PC Fix

I have been meaning to archive the documents from a dead Dell PC, for 12 years. Finally got around to having this done, so that I could chuck the machine. Dave is a cheery guy, took care of transferring the files to a flash drive, and recycled the tower. Excellent communication by email and text. All went smoothly.

unknown

unknown

unknown

We dropped off the computer in Issaquah on a Monday. The wait time was 3-5 days. On Friday, they told us it was done but that because they had been so busy, they sent it to Lake City to their other store for repair. They could not return it until after 2 PM on Monday. We drove to Issaquah on Monday afternoon after 2 PM only to be told that it would arrive sometime around 5 or 6. We drove home and returned at 5 PM to pick up the computer. When got home with the computer, we discovered that they had failed to return the power cord. We had to wait until Tuesday after 10 AM to drive again back to Issaquah to pick it up. They did discount their service 10% to make up for the delays, but when we dropped off the computer, no one told us that the computer would be sent out for repair at another store. They finished the repair on a Friday afternoon, but no attempt was made to make sure the computer was returned to Issaquah so we could have it to use over the weekend. Everything was at their convenience.

unknown

They were good, but I would say their charges were high, though, for what I wanted. I could get what I wanted free from Microsoft.  It wasn’t their fault, but I would have paid that if it was the only game in town.  I have no complaints. I wanted them to clean up my system and I think their price was $150.  I didn’t dislike anything.  They were courteous and they told me when I should check back. It was going to be a little longer than I would have wanted. It was going to be a couple of weeks, but I really needed my computer. I think they have a lot of business. I haven’t made any comparison with regard to price.  I didn’t price this work out so I didn’t price or shop around.  They quoted me $150 for their service.  They picked it up and were very courteous. They were polite.  I probably would use them again in the future but I would shop around.

They took care and fix my computer, it was done in one day. There has been no problem. They were excellent.

It seemed to take a little longer than I would have expected but maybe they were busier than it looked when I was there.  My repair ended up costing less than expected which was a nice surprise.

My dad, in his 80s, dropped my mother's desktop computer and it shorted out. I found a nearby PC Fix location on Angie's List and we took the computer there at about noon. We talked with two very nice young men, who discussed several options for helping us, based on the age of the computer. I explained how important the computer and the data on it is to my mother, so they checked the hard drive and it was fine -- great news! Then they waived the diagnostic fee because it would only take a few minutes to determine if the power supply module had shorted out. They asked us to leave the computer for a couple of hours (there were other computers ahead of ours).
About two hours later, they called with good news -- the problem was limited to the power supply that shorted out. They could install a used power supply (instead of a new one, to save us some money), plus, as we had discussed, two sticks of RAM to speed up the computer (which had been a long-standing problem). With labor, the total cost was $82.50 before tax. We thought it was a great deal, and the computer was ready just an hour later!
Needless to say, my mother was very happy to get her computer back in great working order!
I especially appreciated that the guys at PC Fix were willing to work with us to find a solution that fit our needs and our budget. I also was impressed that we didn't have to leave the computer for a day or two.

see above

I needed to move several very large Outlook PST files from a Dell to a new iMac. After 48 hours, the Joint Venture technicians at Apple advised that they could not  move my Outlook pst files nor my Thunderbird files. "It was beyond their scope". Apple  told me that my ethernet connection was non-functional, there were corrupt files, Firmware problems,  etc. I suggested that they move the PST files to an external hard drive for transfer but was told this would take several visits with the Genius Bar. 
On the way home we stopped at PC Fix to discuss the issues with them and they just smiled and said "no problem".  24 hours later I picked up my iMac with all PST files transferred and Thunderbird files installed on Mac Mail. There were no problems encountered, the ethernet connection is fine and PC Fix has a loyal customer. 
I couldn't be more delighted with PC Fix.

My computer began to freeze-up - the pattern as to when this would happen was very erratic.  I took it to a difference computer repair firm/person twice, each time being told it was now fixed but the problems continued.  When I took it to Computer-Fix in Edmonds, the technician (Jason) looked at my notes of what was happening and immediately stated that he thought he knew what the problem was.  He opened it up and very shortly said - you have some "bulged" (i.e. bad) copacitors.  He was able to show me the problem and explain what needed to be done and the cost for the repair before I even left the shop.  In addition to replacing 7 copacitors (cost $86.50), they also repaired files that had become corrupted ($63.50) and ran it through various tests.  This work was completed in 2 1/2 days.  The computer is working great with no problems.

