Joseph brings his years of experience and expertise along with a dedication to providing the finest personal service. When my pc failed, he recovered the data, then put together a new one from his extensive stock of parts, with many upgrades, at a cost much lower than I could find anywhere. I added a top-ranked ssd and monitor to top off my great new setup. Joseph is the best! read more

Best of the best for Mac repairs! Computer Business Center was recommended to me by a rep at the Apple Store. I drove straight there and was greeted by Joseph who handled all my Mac issues including retrieving invaluable photos from an old hard drive and refurbishing an old MacBook Pro that also stored valuable photographs - snippets of times gone by and of loved ones gone - truly no price can be put on this type of info. For an honest and value-driven experience, do trust your Macs to Joseph at Computer Business Center! read more

Been going there for years, great guy, does his best to get your computer working. Has recovered data, fixed laptops, helped me install gpu, replaced screens, and more read more

I took my gaming pc to get fixed after getting multiple BSOD. After leaving it here we are Stil unsure what is wrong with it. He said it could be a CPU issue or a motherboard issue. He then proceeded to recommend to buy a motherboard from Amazon to test out. Which I' did. Still nothing worked and he stated it could be the CPU now, to which he then said buy a CPU and we can try that. On top of that it is very disorganized he speaks to you in a very condescending way almost as if he's doing you favor. I always had to call to find out when my pc was ready. Rather than him letting me know, I was pretty much in the dark with my updates unless I was proactive. his place may be good for data recovery as I see hard drive all over the place but for new gaming pcs from my experience was no help. $250 for still no resolution. If I knew this would have been the outcome I would have just went somewhere else, I've been to other computer repair centers where they only charge if they can fix it. Hopefully the next person has a better experience with this establishment. Update: I was able to fix the computer myself. I decided I would just try rebooting on windows 10 vs windows 11. Voila! Even more frustrating that I spent $250 and he didn't even offer this as an option. I searched this up on google and found some people with a similar issue. read more

JOSEF IS THE BEST. BAR NONE.He's not only a genuinely nice guy but also a seasoned professional with years of experience in the business. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. read more

He knows his stuff! Reasonable prices and fast turnarounds. He can advise you on all aspects of owning and maintaining a desktop or laptop. If it can be repaired, he will tell you, and if not, he can sell you what you need, newer, faster, and better. read more

Joseph was able to recover my hard drive even after my motherboard caught fire. I am a bookkeeper and needed to have a computer or I cant work and he had the hard drive data moved into a new laptop I bought in a matter of hours. Even checked on me next day to make sure it was running smoothly. Highly recommend if you want quality computer repair services. read more

Mixed feelings. He "fixed" (cleaned) my computer for free several times (that's why he doesn't get less). But the last I took it from him, it was broken more (?). The reason why, I put a question mark is that it started semi-working after he returned it. But what kinda annoys me is how he blamed me for telling him to keep looking at (which I didn't. I just said are you sure it's working because it would periodically freeze). Don't blame your customers. New computer. read more

I usually don't write reviews, simply because I am too busy. but today I went this place in panic and needed urgent help. I was happily surprised and amazed at the knowledge of owner and his kind support. He has been in business for more than 30 years and his store service is superb!! Mr. Joseph was extremely knowledgeable and friendly and resolved my problem in 5 min. I am computer savvy myself, but I had a problem that couldn't fix. I highly recommend this place to all the fellows and again appreciate their fast and effective service very much!! read more

sometimes the wait to get yr PC back is long. thats my only complaint. I have used his place for years. read more

Jospeh was very knowledgeable and helpful. He took prompt care of me and was instrumental in getting the exact solution I needed. He clearly has a strong orientation toward his customers. Thank you! read more

I use Joseph for all my computer needs. Granted they are not many and I only go in a couple times a year but he is honest, upfront and a very nice man. I've never had a problem with the work he has done for me thus why I return consistently. Pricing is fair and he will work with you. I recommend you try him out next time you need computer services and I'm sure you'll be happy with the results. read more

They no longer work on Brother Printers. Which unfortunately was not made known on their website. Alot of time wasted. However, the gentleman that spoke to me referred me to Signal Electronics a few blocks away. They are an authorized Brother repair shop. read more

Joseph is amazing, he is very knowledgeable and helpful. He helped me to find my laptop issues and fixed it in a day. Best customer service!

