Computer Repair; What would you be willing to pay a private party to do these jobs?

Hello,

I have two older laptops that need to be repurposed. They aren't ancient, both are windows based laptops (either Windows 7 or XP , can't remember) with first generation i3 processors. 

I would like to put smaller SSD drives in each and replace the HDD. One also needs to have the fan replaced. I would be providing parts.

One machine runs fine for 20 minutes prior to shutting off as a safety precaution because the fan doesn't engage when needed. The other has one of those stupid ransomware viruses (thanks to my sister in law). It is also runs extremely loud (fan noise) and I figured a SSD would help with this too.

If I'm going to put SSD in both I might as well have windows reinstalled. I am fine with running older versions of windows. Only one has important files (girlfriends college documents; previous year) but those are corrupted due to the ransomware and I don't think there is anyway to get them unlocked.

At the end of the day I will be giving both of these to family members who only needed them for word processing and internet browsing.

Both are in great cosmetic condition. I am aware that several times a year I could get a new economy laptop with a similar process (minus the SSD) for $250 from Staples or Best Buy. I know that if I were to go to a retail store and have this work done they would charge silly prices.

Because of that I thought I'd create a craiglist posting and hopefully attract a college student or hobbyist that is willing to fix these in their spare time. It is not a priority job.

Before someone asks----I do not have the time to do this on my own. I feel like I could, but would rather pay someone else, for the right price, to do it. I have to help my parents rennovate their house this spring and we're talking about large New England farm house.

So we're looking at what.... 2 to 3 hours of work per machine with the bulk of the time waiting for files to transfer and reinstall? What do you think I should be asking? 

GBAstar said:

Hello,

I have two older laptops that need to be repurposed. They aren't ancient, both are windows based laptops (either Windows 7 or XP , can't remember) with first generation i3 processors.

I would like to put smaller SSD drives in each and replace the HDD. One also needs to have the fan replaced. I would be providing parts.

One machine runs fine for 20 minutes prior to shutting off as a safety precaution because the fan doesn't engage when needed. The other has one of those stupid ransomware viruses (thanks to my sister in law). It is also runs extremely loud (fan noise) and I figured a SSD would help with this too.

If I'm going to put SSD in both I might as well have windows reinstalled. I am fine with running older versions of windows. Only one has important files (girlfriends college documents; previous year) but those are corrupted due to the ransomware and I don't think there is anyway to get them unlocked.

At the end of the day I will be giving both of these to family members who only needed them for word processing and internet browsing.

Both are in great cosmetic condition. I am aware that several times a year I could get a new economy laptop with a similar process (minus the SSD) for $250 from Staples or Best Buy. I know that if I were to go to a retail store and have this work done they would charge silly prices.

Because of that I thought I'd create a craiglist posting and hopefully attract a college student or hobbyist that is willing to fix these in their spare time. It is not a priority job.

Before someone asks----I do not have the time to do this on my own. I feel like I could, but would rather pay someone else, for the right price, to do it. I have to help my parents rennovate their house this spring and we're talking about large New England farm house.

So we're looking at what.... 2 to 3 hours of work per machine with the bulk of the time waiting for files to transfer and reinstall? What do you think I should be asking?

Click to expand...

if the laptops has the malware/ransoware virus. the best/only option is to reinstall the operating software, or use system recovery cd from the manufactures to its system factory state, as when you first bought the laptop. i wouldn't try to save /transfer any files. at risk, in carrying it over . probably one hour at most to do that from personal experience. the rest of the time will be spend update windows update.

^ Thanks. I only researched this particular ransomware file and it looks like short of paying that you're not going to get your files back. The documents were old and from previous years but it would have been nice to have them (I know.. should have backed them up).

I really feel like I should do this myself, but as I said my Spring is packed already and I tend to get frustrated if I play with technology and it doesn't go smoothly. 

I've done PS4 hard drive updates, installed ram and internal bluetooth adapters but I also used to have more spare time to learn things.

I actually have three devices as I have an old netbook that has a corrupted hard drive as well. I figured if I bought the SSD for each device, I already have the replacement fan that I would be willing to offer $40 per device or $100 for everything with no deadline. I was hoping I could find a local college student willing to it.

I am delusional with that price?