The entire process was very professional, understandable, and extremely customer oriented. They were able to understand my non-computer explanations and turn them into accurate problem descriptions. Their experience and ability put me at ease initially and they earned my trust with the finished repair.

My relatively new HP laptop computer totally stopped working late on a Friday night.  I had all kinds of deadlines the following week.  I had no other working computer, and that weekend I started calling the companies I'd worked with before to see if they could figure out what was wrong.  None of them had any availability until late the following week.  When I spoke to HP, it took HP two hours over the phone to tell me that my hard drive was ruined and that HP would be sending a new hard drive to replace the drive that was ruined.  That weekend I was completely computer-less.

In the meantime, without a computer I had no way to access Angie's list or any of the other referral sources I typically use.  It took me half an hour to remember that I had something old-school I could use - the yellow pages.  I looked up computer repair and found several different companies.  I began calling the companies on Monday morning, and for whatever reason A-1 Best stood out as knowing what they were doing.  They explained that they'd seen a high failure rate in HP laptops.  I asked for the cost for the work to recover data and A-1 Best explained everything perfectly - $40 to investigate and determine whether the data could be recovered (and whether the laptop had any additional problems, besides the hard drive) and then $80 per hour to recover data once it had been established that the data existed.  They didn't know how much data I had - it was about 40 gb and took about 2.5 hours to do the work.

I was immediately impressed with the knowledge and professionalism of the people who work at A-1 Best.  The person I spoke with when I brought my computer in explained what had been happening with HP laptops, showed me an article of various failure rates for laptops (total eye-opener), and immediately offered me a confidentiality agreement when I expressed the need for an agreement to protect my work-related data.  A-1 Best has an excellent procedure that it follows for checking computers in and for keeping track of everything that's happening, including when I'd called to discuss things (such as the fact that my new hard drive from HP had arrived in the mail and I asked what I should do with it).  The invoice is very detailed in that way.  The people who work there were responsive to my phone calls, explained things I could do to make the process less expensive (for example, they installed the new hard drive, but I then took the computer home and installed the reboot disks and all the other programs I could before giving the computer back to A-1 Best to restore the data into the new hard drive).   When I realized that the "my favorites" from my browser was not among the data that had been restored, I called A-1 Best and they immediately emailed me a zipfile with that information and instructions for how to get the info into my browser (while it's a small issue, it constitutes hundreds of hours of my time culling through information and tagging it for future reference).

Having your computer crash is a nightmare.  It?s also doubly-upsetting because the price to restore the data and fix the problem can be almost half of what you?ve paid for the laptop in the first place, and even under warranty the manufacturer won?t cover that cost.  The $240 total that I paid to A-1 Best was about what everyone else quoted me, and while it was money I didn?t want to spend, it?s money I had to spend because the value of the data far exceeded the costs in money and time to restore the data.  (I think a lot of the complaints in the reviews about costs of A-1 Best are unfounded ? Before hiring A-1 Best, I checked with about 5 places and got a similar quote from each of them, regardless of whether the company was national or local.)  The important thing is that I totally trusted the company, they did a great job, and they explained ways to avoid having this happen again, such as getting an SSD and looking at failure rates for various manufacturers.  Obviously, if I?d had a current back-up, things would have been a lot easier, but I didn?t have one.  While I?ve had problems with laptops after about 3 to 4 years, I?ve never had a computer fail so quickly and I was totally caught off-guard.  A-1 Best deals with its customers in a calm, professional way and I would unquestionably use the company again ? I?ve already recommended A-1 Best to friends.   

Their price was reasonable.  They were professional.  They recovered the data.  I would use them again in the future too.

I went very well.  The tech arrived on time and told me what was wrong with my computer. 

They will also give advice over the phone and repair remotely. They will also explain how we can do the repair ourselves to save on costs.

