So I started my own pc repair business..

[MadJack]

take it from a target, pay your taxes quarterly. the IRS will pin ya to a wall and go up in ya. They love the self-employed! Try to keep some "under the table" but be REAL careful how much and which ones. The people who offered cash and made taxes smalltalk scared the shit outta me. Best route, cash peoples checks at their bank, not yours.

[HuntinDoug]

If you have no local competition, a pair of magnetic signs that say this will get you all kinds of calls:

COMPUTER REPAIR
10+ Years Experience
Reasonable Rates
Personalized Service
Phone:xxx-XXX-XXXX

Slap them on your car. Advertise where ever you go....

[OnlineStageGear]

I haven't gotten a Dell in years that didn't have at least an AGP slot. Maybe their $300 bargain PCs don't have them - I don't know.

If you are buying a high end gaming card I would hope you aren't dumb enough to shop at Best Buy - their prices are horrible and they don't have shit for a selection.

I have installed tons of drives in Dell boxes over the last 10+ years. Not once have I had to run a special Dell tool to get it to work.

Dell sells excellent gaming computers. I know some seriously hardcore gamers that swear by them.

BTW, with a Dell you do not need ANY tools to replace the video card. Not even a screwdriver.

Here's another scenario Matt. You go to one of those mom and pop stores. As a normal person you really have no idea what half the shit the salesman is talking about (and neither does he/she most of the time). They sell you a PC with random components that they have in stock. They don't test it worth a damn - it boots - good enough. When it fails you bring it to them and they say you have to contact the manufacturer for help. Or they start feeding you crap about restocking fees for stuff that never worked in the first place.

This happened a little over a year ago. A new customer of mine brought in a machine that she got at at one of the large chains. She complained of slow gaming performance. It was 2 weeks past the time she could return the PC for her money back. She walked in to the large chain asking for a good gaming machine. The sales tech said that machine was excellent for gaming. I told her ok, lets see what this machine has. It was a 2.4 Gig Celeron D which isn't bad at all for gaming. That's about the same as what I had only mine was a 2.4c P4 overclocked to 3.3, but that is where the system left the gaming world. It has 128 megs of ram which is absolutely horrible, but that isn't the worst part. It had onboard Intel Extreme graphics with 8 meg TOTAL available shared memory. It was a Compag, but Dell is just as guilty. Shipping out machines running Windows XP SP2 with 128 megs of ram is the equivalent of selling new card with donuts for tires and 4 mice under the hood for an engine.

Matt

[RacerX]

What about 256? That's all I got in my new Dell.

[ApeDosMil]

I would never buy myself a Dell(I build pcs for myself), but I would recomend them to everyone else. I'm not building people computers anymore because its always my fault when something goes wrong even when its a software issue.

[PowerTube]

It's been my experience that going to a mom and pop shop is *real* hit or miss. 90% of them are horrible.

That's why I specified a reputable one, if available. I agree, though, that there are some crappy ones around.

About four years ago, my brother-in-law went to a mom-n-pop and bought one. The registry was so corrupted in this box that it would reboot whenever you tried dialing out on the modem. I kid you not. He took it back and demanded a refund and then had me build him one.

A big part of the problem is that idiots will load Windows on a machine, then clone that hard drive hundreds of times. This isn't a problem if all of the machines have identical hardware, but when that same load of Windows is ran with 20 different models of motherboard, it's corruption city.

[PowerTube]

On the surface, it would seem that spyware removal alone could make someone a good living these days.

BUT....I wouldn't do it. For one thing, Einstein will immediately surf to the same pages he always did and the spyware will be right back and it'll be all my fault. The other problem is that the punks who write that shit are always a step ahead of Ad-Aware and Spybot. They seem to find a new way to hide their crap every day.

[GWARGHOUL]

..well, I made $265 in about 3-4 hours yesterday, all together between 3 clients.

Happened to work on a retired principle (20 years at a local high school and city board member's machine, she sure has some contacts. Had some great conversations with her too. Told me to give her some cards/flyers when I get em printed. I hope I can afford that real soon here. Next saturday is the last day of my job!
I also worked on a retired union plumber's pc, and he asked me to get him some cards/flyers too.. to pass out to his unions friends.

I'm AT LEAST hoping that this will pull me thru my job hunt period coming up. (tho I'm onto a prospect at the local cable company, I will see if they have a job for me today)

[jgcable]

This happened a little over a year ago. A new customer of mine brought in a machine that she got at at one of the large chains. She complained of slow gaming performance. It was 2 weeks past the time she could return the PC for her money back. She walked in to the large chain asking for a good gaming machine. The sales tech said that machine was excellent for gaming. I told her ok, lets see what this machine has. It was a 2.4 Gig Celeron D which isn't bad at all for gaming. That's about the same as what I had only mine was a 2.4c P4 overclocked to 3.3, but that is where the system left the gaming world. It has 128 megs of ram which is absolutely horrible, but that isn't the worst part. It had onboard Intel Extreme graphics with 8 meg TOTAL available shared memory. It was a Compag, but Dell is just as guilty. Shipping out machines running Windows XP SP2 with 128 megs of ram is the equivalent of selling new card with donuts for tires and 4 mice under the hood for an engine.

Matt

Maybe when the sales person said it was good for gaming he meant Solitaire and Freecell.
I have found that many people when buying a PC go for the cheapest bundle they can find. They don't think about future needs, gaming or upgrading. Then.. down the road.. they complain that they can't launch the space shuttle from their PC because it isn't good enough.
We have stripper Dells and full blown monsters where I work. Every Dell computer in our office (around 50) works great and does exactly what it was purchased to do.

[GWARGHOUL]

Only Al Gore and I can launch the space shuttle from our computers.
because he invented the internet.

JG- DUDE.. thats a scary place to work man, is that some sort of rocky-horror-themed "Gentlemans Club"?
..monsters.. strippers..crazy.

[mm2002]

I'll never forget those folks who came in asking for the least expensive computer I had, because all they needed was internet. Then two weeks later they call me up all pissed off because their kid just bought a new game at Wal Mart and the computer wouldn't run it. I've heard things like: "you mean this computer will surf the internet but it won't play a silly kids game??"
idiots idiots idiots idiots idiots idiots idiots.
Goddamn, I'm stressing again just thinking about it.