Computer repair gone bad

[Tanfodude]

Those people who repaired your laptop are ex-Comcast employees.

 

[johntheplinker]

Thanks for reminding me I need to backup my pics and docs. This laptop is getting a little long in the tooth.

 

[russc2542]

I agree with others on the whole if it's worse when they gave it back, there should have been no charges. regardless, nothing should have been done software wise. My guess is they courtesy installed their semi-custom suite of anti-virus and malware blockers for non computer people that conveniently bogs the system down more than the crap it's supposed to prevent. I remember when Norton AV was the thing to have, last 5-10 years I've handled half a dozen computers that barely ran till you got rid of Norton altogether.

Whether working on cars, computers, or anything else I've only charged for things actually fixed and been wracked with guilt over anything damaged in the process even if I fixed it.

The OP and computers don't get along well in general. My wife has a similar issue. Things work great, i hand it over to her and nothing works right.

My guess is that the disassembly and reassembly process could have changed the feel of the touchpad but it's just a guess.

As a hardware junky i can tell you that computers can last a long time, i have a couple old (5 - 8 years) that are still in daily use. The trIck is to not value engineer a computer purchase. You don't have to spend $2k but don't go buy the least expensive on sale thing you can find thinking your getting a deal. Get a high end CPU (i5 or i7), enough RAM (8 gb+), and most critically an SSD. Unless you plan to do something specialized and intensive that computer will last a decade. My 8 year old system was slowing down until i gave it the SSD, now it's plenty fast for anything i ask if it. Personally i also go for refurbished business class systems from Dell's outlet. Around $1200 for a good laptop and $700 for a desktop.

WHAT you mean the computer my in-laws bought with a printer for barely more than the replacement ink cartridges cost isn't a top of the line model that'll last years?

 

[churchmouse]

I agree with others on the whole if it's worse when they gave it back, there should have been no charges. regardless, nothing should have been done software wise. My guess is they courtesy installed their semi-custom suite of anti-virus and malware blockers for non computer people that conveniently bogs the system down more than the crap it's supposed to prevent. I remember when Norton AV was the thing to have, last 5-10 years I've handled half a dozen computers that barely ran till you got rid of Norton altogether.

Whether working on cars, computers, or anything else I've only charged for things actually fixed and been wracked with guilt over anything damaged in the process even if I fixed it.



WHAT you mean the computer my in-laws bought with a printer for barely more than the replacement ink cartridges cost isn't a top of the line model that'll last years?

Man I hear that. It makes me cringe to "Re-Ink" my Cannon printer

 

[jamil]

Cannon printers were made for shooting.

Just sayin'

 

[churchmouse]

Cannon printers were made for shooting.

Just sayin'

Well I had an Epson so the improvements there are immense.......

 

[jkaetz]

Man I hear that. It makes me cringe to "Re-Ink" my Cannon printer

I agree with others on the whole if it's worse when they gave it back, there should have been no charges. regardless, nothing should have been done software wise. My guess is they courtesy installed their semi-custom suite of anti-virus and malware blockers for non computer people that conveniently bogs the system down more than the crap it's supposed to prevent. I remember when Norton AV was the thing to have, last 5-10 years I've handled half a dozen computers that barely ran till you got rid of Norton altogether.

Whether working on cars, computers, or anything else I've only charged for things actually fixed and been wracked with guilt over anything damaged in the process even if I fixed it.



WHAT you mean the computer my in-laws bought with a printer for barely more than the replacement ink cartridges cost isn't a top of the line model that'll last years?

Cannon printers were made for shooting.

Just sayin'

We still use a Cannon printer, but jumped to the color laser/scanner/fax/etc... That's fun when the toner cartridges run out. Though you can keep using them long after they say they are "empty". We print until the pages fade.

 

[WebSnyper]

Why is it you seem to have such terrible luck with service providers?

Yeah... not sure about this one, but he sure does seem to have recurring issues both with computers and with various service providers.

OP, I get it. Change to new systems sucks.

These days if you are using secure cloud storage for most of your documents (I can understand not storing some info there, but that should not be a bulk) and you are using a browser that allows you to sync your bookmarks/settings (as FireFox and others now do), then switching systems should not be a big pain. Log into the new machine, connect a few of your cloud services and generally all good. I'm on multiple machines through the day/week and with the cloud storage and synced settings, each machine feels pretty much like the other.

Now in the days before I had most everything stored in the cloud (and other more confidential info backed up), and before the browser settings were synced, it was a bit of a chore, but today not so much.

