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I get it. Times are hard for some people now - with inflation and an ailing economy. I feel it just as much as they do. But, I feel conflicted about repairing old, slow PCs for people when I know it is just a waste of money - especially when they have been dragging the PC along for 8 or 10 years.

At what point do you just say “Nope. I will not fix your PC because it is a waste of your money to do so”?

I have been updating a 2010 laptop with 4 GB RAM that was cheap even back then for the past 2.5 hours. There is no way that doing a Windows 10 Home update should take that long. And I have to charge for my time, but I feel bad doing it.

I went out and looked up the 2 cheapest laptops that Walmart sells - a refurb for $296 with 4GB RAM like the laptop he has and Walmart’s cheapest new laptop with at least a 15" screen and 8 GB RAM for $407 . Then I checked the Passmark CPU benchmarks for his laptop vs those 2 - that’s the image at the top.

It just doesn’t make sense to pay someone to fix an old PC when the cost of the repair is 50% or more of the cost of a newer, better PC.

As bad as I feel about it, I think this is my last PC repair/tune-up on anything 5 years old or older. I don’t feel good about working on them and I don’t feel good about charging to work on them.

So what is your cut-off point?

39 Spice ups
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Honestly I used to feel bad for people if their PC was old. I would say, OK it costs $X to fix it, but a new one that is faster is $x+y

Generally speaking though people make bad decisions. I had one guy that brought the same computer back to me 4 times each time he managed to install the same malware back onto the computer. I was like, I don’t want to see this thing again - when will you realize you can’t go back to that website?

Its one of the reasons I stopped working on personal machines. I started working with SMBs and things got better. Usually successful small businesses are practical with their money, but understand the time value of money. If you tell them its going to take 2 hours to fix, they get it. If you say its going take 6 hours to fix it and its really not worth it - they get it.

I remember working on a 3 year old laptop that was bottom configured, the owner managed to work the power connector lose on it. It was 124 screws to get to the motherboard, and resolder the power connector ($8 for the electronic part shipped from Ebay to solder on). I was like I quoted 2 hours, and it took me 4.

He brought it back to me a month later, and I was like I can’t do this again. I’d have to charge you for my actual time.

It was a bad design, the package wasn’t held in the frame, all the stress translated directly to the solder joints on the motherboard.

You sometimes have to do it on a case by case basis.

10 Spice ups
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Some people have old software that will not transfer and costs $5000 to upgrade. For those, I clone to an SSD and add memory, letting them know that any other component could fail without warning, negating the upgrade. So far, those turds are still running.

Gregg

6 Spice ups
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Yup 10 years is definitely the upper limit.

When a SSD can’t fix it it’s time for new hardware.

Even reinstalling Windows is a chore as its never the “same”, “things have moved”, “That’s not where I had it” .

Had a relative who was very fond of her AIO PC from 2007, HDD was IDE so no chance. Even now the new replacement is “broken” even thought its much faster and it isn’t. Even went through hell to get the exact PPI monitor of her old device because she hates change so much

4 Spice ups
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You are charging the time you are waiting for an update to install?
Doining a Windows 10 Home update is just a few mouse clicks.
While the update is installing and taking 2-3 hours, you can do other things right? So why charge that time?
It doesn’t feel right…

8 Spice ups
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I quit working on PCs as a side business when people just would not listen to me any more. They would bring the PC back saying it was my fault that it didn’t work anymore and expect me to work in it for free because I was the last person to “do anything to it”.

10 Spice ups
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@biscuitking ​ Reason I never got into helping people outside of work. If I did, it would be free, because then what can they say.

12 Spice ups
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It is usually just friends and family that asks me for suggestions. If it is 5 yrs or older then I just recommend them to upgrade the HDD to SSD for 50-100 bucks and get a year or 2 out of it for light usage.

4 Spice ups
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I usually don’t work on anything that’s older than three to four years. Especially if the specs were a little on the “cheap” side to begin with. Anything that has a Windows 7/8 sticker on it will usually get passed on. You can still find great deals on machines and components, and I’ve seen a downward trend on “gaming” components these past couple weeks.

5 Spice ups
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Maybe I’m just missing something here but to me, this seems like a super easy resolution.

