I see signs like that outside Office Max and other places that sell electronics. What are they charging $150 to do to the computer to make it faster? They don't install new parts or anything like that.

Well the way I see it is that we are gamers. That means we are always tweaking and adjusting our pcs to get the most out of them because of the demand newer games put on our systems. We know what to do.

It sounds like they are taking advantage of the proverbial Aunt May and Grandma that ran into some kind of problem with their system.

This sums it up.

What's even worse are those MyCleanPC.com commercials. Ugh, the lies they tell.

Remove temporary files, defrag, clean out some crapware, etc. Things easily done by someone who knows to do them.

Now if the place is really good, they may dust the PC out and reapply thermal paste (CPUs will throttle when temperatures get too high to keep from damaging themselves which can be solved by better cooling via new thermal paste and dusting) though I doubt this is done by any of the big box retailers offering the service, but might be done by smaller mom & pop shops.

$150 to run Ccleaner and Defrag.

I remember applying for a job at CompUSA in 2005, the manager told me "We don't really need salesman on the floor since parts sell themselves. Our bread and butter is in the tech services."

Only place around town with decent prices on computer parts is Frys... I sort of miss CompUSA.

The best parts is when they show the fake screens of fake windows and programs along with its own fake notices

They do a backup and then a clean reinstall of the Operating system....

That's how it works in Greece, if somebody say i will make your system run faster.

They charging 50 Euros. 150 Dollars is too much for that.

But again those are two difference things - fixing and making your PC faster.

Making you PC faster means (Remove temporary files, defrag, clean out some crapware, etc. Things easily done by someone who knows to do them.)

Fixing your PC it's a different story. !!!!! (Obviously something does not operate right. Maybe the Operating system, maybe a game giving errors, or even worse - BSOD, restarts and stuff like that.

A GPU is malfunctioning, or the PSU works not as intended. So there is much more behind that...)

There was a Explain Like Im Five thread on Reddit today talking about PCs getting slow over time, and this comment stood out to me:

$100 bucks he is talking about Geek Squad

Not once was fixing a PC mentioned until you brought it up. Any reason you quoted me without quoting me?

The advertisemant says that they will fix your slow PC, which is quite a different statement from fixing your PC.

I'm also 100% positive that no big box retailer in the US is backing up and doing a clean install (which, while "simpler", doesn't actually do anything a proper cleaning cannot do). The reason being that'd be incurring a huge amount of unnecessary liability that no business here would take given how sue-happy people can be here at times.

If you were to ask Geek Squad (Best Buy's sector that does this) to fix a BSOD, you'd be looking at $150 up front with probably another $200-300 later. Alternatively, they can recommend you a new PC and you can pay them like $200 for them to recover and transfer your data.

I was involved in a business that sold PC service. Our guy would come to your home or office, run a piece of benchmark software, do some basic cleanup as described (clear temp files, check for background junk), run the benchmark again to ensure we made an improvement. People who primarily surf the web and use social media would usually get a significant improvement from the most basic stuff.

The problem with that business was techs. We needed them to get in and out in thirty minutes. When they saw that machine loaded with junk instead of spending ten minutes then running the benchmark and saying "look at that, 12% better, would you like us to come back next quarter?" they would just disappear. We'd end up calling after two or three times longer than our rates were based on and finding them still there telling the customer 'you had years of junk in here'...to which the customer would say "great and it still worked, see you in three years".

Funny fact: MyCleanPC is the former StopSign Security, which was put out of business due to the fact it was in itself malware that made you have to pay to remove. They had all these fake British female actors on their commercials. This was around the mid-2000's.

I wonder if they factored into the reason that most security programs offer free anti-virus and spyware protection nowadays. Not saying that they were all not free or not always making you pay, I just notice that buying for security is obsolete now.

Making you PC faster means (Remove temporary files, defrag, clean out some crapware, etc. Things easily done by someone who knows to do them.)

That's how i understand the word making your PC faster.

As you said. So why should i write it myself....so i just copy pasted. !!!!

---------

And again i don't know how you manage PC problems in the US.

But here in Greece, if somebody goes to a computer shop or technician and say my PC runs slow, please could you fix it ???? (So exact what Illusivemanjr posted for discussion)

The technician say: what's you exact problem !!!!!.

And if he(she) don't knows exactly what the problem is, the technician goes like i described above.

First of all that's a fact, secondly i am a technician too. So take it or leave it....that's how it works by us.

So i can't help you any further with that. !!!!!!

U.S. citizens will complain about a missing photo or mp3 or office document or something like that and can sue over the losses. Perhaps in Greece there are less irritated customers than in the States.

Ah, I see what you had meant to say now. It's just the way you quoted me, it made it seem like you were implying I had said that what I said was how to fix a PC (becuase you preceded it with how fixing a PC is different and followed it with "Fixing your PC it's a different story. !!!!!"). Due to the wording, I thought that you thought I was saying "These things will fix a broken PC".

But yeah, here, reinstalling Windows would be a big no-no without a waiver or two and express consent by the owner being signed. It's also not offering anything over a thorough cleaning other than potentially being quicker (if you have a local WSUS set up to make windows update suer-fast). Because of the extra liability, it's not done here.

I did make $100 bucks scanning and cleaning a guys machine one time. The first Spybot scan turned up 1100 items, the first Adaware turned up 800+ items, the first Hijack This scan turned up 600+ items, then there were the scans in Safe Mode, etc. It took me 2 days to get his machine to even boot to the desktop in less than 5 minutes. Finally got that one cleaned. If it had been mine, I would have wiped the drive and started fresh, but he had data and programs that he needed access to, so he needed the PC to run. So, I took it as a challenge. also installed some RAM for the guy. This was after blowing out the 1/2 inch of dust in the bottom of his PC case.

Yes, I earned my money those two days.

Hallo, crippknottick...

Like i said on my post #9. (They do a backup and then a clean reinstall of the Operating system....)

Actually who wants to lose their data. !!!!!!

And U.S. citizens are just fine...

But yeah, here, reinstalling Windows would be a big no-no without a waiver or two and express consent by the owner being signed. It's also not offering anything over a thorough cleaning other than potentially being quicker (if you have a local WSUS set up to make windows update suer-fast). Because of the extra liability, it's not done here.

OKAY. !!!!!!

That was a lot of work. !!!!!

Well done. (and that money was okay, for such troubles)