This is my second encounter with this place. First time they fixed my daughter's laptop fine, but I already then had my suspicions that they overcharged by a lot. You can't really know how much labor they put in it, can you. It's all about trust and reputation. Second time around, they lost my trust completely. I was in shock. Here's the story. My WD external drive failed (it was bought at Costco 2 months earlier) with lots of family photos and videos. Two laptops at home wouldn't recognize the devise. I called A1, then brought it to them. Paid for the diagnosis and heard back from them the next day saying that they will be able to save the data and it would take 3 hours of labour. So, the estimate was $240. I said it's over the top and I am not prepared to pay that much. In about 5 minutes the guy called and said they would do it for $120. I wasn't extremely happy either but almost agreed. Then I decided to talk to Western Digital. I should have thought of it in the first place... (Costco concierge was very helpful and connected me to WD and stayed on the line all along - five stars!!!). And, guess what. The WD tech support rep helped me to fix the drive over the phone in.....FIVE minutes!!! These guys are not professional and not honest. If it happened to me, it will happen and probably happening to others as well.

They were good.

Not so well. I brought the computer in on the 26 of December. I had two problems, the computer wouldn't boot and the computer kept asking me for a printer driver. I left it with them to do an assessment. A couple days later, they called and said the computer is full of viruses and they thought that was the problem. They were going to install virus software, spyware, and clean up the computer. They were also going to reinstall the printer driver, so I gave them the printer information. On December 30 I picked up the computer and paid the final amount. I brought the computer home and it would not boot and it was still asking for the printer driver. I called them and they said that it worked fine for them, so they thought it was my surge protector. I brought it to the shop, and they booted it up fine. He said it must be the outlet. I told him I've used the outlet for years and for other things. I asked it if could have anything to do with the network. He said absolutely not. I took the computer home. The problem persisted. My partner, who happens to be a computer programmer took a look. He owns our own network at home and did a bunch of tests. He reinstalled the network drivers, but the computer continued to not function properly. When he disconnected, it ran fine. I went and bought a new network card. My husband installed it, and it worked fine. I called the shop, I said that I wanted to speak with a supervisor and told them what happened. They told me the employee no longer works for the company. I was pretty unhappy because I brought it into the shop, they charged me money, and the problems did not get fixed. They said if I brought it into their shop, they would fix the printer problem. I asked for them to come pick it up. On their website it says they have free pickup and delivery. He said they don't do that anymore, but since I was so unhappy, he said he would send someone out the next day. He said there's no way they could fix the printer problem without the printer. I wanted some money back. They said they couldn't do that. I was sent to the store owner. They apologized for the computer. They said it worked in the shop and the computer had all of these viruses, and they fixed it. He refused to believe the problem was the network card. He said he was going to refund one hour of labor and he did. It did take him quite awhile but he did do it. I have asked for a clean copy of the receipt and he said he would mail it, but I have yet to receive it.

After a power outage, my laptop wouldn't load Windows and I was under the gun to complete a long project. I found A1 and another company that promised 24-hour repair service in the Yellow Pages, and after calling both, chose to go with A1 because they seemed more responsive on the phone, even though their "rush" service fee was $30 higher than the other company's. They received my laptop at 4 p.m. and called me at 6 p.m. to report the diagnosis and progress toward fixing it. They also said they had noticed I didn't have anti-virus software on my computer, and recommended some. Because I'd read glowing reviews of that software, I approved its installation. They completed the repair at 12:30 p.m. the following day, and everything worked perfectly.

I had an external hard drive that had over 70 gigabytes of photos and videos. They diagnosed the problem and were able to retrieve the data. It took less than a week, although I think they could have done it sooner if I had asked them to. They followed up with phone calls once they had diagnosed the problem and asked for authorization to proceed with repairs. The technician was helpful in explaining why the drive failed and recommending different models for the future. There was an initial diagnostic charge and the repair cost was added on top of that. Given how I had a large number of family photos and videos stored on the drive, it was a small price to pay to recover that data.

I think that they are relatively inexpensive, and that they are pretty competent. I have, in the past, used them to repair several computers, and they seem to have a pretty good technical staff that is very capable of fixing any sort of problem.