If you think it is going to take 3 hours per machine and you want to pay them $40 per machine, that is only $13 an hour.  I would expect anyone trying to make money at fixing computers is going to want at least $20 an hour, if not more.  I would suspect you are going to end up paying closer to $80 per machine and that is only if you find someone willing to do things "cheap".

GBAstar said:

^ Thanks. I only researched this particular ransomware file and it looks like short of paying that you're not going to get your files back. The documents were old and from previous years but it would have been nice to have them (I know.. should have backed them up).

I really feel like I should do this myself, but as I said my Spring is packed already and I tend to get frustrated if I play with technology and it doesn't go smoothly.

I've done PS4 hard drive updates, installed ram and internal bluetooth adapters but I also used to have more spare time to learn things.

I actually have three devices as I have an old netbook that has a corrupted hard drive as well. I figured if I bought the SSD for each device, I already have the replacement fan that I would be willing to offer $40 per device or $100 for everything with no deadline. I was hoping I could find a local college student willing to it.

I am delusional with that price?

Click to expand...

$40 might be too low. but if you were offering $100, you would have no problem getting interests

Thanks guys. 

I think I'll have to negotiate prices "per job" versus per hour. I just envision this in my head as a task where most of the work can be done concurrently meaning that while it may take 2-3 hours to do one machine it'd only take 4-5 to do all three (similar to how it takes very little extra effort to cook for 8 versus cooking for 2).

I received an offer of $35/hr which I'm going to decline or maybe I'll counter with $100-$120 for the job.

In most laptops, as long as your SSD fits correctly in the HDD slot, swapping them out wouldn't take more than a few minutes. The more time-consuming part would be anyone reinstalling the OS, especially if it's on a lower-end computer. Replacing the fan can be more of a hassle and can be much more time consuming depending on the laptop and how everything is set up. In my old laptop getting to the fan meant taking apart the entire laptop, while getting to the hard drive, RAM, and WiFi card was only 2 screws to get the bottom removed. 

As someone that just went through the repair vs. replace process with a laptop, even in an area where there's lots of competition it's not cheap for a lot of computer work. Lots of places will charge $40-50+ an hour in labor, even for simple things. I know that the going rate around here for an OS reinstall is $50 or so at independent places. I shudder to think what Staples or Best Buy wants. 

Considering I'd bet that in total that would run several hundred bucks at a repair place, $35/hr for probably 3-4 hours or so isn't that bad. The catch with the "per hour" part is that you need to spell out what an hour actually is- if they're reinstalling the OS on one laptop and then going to work on another simultaneously, that's not 2 hours, etc. 

3 hard drive replacements, OS reinstalls, and then a fan replacement is going to run you several hundred bucks. At $50 a pop for the OS reinstall you're looking at $150 or so from a repair place just for that. They'd probably charge you another $50 each for the hard drive replacements and then probably about $100 or so for the fan replacement (just a fan cleaning usually runs that much- for my old laptop the place wanted $150 to clean the fan because of the way it was set up). I'd venture it's $300-400 for what you are wanting from a repair shop if you haggle. 

Honestly, $35/hr is probably a fair enough rate if they only charge for 3-4 hours of work. I'd probably offer $125 and if they say no offer $150. 

I'm sure you can get it done for less than $50. Just head to your local community college and check the flyers on campus. I'm taking C++ class for fun at my local community and I see Computer Repair ads all over my campus for less than $50 for a job or $15 an hour.

This community college also has a program (computer repair class) where they (students) fix your old laptop/PC for free. Just drop your Laptop/PC, do a couple paper work, and get them after the semester is over. You might want to check if your local community college has this program offer.

Each area is different, I usually charge 20-30 dollars for something like this, provided you are providing all the parts/OS install disks/etc.

I just do the computer work like this for co-workers/co-workers friends or my family/friends.  I work as the sole IT department for a farily large health care compnay and I usually fix the computers while i'm doing my normal work during my work day. 

Provided the SSD drive fits your laptp, if you reinstalling Win7 on both laptops, it should be at most 2-3 hours worth of work. If they are running XP the reinstall could take a tad longer, if it doesn't have a recovery partion.

This might help with the ransomware part

https://noransom.kaspersky.com/

It depends actually on their capabilities and how much effort they put into the repair. Of course, I would definitely ask if a back-job is possible just in case something goes wrong over a period of time after the repair.