Joe is a superstar. He's been in this biz over 30 years, and he's hardworking & honest. We brought an early MacBook Air that was totally dead...he worked every trick in the book and found us a solution more cost-effective and kind than anything we could've imagined. Great deal, great service! read more

The computer repairman really went the extra mile to ensure I was satisfied. My laptop is an older model and wasn't working. Most repairmen would tell me it was beyond repair, requiring me to get a new one. However, this worker not only spent a lot of hours fixing the laptop, but also upgraded my hard drive to a terabyte and made my computer faster. Thanks! read more

Joseph saved me; motherboard died on the laptop I use for writing checks. He found a way to remove the hard drive from the failed motherboard, put it in a refurbished laptop; found the software I needed to work with that setup; got me up and running. He salvaged my entire operation and gave me a backup hard drive to put. Not only that, he's the most pleasant person with whom you'd ever want to deal. read more

Joseph has fixed numerous computers for me with different issues. His skills are versatile but the outcome is always the same: quality service done quickly and at a fraction of the price at other cen Update: Joseph is honest, quick, affordable and highly skilled. I never go anywhere else because he is so incredibly reliable. read more

Saw their 4 big sandwich board ads blocking the sidewalk as you walk on ocean blvd. It touted them as LA Weekly's best computer repair place for 2006. We spoke to them and they sounded reasonable. We explained to them that the reason we just dont buy new laptops (our were 2 yrs old) is that our business depends on them and we can't afford the down time needed to set up new systems with all the software. They charged us for labor and material for parts we did not want replaced (monitor is cracked but we told them we use external monitors anyway, they backed up my drive without asking me and put in a used one) and both computers came back with new problems and after 4 days, one of them completely shut down. They also had forgotten to put the smaller lid covering the hard drives on mine. We did not notice it because we just picked up the laptop and set in the car and later on the office desk without looking at the bottom. The lid had my name and email address, yet they did not bother contact us or did not realize the extra lid on their work bench. We took both back a few days later and they promised they would look into them. A week of phone calls went by and they had not even touched the damn things. They did not even have a clue what was wrong. One had a new audio playback issue and the curser would jump around in the middle of a sentence and the other was good for 4 days only. They had charged us $600 to repair the two laptops. I had to pay another computer repair business (rent-a-geek) $200 to fix my ac jack that they had damaged. The 2 weeks of down time and many trips to the shop and being told the issues were our fault was the worst part of this experience. read more

Amateur kiddie operation... Brought computer with virus. Guy says it's done. I show him evidence of virus. He takes it back and promises to wipe all data then replace it on computer because he clearly doesn't know how to remove a virus. Then some important data was MISSING...it was on the DESKTOP and should have been totally obvious. He didn' t save my bookmarks either and another computer guy said that he is NOT PROFESSIONAL IF HE DOES NOT DO THIS. Price is reasonable but I still want my money back because he screwed up my information! UPDATE: Shortly after I left this guy's "repair shop", my computer started turning off. Spontaneously. Then it wouldn't boot up AT ALL. I had to spend $150 getting my data recovered from the now-useless computer. I called Joseph asking for a refund since he caused so many problems. Now he starts screeching like a high school cheerleader having PMS. Says something about how he only gets paid for "time" not expertise. Excuse me? if you are advertising repair, you better darn well know what you are doing if you are charging money. I understand that he spent time, but if he waas just monkeying around instead of actually fixing-forget it. read more

Brought in my computer because it was running slow. Joseph totally handled my problem by putting in a new hard drive and moving all my files over. Computer is much faster now. His price was less than Best Buy and he got it back to be the same day. Very happy. read more

I'm surprised to read the 1-star review here and it does make me cautious about using them for anything Very Important. I used them a few weeks ago for a virus removal. I can't remember how much it was, just that it was cheaper than what the big-box retailers were charging for service from their "geek squads". They agreed on a fixed price, no matter how long it took them. They said if they couldn't remove the virus without reformatting my hard drive, I would not be charged. The virus was removed. None of my files were lost, they identified the virus, explained what they did to remove it, and installed new antivirus software. Total wait time was 48 hours from drop off to pickup. (Previously I had taken the laptop to a different outfit in Santa Monica, and they said that they would need to reformat the hard drive to remove the virus, for $200. How genius. My neighbor's three year old could do that.) Service was a little "haphazard". They reminded me of an indie film crew running behind schedule on a shoot, there was a ton of equipment moving back and forth, moderate to high levels of stress, and some tense exchanges between crew members. But shit got done. They "got the shot". They also offered the following other services: - RAM upgrade - Operating system upgrade - Back up files, re-install applications (if you have the install CDs) In general I got a feeling that they knew what they were doing despite being a bit disorganized. read more