 

[josh64]

1. Do not run 2019 apps on 2010 hardware, most recent softwares require gigs of memory and/or a 64bit os/cpu.
2. If it's going to take 20 minutes or more to root out a software issue such as malware/virii, wipe the drive, reinstall the os, and install your softwares and enjoy much better performance.
3. Why pay someone to mess your stuff up worse than you can?
4. Liquids and computers do not mix, also do not drop your computer or throw it or kick it.
5. Get and use a ups and make sure the lan or phone cable (in the case of dsl) is in the surge arresting ups socket too.
6. Do not run two full time antivirus softwares at the same time, you have been warned.

just some thoughts for you

 

[Route 45]

And make sure it has a solid state hard drive. Standard magnetic hard drives are obsolete.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

And make sure it has a solid state hard drive. Standard magnetic hard drives are obsolete.

Wouldn't you have to rely on an external hard drive, or cloud storage for big files (like movies and such) with a SSD? That's the only thing that's made me shy away from them... the significantly less storage capacity.

 

[Route 45]

Wouldn't you have to rely on an external hard drive, or cloud storage for big files (like movies and such) with a SSD? That's the only thing that's made me shy away from them... the significantly less storage capacity.

Depends on what you use your computer for. I don't store movies on my laptop, just music/iTunes and photos. I mainly use it for web browsing and light word processing. You can get an internal 1TB SSD for $130 at Best Buy.

 

[nonobaddog]

I'm too old to trust cloud storage for anything. Private storage is so reasonable now.

 

[Spike Jones 5 2002]

I'm too old to trust cloud storage for anything. Private storage is so reasonable now.

I just started to set up my internet using Firefox.
Today I was at the LA Porte library.
The man was attempted to get a program working for me.
He had a lot o problems and did a lot of research on the internet.
Tonight I started to browse the internet.
I opened my "history" tab under bookmarks.
Everything he scanned was in history.
I attempted to use the "clear history".
It is not available anymore.
I had to delete every individual entry.

Oh I store all my personal information on 2TB external hard drives.
They are the size of a pack of cigarettes and half as thick or less.
They are powered via USB port.
The last time I seen them they were under $90.00.
Right now I do not remember the online computer store.

 

[jkaetz]

Wouldn't you have to rely on an external hard drive, or cloud storage for big files (like movies and such) with a SSD? That's the only thing that's made me shy away from them... the significantly less storage capacity.

How big are you talking? 512GB and 1TB SSDs are relatively inexpensive now. That will hold a lot of anything short of uncompressed blu-ray rips. Even figuring the average blu-ray rip is about 30 GB you could store 20 or so movies at a time. Not that anyone does that. If you need storage beyond that most people use a NAS device with several large capacity >6TB magnetic drives in a RAID configuration so if one fails you don't loose everything.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

How big are you talking? 512GB and 1TB SSDs are relatively inexpensive now. That will hold a lot of anything short of uncompressed blu-ray rips. Even figuring the average blu-ray rip is about 30 GB you could store 20 or so movies at a time. Not that anyone does that. If you need storage beyond that most people use a NAS device with several large capacity >6TB magnetic drives in a RAID configuration so if one fails you don't loose everything.

I think 512 was probably the biggest I saw back when I was looking, but most were smaller than that. It's been a year or more though since I was looking. You lost me at NAS and RAID. I've been a mainframe programmer, but I'm just barely PC-literate. I remember thinking that 400 Mb files were HUGE!

 

[mmpsteve]

You can't beat the SSD drives for speed at startup. From hitting the on button, to full functionality, I believe I timed mine at 8 seconds to load Windows 10 and ready to work. I use the SSD just to store and run the software, and dual hard drives to store data (in a RAID). Combined with a lot of ram, and quality components, it's blazing fast. I really don't want anything on the cloud, and use USB hard drives for offsite backups.

.

 

[Vigilant]

Buy a Toughbook.
Quit using service providers, you seem to have problems with them
Live on.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I remember participating in a discussion about the possibility of sharing a 5MB drive between an IMSAI 8080 (what the Wargames guy had in his bedroom) and a Northstar Horizon. If you've ever seen a full height 5.25 floppy drive, that's how big it was. That IMSAI even had the hokey SP01 speech synthesizer "would you like to play a game?"

NAS stands for Network Attached Storage, where your storage device is a network node accessible to other nodes, rather than being part of a node.
RAID is Redundant Array of Identical Drives. There are different arrangements possible in a RAID, determined by whether you want to interleave them for speed, create an automatic backup, what have you.

 

[nonobaddog]

RAID is Inexpensive Disks or Independent Disks. There is no requirement for them to be identical.