Never go here.
1. They tamper with the hardware without authorization, intentionally causing minor failures to induce customers to bring it back, and potentially rip them off on repair & replacement.
2. I highly suspect that they install faulty software and suggest replacement on perfectly good hard drives (mainly) and other hardware.
Here's the full story.
My colleague's computer caught some malware, antivirus could not completely remove, so we needed a clean reformat.
Normally I'd do it myself, but didn't have time to spare, so I took it here for a simple reformat, windows and misc programs installation.
It had no problems before, never had any services done anywhere.
The guy called a couple hours later, saying something's wrong with the cpu fan, offering to open it up to check it out. Knowing full well that some repair shops like to swap out some parts or intentionally cause minor hardware failures to rip off repair & replacement costs, i told him not to open it, that i will check it out later.
Next day i picked it up, plugged it in, cpu fan failure as he mentioned. I took it down to open it up, then i notice scratch marks around the outer shell, signs of breech. Like i mentioned, this computer is relatively new, never had any service, and no one in the company knows how to open it up besides myself.
Regardless, I tried to log into Windows and see if anything else is wrong, but I'm stuck in a diagnosis loop, suggesting hard drive or system file failure. So I checked hardware and temperatures in settings. No sign of hardware swap, thank God, but CPU temperature is 45-55 in idle state. Not possible unless it's been unplugged or otherwise disabled.
I immediately suspected foul play, called them asking if he opened up, but of course he denies it. Later i took it there, showing him the scratch marks. Now he (the owner) claims that he merely began to open it up before calling me, and stopped when i told him no. About the fan and system failures, he blamed the hard drive and that it needs to be replaced.
First, it makes no sense that you would BEGIN opening it up, then ask for permission in the middle of it. Second, it makes no sense that a perfectly normal computer's CPU fan would suddenly stop working upon re-formatting. Third, not everything is the hard drive's fault, bro.
I asked him to remove the cover in front of me, to check for any tampering. He refused, saying that it's a 3-4 hour process just to open it up. I called his bullshit, and he was very offended that I was suggesting foul play, offered my money back, and told me to open it up myself and prove my point.
I'd never opened up an All-in-one before, so I wasn't 100% sure about his "3-4 hour" claim, so I backed off a bit, taking the money, telling him I will open it up and inspect, then get back to him.
I came home with it, opened it up and voila, CPU fan pin is unplugged. So I took a picture of it, plugged back in, made sure everything else is in order, then sealed it back up.
The entire process took about 30 minutes.
Today I brought it back to the office, powered it up, CPU fan problem is solved (obviously), but system still fails. So I clean-reinstalled Windows, now everything runs fine, as it did before I took it to their shop.
I tried calling them to let them know of the whole process and tell him not to mess with customers, but no answer. They have caller ID, so I'm assuming they're intentionally not answering.
Bottom line: use certified services only, not local jack asses like them. read more