SonicRL

A friend and I have decided to open a little computer repair shop in one of our basements. We are opening one as an extra source of income and because in our town, computer repair shops really want to pull out your teeth with their prices. One shop costs you $40 to install hardware in your computer like memory, a second HDD, and the such.

We would like to know what are the basic things we will need to get started. Things like what kind of tools to get, what to price things, and what kind of parts to get in advance, and where to get really cheap software and OSes. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

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Redjake

I would get some screwdrivers

I'd pick up some floppy drives, IDE ribbon cables, and the such.

Some RAM.

I'd get some shock bracelets too.

What you want to charge is up to you, but the guys in my hometown used to charge 79.99 per hour to fix computers. I hated that guy.

Carry some PSUs as well.

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ToolBag

Yeah, I would buy up any cheap computers and computer parts you see, if you see a $2 floppy drive, get it, because youll need stuff to trouble shoot with. Another thing is if you get a business liscense then you can probably get some good whole sale discounts from people like newegg and act as a re-seller. You can look online or at Best Buy for some tool kits that come with different sizes of screw drivers and anti-static bracelets. Software should work like hardware, you should be able to get a business liscense and then get whole discount prices. The list can really go on and on if you want to be serious about it, but the imporant thing is to get a shit load of cheap parts, cheap computers at expos or e-bay. If you are not sure about every problem you may encounter, might want to pick up a Hardware/Repair book too.

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MontanaXVI

Totally my suggestion and take it how you wish, but in the basement type of shop is not some place i would take my PC. Maybe look into renting out a small booth at a flea market or something that way you can browse for deals and maybe get a feel for the competition all the while getting your name out there to a few more people than would just happen to see an ad and realize its a basement.

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Redjake

I would rather someone in a basement fix my computer than someone at a flea market

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bltzkriegmcanon

Roger that, I'd want to have demonstrations at a small convention or something. There's just something about an open-air flea market that just turns me off to computer repair. I can see it. 486's lined up as far as the eye can see. All of the owner's want you to make the graphics work so they can play the games. Or add 40 gibblebytes of memory so they can use the internet. Yikes. Yeah, while the idea a flea market might be a good business draw, who knows what kind of business you might get from it?

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JohnnyRoyale

OK, if you're serious about starting a buisness, first thing you want to do is find the nearest SBA (Small Buisness Administration) office, or go on the web to http://www.sba.gov . Go there, find out all you can about home/part time buisnesses. There are tax implications (extra deductions for using home space as an office), insurance (homeowner's may not cover an accident in your basement if it's work related). Find someone to talk to, ask lots of questions.

Next, you'll want to do field research. Call other repair shops, see what they're charging, want kind of warrnaty they put on their work. That'll give you a range to price at.

Finally, you'll need money. Advertising costs. So does setting up a company (even a partnership, part time). You can ask at the SBA office, but you might want to consider how you're going to pay for parts you need, how you're going to pay people for their work, etc...

Just a few thoughts, as I file my incorporation papers myself.

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Crack

Do you have any certification, or just experience? It might be good to get an A+ or equiv, just to keep the customers happy when they come into your shop, they can see something hanging on the wall saying you can actually do what you are charging for. It would also be good for ads as well;
"All of our technicians are CompTia A+ certified..."

Also, what happens if the work-load becomes too much, sending customers away is the very worst thing a new busniess can do aside from charging too much. Will you be able to hire part-time help if this occurs? Can you pay said help?
Have fun whatever you do, and good luck!

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poof

I'm going to be blunt here; if you must ask these questions about equiptment and are working from your basement, maybe this is not the way for you to make a living right now. You might be handy at setting up machines for yourself, but, are you good enough to offer a quick turnaround on my machine with a warranty? You have a nice aspiration, but since the dotcom crash, unemployed computer folks are a dime a dozen and they have the skills and probably the startup capital you don't. Well, unless they sucked it all up in Mountain Dew and are paying student loans.

Good Luck with your venture, it doesn't hurt to try, unless you are making the mortgage payments on the basement.

Redjake

that's what I was gonna say, but I didn't want to hurt any feelings. if you don't know what tools to by, perhaps you aren't quite up to par with today's standards of computer services........no offense I wouldn't do this unless you are considerably more skilled than what the first post made it look like People get really shitty in public, if their computers are fixed perfectly, or if something goes wrong, it's your fault, and the customer is always right. You have to be skillz out the wazoo to keep up!

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MontanaXVI

gfaaahhkkkkk


dinnit want that to come out the way it did, well not a flea market per say but some sort of a computer expo or the such advertising your shop first just to gauge an interest and see how much the rent on a small office suite or somethig would be......

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propaganda

My basement sorry for the late post.

We really don't plan to make much out of this. It's more of a way to learn about a wide variety of PCs and problems that we could encounter.

For those tools... I have no idea how that got there. Not that hard to know you need a screwdriver and an ESD bracelet.

SonicRL

I know it's not hard to find out you need a screw driver and an ESD bracelet. I just wanted to know if there was anything else that was really needed. Although I should have really mentioned that in my first post.

Anyways, thanks for all the replies. We will have to consider this idea of ours a little more.

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Blistex

Things you'll need to be effective.

A barebones PIII, P4, AMD, AMD XP systems (troubleshooting units)
A CD-RW (for backing up people's crap)
A few HD's (for extra fast installation of common software)
A few hardware 56k modems (people always need them)
A few 10/100 Nic's (people love to network their PC's)

If you're really strung for cash you can change over all the hardware between the 4 barebones systems so as to not have to buy 4 videocards, HD's, and the rest of the stuff.

And a Win 95, 98, 98 SE, ME, NT, 2k, XP Home, XP Pro for those people who leave their CD's at home when you need them for hardware and software installations.

merkerguitars

I'm a reseller

look at this thread for tools needed [url]http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44428

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