I had only expert service from Joseph when he worked on my computers. In fact, he even retrieved an old Dell computer files when the Big Box Electronics store could not. I was so glad that he had retrieved it and very happy that I had saved the computer all these years. Figured that one of these day, some experienced tech could retrieve it. He has always priced it for one price -- its important prior to leaving your computer, is to make sure what the fixed price Joseph is going to charge, no matter how long it takes him to remove the virus - or at least a ball park price prior to you leaving it with him -- or better yet, to ask him over the phone prior to coming over with your computer; and the date that he can get it done. Give him the price of the Big Box Electronics store or the Big Box Office supply store and he will be higher, but worth the price. Also mark all your computer and cords with your name so that it does not get lost. Most of the time Joseph has the cord for the major computers he works on. If you're really nice, he will give "extra" service without any charge. My friend and myself had two computers we bought on Saturday -- the prior to Thanksgiving, and he has it ready for us on the following Saturday; you have to remember that Thursday was Thanksgiving and alot of businesses are closed on Friday -- but he came in on Thanksgiving to work on our computers to get it ready by Saturday. read more

I dropped off my laptop to be fixed due to water damage in the beginning of December 2020 and he told me that he would be able to fix it by as early as the beginning of January 2021, I was hopeful...until January came and he told me he had to order the parts required from China since he couldn't find any nearby, so he stated it would be fixed by the end of January or sometime in February...then February arrived and he told me he was shipped the wrong parts, so he has to wait for them to come in and promised that it would be repaired by March...then March came and he's still waiting for the parts to arrive and I had notified him that I would be moving at the end of the month, so I wouldn't be in the area anymore, so he said he would have it fixed by then and if he couldn't fix it, he would buy me a new one. At that point, I just wanted my laptop back, I didn't care if it was fixed or not, I was planning on getting a new one anyways, I was just tired from being fed a "monthly subscription" of false promises and hopes. I asked if I could just pick up the laptop even if it wasn't repaired and I would gladly pay for the parts, but the owner refused. Now it's April and I have not heard a word back since then. The customer service quality began to drop every month I would call in for an update where a big sigh would always accompany the owner's response. College students working a minimum wage job beware! I was a fool for not listening to this establishment's old Yelp reviews. I should've stuck with the Geek Squad appointment I had that day rather than leading myself into this trap. read more

Joseph was great, did a diagnostic of my computer and had me fixed up in a couple of hours! I was frantic since I work from home so being with my computer is critical when I said I needed it right away he had it back in two hours. Highly recommend Computer Business Center. read more

Joseph the owner of Computer Business Center is a very nice man. I brought into his shop three lap tops, two were running really slow the other had a strange program on the desk top which I could not close. He took the time to listen to my concerns, look at the lap tops and advise me the best way to go price wise to fix them. Two laps tops are now super fast and the weird desk top program gone. Fast service. Highly recommend. read more

I wouldn't trust this company to replace a battery in a kid's toy, never mind work on a computer. Avoid this place like the plague! Joseph might be nice but this business has no right to work on computers. I brought two laptops in at the same time to be repaired. The first one had issues with Windows XP, I believe from viruses. He said he re-installed windows and all should be fine. It cost over $200 just to have a bootleg version of windows that couldn't be updated and constantly warned it was unauthentic. It's illegal not to install authentic products and for that cost it should have been legit! We eventually just replaced the laptop. The second laptop had sticky keys on the keyboard from a soda incident. Not only did it take over a month to fix because he realized he couldn't find a Sony Vaio keyboard and couldn't clean the old one, but he destroyed the inside of the laptop. The metal framing was so damaged that the keys worked worse after the repair. He took a $1800 laptop that needed to be cleaned and spent a month destroying it. At least he only charged me $100 for make it worthless! read more

Perfect. Excellent service. Needed a rare cable. They had it waiting for me when I arrived.

I don't usually write reviews but I feel a warning to potential customers here is important. I would only bring your computer here if you are elderly or completely computer illiterate and need something VERY simple done and feel like being over-charged to have nothing done at all. I brought my computer in to have them clone my 128gig ssd to my new 256gig ssd drive. Simple enough - or so I thought. I was shocked when he told me it would be $150.00 for what would literally take about two hours. I got him down to $100.00 and even that was expensive. What made it even worse is that he was pretending like he was giving me a good deal and told me to be quite so the other employee wouldn't hear "what a great deal" I was getting. This guy I was taling to was clearly the owner and the guy "he didn't want to hear" was a technician and wearing headphones. Right away I knew he was trying to give me the run around. If this was my car this technique might have worked because I know nothing about cars! I do however know quite a bit about computers. He told me it would take three days - THREE DAYS to run a piece of software that would be finished and really do all the work for him in about two hours. I stupidly agreed to do it. He then told me they were very informal and to only write my first name and phone number on a torn sticky piece of paper. No invoice, no work order, no nothing, if he decided to steal my computer or simply not remember what was mine or lose that little one inch sticky piece of paper I would be out a computer. Fast forward three days later- no phone call from him so I decide to go in and see what's up. I ask when my computer will be ready - I see it sitting on the counter, the same place i left it. He tries giving me the run around again and I tell him I absolutely need it by tomorrow at 11am. He says that tomorrow he's gonna be coming in late so he will work on it late tonight. He phrased in such a way where he was trying to make it seem as if he was doing me a favor. He also claimed to have worked on it and said the clone would not work and he would need to format the drive and install it that way which is not at all what I wanted/needed I can do that myself. He didn't even call me to tell me that or ask if it that was going to be okay. He was going to format both drives effectively screwing me over and losing all my files and programs. So I said thank you very much grabbed my computer and left. A few hours later I have now done myself what he claimed was not possible in about an hours time. So to recap I would say if you feel like dealing with a dishonest computer repair store who will give you the run around then please visit computer business center on pico in santa monica so you can get ripped off/have your computer ruined. The only thing these guys are good for is running Anti-Virus softwear that you could run yourself. ZERO STARS. read more

