This is perhaps the second most asked question that my customers ask. I use to recommend Toshiba’s based on personal experience and quality. After spending a week fixing nothing but Toshiba’s, I now think that you really need to stay away from the low-end Toshiba’s, just like all the other manufacturers. Notice the hyphenated keywords: LOW-END.

But, so customers and others can do their own research, I present one of the papers that I regularly talk about in those one on one “What should I buy” situations.

eBay’ers will recognize SquareTrade. If you don’t know who they are, they’re a “middle man” company that settles a lot of high end transactions so no one gets the short end of the stick. They also provide warranties to some customers, which is where the data comes from.

Now, you will see a brand called ASUS listed in the study, which you’ll also see listed on our homepage (we’re a partner). I love this brand, they make decent electronics, servers, and they even started the NetBook craze. Historically, I wouldn’t recommend them since most people don’t know the brand name, which typically causes the “WHO?!” conversation, but that’s changed.

So, an introduction is due, in case you’ve never heard about them: ASUS has been around since 1990, but hasn’t really branched out until the last 3 to 4 years. As of now though, they handle about 29% of all motherboards in machines for Dell, Apple, Toshiba and others… Food for thought.

Again, this is a LAPTOP study, not a desktop study. There are certain laptops that I cringe at hearing about (HP DV series laptops are the top cringe-causing laptops), but I’ll recommend certain desktops on occasion as well. I need to find more comprehensive desktop study to publish before openly talking about them.
Justin

We received a call yesterday evening, just before closing up the shop and I wanted to share a little bit of info in case anyone else has this type of problem.

The caller stated that they had a DV series HP laptop and they had just cracked the screen. Unfortunately, it happens. We have a nice cracked screen on our wall to show what happens and how flimsy these screens really are…. The caller wanted to know if it was replaceable.

The call went downhill and only lasted about 2 minutes from there, mostly due to information I gave out. Instead of simply stating “YES!” and having the customer bring it by, I was open and honest:

The screens cost around $100 for this model (retail, we probably could be able to do it for less depending on the model and what exactly is cracked), then add the $70 labor fee on top of that since we have to pull the screen area completely apart. The caller was looking at $140-$170 worth of a bill for a laptop that could be several years old.

On top of this, I mentioned that the DV series of laptops tend to overheat and I don’t know if it would be worthwhile to put money into a computer that has a horrid record with “frying” itself. The caller stated that their laptop did have a history of overheating. We talked for a few more seconds and we got off the phone.

In that 2 minutes, I may have lost a decent amount of money, but overall, the caller may have saved money that they could put towards a new computer. Sure, I could have taken the money, only to have the machine possibly fail anywhere from 2 weeks to another year out, but we’re talking a quarter of a new laptop, just to replace the screen… Not worth it, in my opinion.

Now, I know it’s hard to say that, especially in this economy, but we’re talking bang for the buck. Have we replaced screens, motherboards, etc. when it would have been better for the customer to just buy new? Yes, but we look at each situation and try to determine what is ultimately better for the customer and their situation.
Justin

Today’s post is brought to you by the physical security side of me. There are days when I just don’t feel like waiting for the coffee maker, so I stop at a local coffee shop on the way in to work. Today, I noticed something next to me that just made me shake my head. While I love Beaverton, it’s not a perfect place with no crime. I’ve lived all over the world – I have yet to find that “perfect” place.

Anyway, when I pulled up to the coffee shop, this is the exact view I had while stepping out of the Protocol16 truck.

This laptop was left in a vehicle, where it could have been easily snatched by nearly anyone willing to break a window out - or simply open the door.

In Germany, this situation is a legal one as well. The law there states that this is “temptation of theft”. That means that any would-be thief can actually sue YOU for tempting him/her to steal your property.

I understand that you can’t watch your belongings 24/7. I know that there are times when you must leave things, like laptops, in your car, but don’t do it like this. The rear of this vehicle was tinted. Simply placing it in the back seat would have been 100 times better than this. Under the seat is an even better option, but in a bag, or with something covering it is probably best.

Please be careful with your laptops, especially when it comes to physical security. Something like this takes seconds to disappear and it can have such a profoundly negative effect on your life, it’s not worth doing.
Justin

Over the last few weeks, Microsoft has been researching reports that state that Windows 7 has been ruining batteries. Well, two days ago, they came out with an update stating that Windows 7 is not ruining the batteries, this is all part of the plan.

