No stars. They had our laptop for a week with prepay $57. Called multiple times and finally a tech…read moresaid - the battery is bad. We told him the battery is new and was charging fine at home. Oh, then it's the motherboard. Did they even diagnose? Lost our trust right there. Said they would call the next day with price. Did not call. We picked it up and it's worse than when we dropped it off.

Our largely trouble free desktop computer running Window XP for the past 12 years was having start…read moreup issues. I brought the computer in and met Matt and described the problem. Matt said it could be the motherboard and/or the drive. I protested and told him the computer had no inconsistencies on the drive, no malware, no viruses. He replied "you are talking about psychotherapy and the patient needs a liver transplant." Immediately I appreciated his wry dry humor. I shared with him a parts build I had put together for a custom computer which we wanted to go forward with in September of 2017. For now we wanted a fix to tide us over until then. He warned if it was determined the problem was the motherboard there was no solution for us; he could not get another since ours was 8 generations old; not even an OEM version. The next day he called with devastating news. It indeed was the motherboard. He sent via email pictures of four blown capacitors on the board. At that point I was very fearful that we would lose all our data despite having it all backed up onto an external Western Digital drive via Acronis. I shared that our most important desire was to save all personal documents from each of our (my wife and I) respective profiles and twelve years of music on iTunes. I had just spoken with a support technician at Apple who told me since our version of iTunes was old, the music could not be downloaded into their newest version. Matt said that would depend on the condition of the hard drive, something he would know after examining it. He determined that the surface of the drive was damaged but the hardware supporting the drive was intact. He observed it was a good thing we brought it in since he surmised there was about seven days use out of it left. He did not guarantee he could do what we asked but felt confident he could. My parts list totaled $2,900. Matt went over each component and made recommendations for changes. When we were done my parts list was reduced to $2,100. The price reduction did not represent compromised performance; quite the contrary. With the graphics card I had originally listed Matt said it needs to run at 70 to 80 percent of capacity and if I were not using it in that manner I would not see the benefit whereas I would see MORE performance out of a card that cost less but was more accurately matched for intended use; horses for courses, and so it went with each part including the case. Matts reasoning was so clear it inspired confidence. I pulled my parts from Parts Picker. As I was "building" the computer with each addition of a part the site had a pop up that said "there are no incompatibilities" and continued to say so until the end. Matt said he did see where based on his experience there could be some parts that did not play well with one another. He agreed that the Corsair Vengeance series that was recommended to me over the higher level Corsair Domination Series was less troublesome. I told him that my goal was stability and at the same time although we are not gamers, we wanted a machine that was ultra-fast. He did what is called "active listening" and recommended a top of the line component that would meet those needs. HAPPY ENDING. Matt was able to rescue all of our personal documents and our iTunes library put into the latest version; a Miracle and we are so grateful. I knew he was not using hyperbole when he said "you will feel as if you have gone from a Model T to the Jetsons." Experiencing the truth of what he said was something else entirely. Per my request he installed the ESET Internet Security software that I purchased and brought to him. He also installed Microsoft Office Home and Business 2016 as well as Windows 10 Home 64 bit. Matt shared in our excitement and it was palpable. There is something special to be said when someone is excited about building something for you; good energy going into the product. All the above is a very long winded way of describing someone who is adept at what he does and at the same time able to communicate what he does effectively, honestly and compassionately; a rare trifecta of skill sets in any business but especially in the world of technology. That Matt cared about us as people was evident at every point along the way. By that I mean he did not see us as customers only; someone to add to the profit margin. For all intents and purposes, Matt IS Madison Geeks. If he went elsewhere we would follow him. Kahlal Cunningham, CEO of Madison Geeks would do well to make Matt a partner. If we had not had the conversations we had with Matt and the trust he established with us, a $3,000 custom built computer would never have been built. Had we not had the numerous consultative conversations no work order would have been placed with Madison Geeks; it goes without saying that building a custom computer is not the same as putting money in a candy machine and out comes the candy bar.