I have scientific proof some people respond to threads without reading anything but the last one or two posts.
The printer is not even on the same cord or wall socket as my computer/UPS, but it still causes a brownout. It trips my Back-UPS ES 550 but not a Back-UPS Pro 700 I have in the same room for other stuff.
I recently started Guild Wars.
I was a Lineage player before that but all my clan went to GW. I'm trying to get used to it.
Titles don't matter that much except for companies that literally base your pay range on it. If they are going to do that, then fight for the best paying title!
And yes, I do work for a comp that does it. I started as "IT Helpdesk" and could not get my title changed even once I began supporting Linux web servers and doing all the purchasing and essentially being responsible for all-the-things.
The person before me who remained on staff for a while was called "IT Coordinator", whatever that means.
Eventually I had to write like a 6 page letter explaining what I do and what titles actually mean and finally got my title approved to be "IT Systems Administrator" (a most appropriate and generic title for my position and duties). And then negotiated my pay as a separate thing. Plus I like calling myself a "SysAdmin" and can celebrate national SysAdmin Day.
What's funny is that when my boss would send phone calls or emails to me to do things, he would use important-sounding titles to look impressive to the other person. Like "I'll pass you on to our CTO to handle that" even though I'm no such thing, lol
Well it happened again.
Ordered an Eaton 5S700. Might as well give it a shot.
Still, they built the mechanism/ability of including updates in the install media. It would take all of 1 engineer all of 1 hour to compile an updated ISO and stick it online.
Over the course of 10 years it probably would have reduced the load on their update servers by a fantastical amount.
@scottalanmiller said in Is the computer repair business dead?:
@guyinpv said in Is the computer repair business dead?:
In any case, "laptop repair" is even more niche than PC repair. After all the parts are a little more specialized and harder to find/install. Maybe there is still business for that?
moreso, but still very little. It's very much hardware repair compared to software repair.
I've been known to do solder repairs on floppy broken power cord connectors.
It's quite nerve racking to have a laptop spread out in a hundred pieces on a table!
@Dashrender said in What is the best way to get reloaded Windows 7 up to date?:
@guyinpv said in What is the best way to get reloaded Windows 7 up to date?:
What I'm more surprised about is that MS doesn't offer any download that is already up to date to some degree. All we get is SP1. Now there is about 150GB of updates to do after that. Like 200+ individual updates.
I'm not surprised about this at all. MS wants to make it as painful as possible for you to stay in the past.
But they didn't really have a solution to this even when Win7 was the latest thing!
I remember in my bench tech days, we did a lot of reloads, upgrading HDDs. We had a U-shaped desk system with KVMs so we could hook up like 8 systems. Most of the time it was new installs doing endless updates! KVM switch between machines just to click "Yes" to restarting after another batch of updates.
Every single app install wanted a restart too.
A person can still build a wicked fast power users PC for way cheaper than a powerful laptop. I've never been comfortable on just a laptop. I want at least 23" screen, and two of them at that. ('ya but you can attach all the things to a laptop!'). Yes, which gives me an overpriced, underpowered, small form factor desktop that I'm tied down to anyway.
It's not just games either. Older people like big screens and fat keyboards. They think a touchpad is science fiction witchcraft. And I don't know anyone who bought a laptop that didn't think setting it on their lap on top of their fluffiest, hottest, most favorite blanket with the space heater on the floor pointed right at the back of the laptop, was a bad idea.
Hinges go bad. Reflective screens are irritating, they always drop, and they always get the power cord yanked out a thousand times by kids and animals, they aren't strong! Batteries die in a couple years. Screen gets cracked for no reason I've ever known. Slamming it down on a pencil? People literally walk on/step on, their laptops. What the?!
In any case, "laptop repair" is even more niche than PC repair. After all the parts are a little more specialized and harder to find/install. Maybe there is still business for that?
The people who have needed me to fix PCs typically do some niche stuff, which is why they are willing to pay. One guy had an old school newsletter thing he typed and printed himself on 1970s word processor because that's what he knew how to use.
Another person had special musical equipment with particular driver requirements.
Another needed to maintain and old DOS database.
Another homeschools their kids and can only use these Windows based CDs. Did I mention kids destroy laptops?
