Ventura County Computers Eletter

Tech Support, Where art thou? Part 2

Recently, I got a very unique look into an area that is little known and very secret in the computer repair world. That fabled place where your laptops go to be serviced. You never see where they go, you just drop them off or mail them away and you really don't know where you are sending your precious little friend. Little do you know that you are sending the little darling of a notebook to a place not unlike Hell itself. Oh your thinking, Right... I bought a name brand notebook backed by a major company. I also purchased the extended warranty to go along with it. What possible harm could come to my precious darling as I send her off for a little repair? Well my friends, a fate almost worse than a dead CMOS battery, the NOTEBOOK CLEARING HOUSE.

When you purchased that extra extended warranty you sealed the fate of your poor little notebook. Some ware along the way the poor thing gets hijacked and sent to the place where all notebook are alike. It doesn't matter what brand it is, they all go in the same terrible door. They are separated by brand, color and size and headed down a path to impending doom. Yes, you guessed it, the underpaid, under trained, unmotivated, unappreciated, unknown notebook repair technician. They sit their in their little space under and unrelenting stream of sick little notebooks screaming for attention. Armed with little more than some technical manuals and quota of a minimum of ten a day to repair, they await their next victim. Yes, this is the dirty naked truth. Your precious notebook is meeting its fate with a person who doesn't care about you or his job. All he(or she) cares about is getting their ten little notebooks past quality control at the end of line and not getting threatened with losing a bad job because they could not meet their quota or tried to spend some extra time fixing something not on the repair order but needed some work.

One of my clients complained about having to send their notebook in four times for service. I won't say the name but my trash Compaqter doesn't work well either. Each time the specific thing that the customer could see was repaired and was sent back as corrected. But what the customer doesn't see, the all-seeing eye of a competent technician can discern. But due to the all-consuming time constraints of my ten a day or die quota I'm only going to fix what's on the work order and not what my trained eye detected. A la the customer sooner or later finds that, Hey this doesn't work right too! Unhappily send their little one off to Hell again for another round. Pretty soon this gets old and they thing they bought a lemon but in reality they just entered the realm of business that says "We worship the almighty dollar and will do whatever we have to get it."

What I'm really trying to say is that these wonderful companies don't usually service their own notebooks. They just contract out to a third party company that does only that. And guess what? That's all they do is fix your poor little broken notebook. They don't know or care what customer service is. Why should they? They've got your poor little dear held hostage. What are you going to do? Argue with them! It's like trying to negotiate with kidnappers. That's what they are! OK, I'll calm down now. I've gone and worked myself up into a frenzy again. All Right, how can you the unsuspecting victim of all the above protect yourself. Here are a couple of points.

BACK UP YOUR DATA! The first thing they tell you is "they" are not responsible for any of your data. PLEASE take this to heart and learn to use the CDRW on your notebook and backup regularly.

HAVE YOUR NOTEBOOK INSPECTE! If possible from where you bought it, that there is no water damage or something that voids your warranty. I've had three customers with a certain brand of notebook which I will not mention. The PH in my water if off. Send in their notebooks only to receive the dreaded phone call that their warranty was voided by water damage. The bill in each case was over $700.00. What are you going to do? Ask to see? They've got you. One person fought this all the way with the unmentioned company and finally received a brand new notebook (After 3 months). The thing that saved her was that the tech at the store turned it on and it booted and when it went to Hell she was informed that it would not boot due to water damage. (I shudder to think that this could be deliberate pattern to make extra money but in all three cases they said they never spilled anything on the notebook).

TAKE CAREFUL CARE OF YOUR NOTEBOOK! Remember that it is a working computer. Invest in a proper carrying case and by all means, take your time and CAREFULLY plug in and out the AC adapter. One of most common causes of notebook failure is a broken AC input.

HARD DRIVES FAIL, ESPECIALLY NOTEBOOKS! If you even think you're having hard drive trouble back up your pc or buy a new drive. It's just not worth it to have one crash on you with all your stuff in the middle of something important.

"That's all Folks" for this month. Stay tuned because I have a lot to complain about.

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Tech Support, Where art thou? Part 2

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