If you want a heafty read, look over this long post by Microsoft on their blog. It basically states that Windows 7 uses internal reporting in the batteries to determine when your battery has started going downhill. They set this alert up when 60% of the battery has effectively failed. This means that when you charge your battery, you only get 40% of the original charge, even though the battery says it’s 100% charged. This situation ends up with a 100% charged battery lasting only 45 minutes when it use to last almost 3 hours when it was new.

So, it’s not Windows, but your battery that you need to consider replacing. Most batteries retail for approximately $99. This is one reason I buy an extra battery every time I purchase a new laptop.
Justin

Over the last few days, we’ve had a rash of calls from home based customers, which we call “Residential”. One of the first questions that people typically as is: “Do you work with regular people at home?” or something similar.

The answer: YES. Protocol16 works with both business and residential customers. While we cater to the business side of things, with all their servers, workstations and more – we do service residential customers with the same customer service as the business side.

Shopping local these days is a mantra many are repeating over and over. While Protocol16 competes with larger named companies, one of which mere blocks away from the home office (and it’s got a lot of horrid reviews…), there are several national companies that are franchised locally. You may not know it, but several of the other computer repair companies are franchised national companies (read: behind the scenes, there are Corporate bean counters, full marketing departments supporting a few people, etc).

Unfortunately, this mess is about to get just a little larger. It seems that Wal-Mart has decided to dive into the computer repair market to compete with the Geek Squad and other local businesses like Protocol16.

While there a few Wal-Mart’s in Oregon, there are several other competitors that I consistently hear complaints about. With Wal-Mart jumping into the fray, it shows a trend that I have been noticing as well – people are much more thrifty now. Many of my customers are opting to fix older computers rather than buy a new one – and I have no problem with that. Spending a little less money to limp a computer along another year is worth it for a lot of people in Portland, especially those still job hunting.

My main problem with the national competitors is that I’m seeing a huge trend of misinformation or a lot of installs lacking quality. While I don’t want to be specific on the things I’m seeing or who did it, there is a huge difference in quality depending on who works on your computer. It seems that the quality is directly related to two things:

1. Quality of employees. This is actually directly related to the amount of pay someone is getting. Myself, as well as other business owners, have noticed that the quality of applicants takes a nose dive at a specific dollar amount. Any company operating under that dollar amount is opening themselves up to a huge amount of applicants that are under-qualified to work on computers. Oddly, many of the companies operating under that dollar amount charge MORE than Protocol16 does.
2. The size of the company. The amount of employees causes a few problems. The environment is not cohesive to new and brilliant ideas – they get lost in the general chatter of the company. The other issue is that the more employees you have, the more likely you are to get someone that has no clue what happened last time you called or brought in your computer. So, that weird issue you get randomly when you open Office, you have to repeat the whole story to the next guy you talk to. If that next guy wants to get more money in commission off of selling you a computer, he just might ignore what you’re saying and tell you that the flux capacitor at checkpoint charlie is broken (note: neither of those exist in computers) and you need a new computer…

While we’d love for you to become a customer and use Protocol16 as your desktop or computer repair company, do your research and decide if one company in Portland or Beaverton or Hillsboro is the right company for you. I’ve been shopping local more and more, sometimes it’s more expensive, but in the end, it’s our community that I’m helping, not one a thousand miles away.
Justin

Once again, technicians talk and one poor guy came up with a customer issue about RAID 0.  A lot of the gaming machines or high-end desktops use the mythical RAID 0 set for hard drives. This is touted by many as something to help with speed of your hard drive, and it can, but at a heavy price.

Now, the bad thing: RAID 0 does absolutely NOTHING to help maintain data integrity. This means that when one of the hard drives in that RAID Array crash (you need at least 2 drives in RAID 0), everything goes away. This can also happen if your motherboard crashes as well since most cheap desktops and all laptops offering RAID do not use a dedicated RAID card. They use an on-board chip that has a nickname of “soft RAID” since it’s software controlled.

RAID 0 does work for speed, but it should only be used for temporary storage of unimportant data. When I worked with very large databases, we sometimes used RAID 0 as a primary (temporary) log storage area to speed the server up. It should not, in most technicians opinions, be used as a way to boot windows or store valuable data. If you’re going to use RAID for this situation, use RAID 1, RAID 5 or RAID 10.

If you’re confused about RAID levels, it’s best to speak with a professional so you understand the differences between all the different types. If you’re looking for data to remain intact during a hard drive crash, you’ll want RAID 1, 5 or 10. There are differences between them, and there are more levels to choose from as well, but these are the main types. For desktops, you’ll probably want RAID 1. Servers, depending on the age and data you’re storing, either 5 or 10.