Anyway, for those who don't know what a Chromebook is, they are basically Google data collection devices that people voluntarily pay for to be included in 
I for one can't live on the cloud. I tend to despise "cloud apps" that are either websites running in a Chrome frame and pretend to be native apps, or be stuck doing all my work in browser tabs which is horrific.
I think I'm old school, for sure. Give me a powerful desktop, and native apps, every day.
And that doesn't mean I don't use my iPad and Pixel a lot. But when it's time to work or play, I head to the desktop.
How this relates to computer repair business, I don't know. But that's where the conversation went!
The answer seems obvious at first. Which is, yes it is, but then, no it's not.
The simple paradox is that your average Walmart or Costco basic computer for $400-$500 bucks tends to last about 4 years or so before it's bogged down or could use a reload.
But to do this business full time, or to even run a shop with a physical location, means you have to charge at a minimum $60/hr. People in my area charge more for doing in-home work, and more still for businesses. My friend charges $120/hr for computer repair/break fix/networking for any business. If you have a location and employees, you can hardly dip below $75/hr.
The problem is obvious. Who wants to spend $60/hr on a $399 computer for in-home repair that could easily take a couple hours? These cheap computers are NOT fast! They come with hunky spinning rust 2TB drives that take 4.5 hours just to run a single malware or virus scan or check for bad sectors. It's almost impossible to do in home repair exceptionally well due to compromises like not being able to stay around for long running scans. I've had plenty of days where chkdsk took all day to scan, the.entire.day. Just to fix 2 sectors.
Typically by the time I get a call by a frustrated person with computer troubles, they give me a sob story about they've paid $xx to this repair person and had to pay $yy for some other issues and THEN they had to get a new printer bla bla. I know people with $500 laptops who've spent over $1000 keeping the darn thing running over the years!
It's almost not worth doing computer repair because it simply feels like a ripoff. It's like "here is what I will do for you...buy a new computer, I'll do a data transfer." We bypass troubleshooting, scanning, updating, fixing, reloading, whatever. It would take a couple hours and you end up with a new system instead of dropping cash down the toilet on the old one!
My sister in law has one of these old Gateway laptops, around $600 new perhaps. They've replaced the keyboard twice, the entire LCD once, new battery, and another technician dropped the entire system and had to replace the mobo (their cost).
To top it all off, the system has always been buggy and was bought at the time of Windows 8, not even 8.1. They've spent 2x or 3x the cost of the laptop in maintenance and it's their only computer.
I'm not sure where this puts the industry, or how to solve the simple equation that as systems get cheaper and cheaper, but the cost of a repairman goes up and up, something has got to change.
Should computer "people" refuse to work on or buy or recommend cheap computers and insist on custom or high end builds? This might give them a longer lasting system, or change the ratio of how much it's worth to fix.
If I buy a $1000 car, I don't want to pay $100/hr to work on it! But if I buy a $50,000 car, it feels cheap to fix something for a few hundred bucks!
One of the reasons I'm thinking about this is I'm trying to figure out if I want to promote computer repair as something my business will do, or if it's not worth it at the end of the day.
Should I specialize and just build and support custom systems? <----- I've seen this style of business and it never seems to work out. The custom builds are still cheap cause people don't want to pay, and if they ever buy one batch of bad memory or mobos or something, they get a dozen clients with intermittent failures and it becomes a nightmare! For the life of the computer, everything is the builder's fault!
Should I do in home repair or is it just not worth it in order to do full scans and really do a good job?
Should I only promote break/fix for businesses only and make the rest pay out the ear? It's their choice after all.
On one hand, not doing this would seem to leave money on the table. They will hire somebody! But I always feel like a ripoff working on the proverbial 8 year old $300 e-machines junker.
I just wonder, is computer repair a dying business? And if so, how can aspiring entrepreneurs pivot this industry into something more useful for our business, and the end user.
P.S. Geek Squad is who rips everybody off around my town! But I do see a lot of repair businesses come and go. Every other day somebody has a sign on their car "hire a geek" and "buy a nerd" and "rent a tweeb PC repair". They don't last.
I had this recently. Took the entire weekend!