I highly recommend The Computer Repair Genius Joseph and Computer Business Center in Santa Monica. He has been helping me with any and all computer problems i have had for years and there has never been a time when he could not fix the problem. I always show up freaking out that my computer has gone hay wire and he calms me down, fixes it perfectly as quick as he can and gives me a beyond fast price. This last time - my keyboard broke. He gave me a new keyboard, more memory, updated my operating system all in a few short hours and my computer is working better then ever. I actually live half the year in NY but wait until i'm back in CA to fix any computer issues I have so that Joseph can do it because I totally trust him. read more

I don't like to write bad reviews, but this was the worse experience I ever had. The gentleman that "fixed" my laptop said he has no unhappy customers, but that's the first lie he will tell you. Originally my laptop screen's right posterior and anterior parts were separating, so I needed them to be sealed, he claimed he will be able to get fixed by the weekend. What really happened is I had to call him twice a week to remind him about my laptop and it took him about month, to do a D- job, he ended up just puting visible nails through the opening parts, and placed visible black duct tape from top to bottom and left and right to hold it together, I could of done this myself. originally I wasn't going to write a review because he claimed he lost money by giving me discount of charging me 100 instead of 125, but when I tried to video chat with my friends on facebook not only my microphone didn't work, but my camera wouldn't work either! In conclusion if you want to get someone that doesn't care about your product and brings your more issues than you had in the first place, than this place is perfect for you, otherwise your better of anywhere else. read more

I brought Joseph my old, slow 2004 Compaq with a bad hard drive and now it works better than new!. Very high quality work, super nice folks.

My laptop was very noisy. I neede a new fan. Joseph replaced the fan and installed a new solid state drive to replace my old optical drive. Now my laptop is lightening fast and quiet! This was all done same day which was great because I use my laptop for work. He has been in business for 28 years. That alone lets you know has a lot of experience. read more

As always Joseph to the rescue. I used to buy my computers used on Craigslist because it was cheap but with CBC I pay few bucks more instead I get the support. read more

Joseph rescued my Dell Inspiron twice, for a reasonable price, and when its hard drive finally crashed completely, swapped out the old one, installed Windows 7 (my preference over 8) and more memory, PLUS sold me a reconditioned Toshiba Satellite, also with Windows 7, for less than the price of a new laptop. So now I have two clean laptops ready to go. He's funny and kind and always takes his time with me. Don't go to Staples or Best Buy: use this place for great results and a more-than-fair deal. read more

Joseph rescued my laptop. I was frozen out of my own computer after an adware attack. He fixed the problem and installed a solid state hard drive that made my computer go 10x faster! He takes pride in his work and is careful with my money. read more

I recommend Joseph's work whenever I can. I trust him and his work. I have used his services with my last 3 computers and wouldn't go anywhere else. He is thorough, quick, friendly, clear and an expert. Very grateful for this biz !!! read more

Joseph of CBC is a genius with computers, but he is also the most pleasant person I have ever met to deal with in this business. He can diagnose the problem with minimal investigation. He is fast, honest, and very reasonable. And, it seems like he is always there, working. Even on weekends! You just won't find anyone to compare with Joseph. read more

I have asked Joseph - the owner of the shop many times for some hardware related issues and he was always ready to help. Be it connectors for video card, be it sudden shutdowns of the computer, and things turned out to be as he said. Thank you Joseph. read more

Joseph has built and taken care of all my computers since 1994. He also provides support for my laptops now. He is a master and I highly recommend him to anyone who wants a new computer built or computer repairs. He also transfers all my data to the new box seamlessly. This saves so much time since I do not need to back up my data and then upload it into a new box. I think he can fix anything actually. He is also a very good person, honest and has very fair pricing. Finally, he is always available to support what he builds or repairs and it always a pleasure stopping in to see him. read more