As always, please feel free to contact Protocol16 for your questions or computer repair in Portland.
Justin

In a continuation of yesterday’s story about spyware and virus issues stemming from websites, there is one thing that I said in the beginning that can stop nearly all issues before they start…

The Admin account on your computer is the very first account setup under XP or Vista. In XP, this account can do anything on the computer, including install software – if you can double click on an icon and something installs, you’re in the XP Admin account. In Vista, this account comes up with prompts that says “Click continue to allow xxxxx to install”. That prompt, without a password, means that you’re using a generic Admin account (there is another one that is disabled by default).

If you’re using Vista and have turned off User Account Control (UAC) to stop the annoying prompts, that’s bad… This feature, while annoying at first, eventually goes away (the first month is the worst). In Windows 7, the feature is still there, but not as annoying. If you’ve turned this feature off, you can infect yourself and not even know it by using the same lame-duck security in Windows XP.

By using a Standard User account, you stop most of the infection types out there. When that prompt comes up after you’ve hit a random webpage, you know right away to get away from that site.

If a Protocol16 technician notices that you’re using an Admin account, they will automatically recommend against doing so and offer to setup a secondary account for you, after explaining the situation.

I would list how to change your account type to a standard user, but there are many things that need to be done so that you can still use your machine and data without problems. This includes creating a new administrator account and “locking down” your current account. This type of lock down normally takes about 20 minutes, then another 20 minutes checking things over to ensure that everything is working correctly. While you don’t have to have Protocol16 set this up for you, any computer repair shop should be able to do this without any major difficulties. If they try to talk you out of doing this, as a security precaution, I’d worry a little bit…
Justin

It’s no secret that we’re a mobile computer repair company in Portland. We drive all over and see a lot of stuff, but when we’re done with a customer and on the way back to the office, we sometimes stop in to computer shops long the way. While in those shops, we do a few things that includes seeing how our customer service stacks up against the shops as well as check pricing to ensure that we remain competitive and are not overcharging – it’s called Secret Shopping.

Well, I personally got to do a “secret shopper” trip with my wife and we were not impressed. While I waited for 5 minutes to even be acknowledged at one computer shop, all while standing 5 feet in front of the shop owner, I got to listen to a personal conversation – not a professional one. My wife decided to look a display that included a touch screen computer and as well as a Netbook (we like Netbooks here at Protocol16). The display failed to work  and the Netbook was dead as well with Windows errors. Yikes…

When it was finally my turn to talk, I asked how much they were charging for a memory upgrade for a laptop – a service we do at customer locations. Now, I didn’t act like a geek, I honestly acted like a lot of our customers that know just enough to tell someone what they want.

Sadly, the markup the shop was charging was a heck of a lot more than we do and I was told that I needed to let go of my laptop for an entire day so that they could upgrade it. And in the end, they’d only charge me $10 as labor, to perform the upgrade. That’s crazy because we charge much less, even if we were to charge for a 15 minute block of time. The thing is, for this specific service, we don’t charge our time if that’s all you want – just parts since we take your laptop, turn it over and install the hardware and start windows up to make sure everything’s peachy. This type of upgrade literally takes about 3 minutes to do everything, including start Windows all the way up to see if it’s seeing all the memory.

I’ll be honest, when I find out people are taking advantage of others, I get upset. My poor wife had to listen to me complain while we drove all the way back to the office. I understand markup for a boutique computer shop, but not that much for 1 customer, especially after making me wait 5 minutes just to talk.

In this secret shopping experience, I think we’ll keep our rates where they are.
Justin

I’d like to take some time today to ask that some of you be a little careful with your prized computers…

We got called to a customer site by a customer that was riding the Max and bumped his bag on his way off the train. The laptop was in a backpack, and was “protected”. Needless to say, he got a hefty scare when he got inside his office and found the laptop wouldn’t boot up.

Once we arrived, we quickly found that the laptop had been jarred hard enough to have a memory chip pop out of place (no small feat, since they’re locked in with metal clips). Luckily for him, this 3 minute fix left the computer running once again. We didn’t even charge for the job since the fix was so fast (we may have a 1 hour minimum, but we’re not going to rip you off).

So, the moral of today’s story is to be careful. If you’re using a backpack to haul around a computer, which all of our technicians personally do, please use a laptop backpack. These have padded sleeves inside of them that are hidden, but allow the laptop to feel a little more comfy inside.

Oh, and NEVER put your laptop to sleep or let it hibernate inside your bag – Roasted Laptop anyone?
Justin