I have no answer except to say that back in the day, like decade+ ago, we used to do a trick to get the updates to be included in the actual install media. They would be installed along with the OS from the start.
Or do like Scott said and create a reference system that is up to date and then do the OEM install preparation routing thingy to turn it into an image that can install anywhere and won't be borked from preinstalled drivers and such. It prepares it as a clean system.
What I'm more surprised about is that MS doesn't offer any download that is already up to date to some degree. All we get is SP1. Now there is about 150GB of updates to do after that. Like 200+ individual updates.
So frustrating!
I assume voltage regulation is the root of my issue then. The laser printer caused "something" that the battery is not designed or quick enough to handle.
The only weird thing is that it doesn't happen most of the time. About once in every 50 prints maybe more.
@JaredBusch said in What's the best standard HDDs these days?:
@guyinpv said in What's the best standard HDDs these days?:
@BRRABill said in What's the best standard HDDs these days?:
@JaredBusch said in What's the best standard HDDs these days?:
This entire discussion was stupid. There is never need to worry about a "best drive" for 99% of users. You buy what ever is cheap and available. Even more so because you have clearly stated this is a short term solution.
Hear ye, the word of the lord. And rejoice, because it has been given unto you.
You dare blaspheme the name of Jared!!?!?! Burn!!!
Say what you want, but th time you spent looking for drives, and then purchasing a drive that is probably double the cost of what you could have gotten, means money wasted.
Don't sweat it. I did one Google search, posted a thread on here, then looked at Amazon's popular stuff.
10 minute decision.
@BRRABill said in What's the best standard HDDs these days?:
@JaredBusch said in What's the best standard HDDs these days?:
This entire discussion was stupid. There is never need to worry about a "best drive" for 99% of users. You buy what ever is cheap and available. Even more so because you have clearly stated this is a short term solution.
Hear ye, the word of the lord. And rejoice, because it has been given unto you.
You dare blaspheme the name of Jared!!?!?! Burn!!!
So let me get this strait. The typical APC batteries everybody gets at OfficeMax or Staples or whatever, are "crap".
I take it "crap" means they are not active? Or in other words, they can't handle brownouts? Or it's just not quick enough to switch over to battery?
Second, having an electrician install another outlet, I would assume, would accomplish nothing, as they are likely just going to run it off the same circuit anyway. Not like they are going to run a new circuit to one lonely office.
Third, what is a common non-crap battery to look at?
Firecuda. It has an extra 8GB SSD cache with smartypants stuff built in.
Like I said, getting a 1TB SSD for whatever, $400, versus a 2TB Firecuda for $100 was just the better deal. It's an i5 3Ghz with 8GB so not horrible as just an office PC.
This is an intermittent issue that is really annoying.
I have a workstation connected to a 750VA APC battery (one PC, two LCDs). I also have a color laser printer that is plugged into the same circuit. It's not in the battery at all, just pretty much in the same outlet as the battery.
Every once in a while when they go to print something, the printer "comes alive" from sleep mode and all the stuff plugged into the battery restarts or shuts off! The battery also beeps.
My only thought here is that the printer is causing a quick brownout or something, but that's what the fricken battery is supposed to be protecting from!
Why would the printer (only sometimes) cause the battery to fail? Bad battery? Or bad circuit? Or something more nefarious?
Unfortunately, there are only like two wall sockets that everything has to run from. So there is an extension cord with multiple 3-prong plugs in it which then feeds the printer and the battery and another surge protector for other stuff like speakers and stapler and lamp, etc.
Of course SSD is better, but it's a 5 year old basic PC that will likely be replaced within the year. Current 1TB drive has been reporting a zillion bad blocks lately.
It's got about 470GB used space so I did contemplate putting a 500GB SSD in there but just didn't want free space that tight. They copy a lot of pictures and video recordings on there.
Anyway it's settled. Yay for Amazon Prime it will be delivered tomorrow.
So wait, if I stop eating junk food I'll become Japanese!?!?
Samsung 850 Pro 1TB is $469. That's a bit cost prohibitive for this application.
I'm looking for a 1 or 2TB standard drive with as much performance as I can get.
Probably a Seagate Firecuda then.