You already have some modern solutions priced out and you know what the outcome of “fixing” the current PC would likely be. Just have a discussion with the owner and tell them “Hey, this PC is at a point where further improving or repairing it will yield little to no results. For the cost of those repairs, you could nearly pay for entire new laptop.”

.

I do repairs on the side as well for some folks and I can tell you the number 1 reason people don’t opt for new hardware is solely because “all my stuff is on THIS one though… and I don’t want to move it.”

So instead of charging the guy 200+ to make meaningless repairs to the laptop, tell him if he spends that money buying the new laptop that you’ll charge him $50 to migrate all his stuff.

11 Spice ups
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We keep several refurbished systems in the front of the store.

Whenever a PC that is questionable comes in for repair, we run the costs for the customer against the cost of the refurb plus the cost of moving over the user data.

Armed with that knowledge, it is up to the customer if they want to spend their money.

The ethics question is not your judgement on the machine, it is the customer that has the right knowledge making a decision about their money.

Your responsibility is not to decide for the customer what is or is not worth fixing.

Your responsibility is in making sure the customer has the right knowledge to make an informed decision.

If they want that NT workstation up and running, great. As long as they understand the decision.

You may find in some circumstances that the customer has information that you do not have that make the decision to repair an older machine the most logical choice.

My earlier mentioned NT workstations are the only OS that will work with the custom interfaces the customer has in their mill. It would cost him tens of thousands to change the interfaces out, so it is well worth it to him to continue spending extra for an antique to work on his antique.

10 Spice ups
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I would just be honest with them and tell them its not worth repairing past a certain point factoring what it is being used for as well. If the customer still wants it repaired then you can do it. If the customer wants to look onto a new laptop, point them in the right direction for their needs. At the end of the day, the customer makes the final decision to repair or not repair. Most customers I have worked with in the past appreciated the honesty especially when its sincere and your not trying to sell them another one to them directly, or if you are, you show honest worth to cost comparisons.

2 Spice ups
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Same here. If I were to charge you for my time, you wouldn’t be able to afford it, and I hate being called out of the blue for issues.

2 Spice ups
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When I was at Best Buy, I would frequently advise people that a new computer would be a better, more cost effective, solution than repairing their old computer. I also let them know some of the additional expenses/frustrations that would come with a new computer (needs new software, data transfer, learning curve with new OS, etc.). About half of the time people would thank me for the advise and still have the repair done. As long as I impartially educated them on the benefits and drawbacks of each option, the decision was up to them, and whatever they chose was their choice. I never felt bad because I knew that I had given the client the choices available to them, and the decision was theirs.

7 Spice ups
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And this is why I fix printers, minimal OS setup to mess up, none in most cases. Just make the print pretty on the page. And you computer guys mock me. HA!

9 Spice ups
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I guess that depends if you are charging or not. Personally I don’t think anything belie i7 is worth it.

1 Spice up
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They probably were thinking:
“Right,… He is trying to sell me a new computer, because he’s getting commision on the sales of a new computer. I won’t fall for that.”

2 Spice ups
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‘Ethics’ doesn’t come into it at all. If a customer wants to repair their 386… you outline the options, they make their decision, and you do what they ask if they’re paying the costs. :wink: I picked out an HP laptop for one of our employees back in 2009/2010. It still runs like a tank, but was getting a bit slower as new software was mandated for use over the old. I gave him the options, but he really wanted to keep to his Windows 7 and current hardware. So for $120CDN I bought him a Kingston 512GB SSD and an extra 4GB of RAM from a local shop to bring him up to 8GB. Now the system (Core i5, IIRC) is pretty fast, especially compared to what it used to be like! Even a cheap SSD is a requirement for any upgrade to an old system, when you can get them for $40-$60!

7 Spice ups
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For me, most of those 10 ish year old computers still run pretty well if you stick an SSD in them and the CPU still runs Windows 10. If components are dying on them, I won’t fix or replace them if I don’t have the parts available. If the repair cost more than the value of the device is my cut off.

6 Spice ups
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Wow - no way I’d do that - $50 for what could be hours of moving stuff.

If I’m just hooking up the old drive to the new system and copying the data into a folder - OK fine, but that’s almost never useful to a normal user. you have to put their data back in all the right places - not for $50 I don’t.

1 Spice up