The Insiders Guide To Servicing And Repairing Your Computer
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By Jeffrey Litvinoff
Personal Touch Computers
Is your computer less than a year old? If so then it most likely has a manufactures warranty.
If it needs repair or service, do you know what to do? It is a long and frustrating experience for most people. First you need to find a phone number to call, and it is NOT toll free. Then you talk to an automated phone system that tells you press numbers, and then you have to wait for an hour to speak to a live person. Finally you get a person on the phone. Are you ready for the questions? Do you know your model number, serial number, extended warranty contract number, and do you still have your receipt? Do you have a fax machine handy if they want a copy of your receipt? Computer companies now out-source their free technical support to countries like India with low cost labor. They are not trained technicians; they follow a script on their computer and have to follow it exactly. Your answers to their questions are typed into their computer and it will respond with an answer or another question. They may also want you to have the computer in front of you, so that they can do a series of tests. If they can’t solve your problem, you might get lucky and be transferred to talk to a real technician.
If you have purchased their extended warranty and service, you often get a better level of support and a trained technician. If your computer needs to be sent back, they often send you a box for you to pack your computer for shipping. You have to call the shipper for the pickup and have to wait around for them to show up. What if you have important files on your hard drive? You have to back up everything because you may not get back the same hard drive or machine. Most computer companies will not warranty corrupted operating systems, and virus or spywares. At best they may reload your computer back to the original factory installed software, which will result in you losing all you data and files. You may want to consider backing up all your files online. You can go to www.carbonite.com and try their free trial backup service. Of course you can always backup to a flash drive or external hard drive. The best way to repair virus and spy-ware is to never get any in the first place. Have installed both a virus and spyware program and update them daily. Never download from a website that you never heard of, and if it is free software, well you get what you pay for.
By clicking ok to install a program or software, you have bypassed the virus and spyware programs and give them permission to install whatever they want to. Limewire and other services to download free music and software often are the biggest source of infections. You are downloading software from somebody’s computer that you don’t even know. Spyware can allow hackers to copy your passwords, credit card numbers, or steal your identity. Computers need regular tune-ups for peak operation. Constant surfing on the internet leaves temporary files and pictures on the hard drive. Often virus’s and spywares reside in these files. Next you need to remove unwanted cookies left behind from all the websites you have visited. The files on the hard drive after time become unorganized and out of order causing the computer to run slower. Defragging the hard drive is needed to reorganize theses files. Cleaning the inside of the computer is needed to remove dust, dirt, bugs, and animal hair from the computer as this can cause the computer to run hot and overheat. Software needs to be checked regularly for new updates, and patches. This includes windows, office, and antivirus and spyware programs.
If your computer all of sudden runs slower or pop up boxes appear, you are very likely to be infected and need servicing. Who has the time or patience to do all of this? Not many people I know. Let Personal Touch Computers handle all your warranty and non warranty repairs and schedule one of our computer tune-ups. Soon to come…We are working on being able to handle the CompUSA extended warranties and other brands such as Dell, HP and Compaq. We are beginning our tenth year at our location, and want to thank all our loyal customers. Mahalo
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