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Walked into a big box store in Denver and saw their 'repair center' was just a guy with a heat gun and a tube of thermal paste.
I was picking up some solder and saw the line. They charge $80 for a 'diagnostic' and their main fix for anything that won't boot is re-pasting the CPU. No proper meter on the bench, just that one trick. It's a racket that gives our whole trade a bad name. How many of you have seen these quick-fix shops pop up, and what's the real cost to customers when the actual fault is a bad cap or a shorted mosfet they never even check for?
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paige_martin2mo ago
Wait they charge eighty bucks just to spread paste and call it a diagnosis? That's not even a real fix, that's just a guess. The customer pays for a "repair" but the actual broken part is still in there waiting to fail. How does a shop sleep at night knowing they sent out a ticking time bomb?
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You mentioned the real cost when they miss a bad cap. The scary part is data loss. That "repaired" PC with a failing drive gets sold back as fixed, then dies a week later with family photos gone forever. They're not just overcharging, they're creating e-waste and destroying personal history for a quick eighty bucks.
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lane.drew3mo ago
Totally get that. I mean, I'd probably be the guy who missed the cap and then felt awful about it for weeks.
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