shit.

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Was the HDD made out of mached paper? A friend of mine dropped his HDD down a flight of stairs and it still works.

It's all relative. I have an old Hitachi Deathstar from the most notorious batch that still works fine. It shouldn't be possible, but it keeps chugging along. It's surreal after hearing all the horror stories about them over the years.

Apparently so. I've seen HDDs take fucking beatings and they work just fine. God knows what abuse befell this PC, though. One drop, two drop, three drop, four. Box was placed on the ground, probably got the boot often.
Always be suspicious of employees who own phones with shattered screens. That's personal property. You think they give two shits or a rat's ass about company property they don't actually own?

>is it comfy
>have to deal with shitty people all day complaining about what went wrong with their computer
>customers will lie to you all the time
>shit on you
>berate you
Nope.jpg

Get used to having roaches

Complete bullshit because more people use mobile devices than PCs. The PC people can troubleshoot on their own while the mobile people are easily willing to buy new devices.

I've seen two business models for long lasting establishment.

One is a front end store to help meet local business for MSP style business.

The other sells ISP services for extra money

>more people use mobile devices than PCs
so fucking what you dumb bitch? the more obscure something is, the less competition to work with it, the harder it is for people to find someone to fix it, and generally the more lucrative the business

fuck off with your idiocy

lmao idiot, if I have vacation pics on my phone and it suddenly dies I wouldn't just accept my loss, I would try to repair it just to get my data.
idiot

Yes and no.

You will have retarded customers.
You will have customers that will bitch about stupid ass shit.
Those customers will give you bad reviews and shit talk about you.
You will have the person that thinks they know it all about computers but still want you to fix their shit. This customer also likes to try to steal your customers and try to fix their computer and shit talk about you but acts all friendly while in your shop.
You will have customers (like the one listed above) that will try to get you to fix it for free (ex: they will ask you a question hoping you will tell them how to fix it).
You will have that one kid that fucked up a repair job he did.
You will have slobs bring in nasty computers with a chance of roaches.
You will have at home computer repair shops under cutting you (most of them dont pay taxes or are legal businesses, so you can report them to the IRS).
Other computer repair shops will shit talk you and make up bullshit so customers wont go to you.

Seen all this in my ex friends computer shop.

How much do you get paid an hour in USD equivalent?

I'm going to a few interviews next week for various positions, mostly help desk. Ranging from $17/hr to $26/hr (some school district)