New repair service: Desktop LCDs!

You know, I really love you guys/gals!!  You help push me at times and have me check into new opportunities.

In the past I have taken apart desktop LCD monitors and not had much luck.  Since prices have come down pretty good I always figured it probably wasn’t worth the effort?  That was until I was contacted a while ago and asked if I could repair them.  I will attempt almost anything so for this request I said what the hell.  He had 11 LCDs that did not work anymore and he was willing to take a chance on me being able to repair them.  The day we decided to go ahead with it I pulled out an old LCD at work and checked it out.  When I took it apart I wasn’t too excited about the repairs, turns out the one I took apart had a fried logic board and it cost about $40.  My boss didn’t want to invest that much money into one so we trashed it.  I started to worry that the repairs would not be cost effective.

I received a very heavy box a day later and then found time to take one apart a few days later.  This customer is not in a hurry and was fine with my other laptop repairs and other work taking priority over his repairs.
I opened the first and didn’t really find anything “big” or really obvious the matter with it except one bulging capacitor.  Luckily it was a common one so Radio Shack actually had it!  I overpaid a little but I really just had to know if I could fix a LCD with about 1/2 hour time and a $3 capacitor.  Several minutes later I had really good news, it fired up and showed a desktop!!

Since that time I have taken apart the rest and have found that this can be cost effective.  One model of the LCDs required 9 capacitors to be replaced but at about $1 each that is not bad.  It’s a lot better than having to replace an entire logic board for $50.  Since it normally doesn’t take much time for me to take them apart I don’t have to charge much for labor.

So I wonder if any of you out there would be interested in this new service?  I’m still trying to figure out the best price structure, one that is fair to me and affordable to you.  I’m thinking it will be similar to my current DC Jack replacement fee structure.  Maybe $20 initially for testing and diagnostic.  Then a quote on the repair cost.  That quote will depend on how much time will be spent on the repair and what needs replaced.  I am hoping that most repairs will total around $40.  That $40 would include the shipping fees for me to send it back to you.
Please let me know what you think about this. Please let me know if you would be interested in this also. I look forward to feedback on this, thank you!!

Are you as crazy as I am?

I have a handful of possible titles for this discussion.  I did something pretty silly today but  it was just nice to get away.  So I wonder, would you do something this silly?

I am taking care of some LCD repairs that require several different types of capacitors.  In the next few days I will discuss these LCD repairs in depth but for now I just have a silly story.  I have ordered several different ones over the last few weeks but I was in need of more.  Several days ago I realized this and was going to place an order.  The thing that drives me nuts at times is that my suppliers do not always have everything that I need so I procrastinated.  Today I found that the store I was checking out did have all the capacitors I need now so I was going to order.  I didn’t want to wait for them to be shipped and just happen to noticed they are located in Ohio.  Hmmmm, I really don’t have anything big planned for today.  So I yelled ROAD TRIP and the wife became excited.  For some reason she likes to waste gas and time by just driving somewhere for the hell of it.  I had the perfect opportunity!

6 hours later I am back home and happy with my 40 capacitors.  I saved $6.05 in shipping charges….oh wait, but spent $40 on gas!!  At least I won’t have to wait until Wednesday or Thursday to receive them!  Still pretty silly though, all that time and gas just for $14 worth of capacitors?!  Now I can finish up these LCD repairs though, time to fire up the soldering iron!!!!

I am ready for some football!!

The 2009 NFL season kicks off tonight with my Super Bowl champ Pittsburgh Steelers taking on the Tennessee Titans!!  I think it will be a tough game but our kick ass Defense should take care of those jerks.

I have read many things about this upcoming season most recently something on MSN about the Steelers repeating this year and their #1 Defense being even better this year!  I agree with the defense and look forward to my boy LaMarr Woodley kicking more ass this year, Harrison kicks ass but Woodley is damn good too!  I guess I like him so much because I watched him kick butt with the Wolverines years ago and was ecstatic to see the Steelers pick him up.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am goofy with the numbers.  I also have a hard time with being a fanatical Steelers fan and gripping reality with football.  My deep down thoughts and wishes blur my realistic or more sensible thoughts.  Then these number games get in the way also.  After the awesome Super Bowl win this past February and minimal losses to free agency, I’ve had the thoughts and feelings that the Steelers could repeat this year.  I’m happy to see that a few others out there that actually know what they are talking about share my view on this to a degree.  The thing that always screws me up though is that whenever I have a feeling about some sports happenings I am sometimes right, but usually ONLY if I keep it to myself.  Pretty silly huh!  Anyone and everyone can say that!  For example look at my stupid thoughts on the Stanley Cup series this past June, I was way off on my initial predictions and am kinda lucky my Penguins pulled it off!!

So here are my thoughts on the Steelers for the next few years.  I really believe that they will win at least 1 more Super Bowl in the next 3-5 years.  I think Big Ben will pull off another one so he will finally get the respect he deserves.  My crazy numbers crap tells me that next year will be Ben’s year though.  All of my thoughts revolve around Ben’s jersey number, 7.  Next year will be a good year for Ben because it will be his Seventh year in the NFL.  They will win that 7th Super Bowl for Pittsburgh….with Ben.  When you think about it more, we could be watching another dynasty?  They are half way (2 Super Bowl wins so far) to matching up with the 70′s Steelers.  I don’t know, all I really know is that I am pretty sure I will be hanging more championship hats in my office over the next 5 years!!

Just have to post

I’m a weirdo and just have to post something because of the date, 9/9/09.  It’s just kind of cool?  You’ll see in a future NFL post I plan just how crazy and goofy I am about numbers.  You’ll see my crazy number reasons why I kinda think but don’t really think the Steelers will repeat this year, did that make sense?  I think I will have to find the time for that post tomorrow?  The kickoff to the 09 season is tomorrow so I need to throw down my predictions.  At least posting something on 6/6/6 was a little more fun?  Check out UBCD4Win.com and you can find my goofy post from back then.  Speaking of 666, my namesake and demon child Ben II was weighed a few days ago and his weight was a bit interesting.  He weighed 66.6lbs!  If you had to deal with this child on a daily basis you would understand.

We are getting caught up at work so I’m not quite as insane as I was last week.  I repaired a few laptops last week so that always makes me happy also.  Just found out too that we won another server quote so…..oh wait, now I’m gonna be crazy again!  Now I have to make sure I can actually order all the stuff I need for it at the prices I quoted 3 weeks ago!  Oh crap, I gotta get back to work now.  So much for updating all of you, either way….happy 999 everyone!!

Malware follow up and Am I really too busy??

First I want to address a question I received right after posting my last entry.  I want everyone to understand that just because things are crazy busy, I still have time for other things.  Someone emailed me and asked if I was too busy to repair their laptop.  No I am not too busy.  I work 9-5 everyday and if I have repairs to take care of at home then I work on them into the evening.  Since I’ve only been receiving maybe 1 laptop per week for repair and orders on Burrows Solutions have been sporadic, I am not even close to being busy at home.  So please, if you need something repaired contact me.

We have received a lot of good responses to my “What is going on?” post.  Some good suggestions and information.  A few people have mentioned that they do not even mess with removal, they just fire up a backup image and it’s done.  While that is a good way to handle it and easy, I really don’t like to do that.  I am also reluctant to backup data and do a clean install.  While the method we use a work may consume more time, I still prefer it.  It’s a little silly but in all honesty I do not like the backup and clean install routine.  I am always worried I will miss something important and it’s a pain to dig through their backup image and find what they need.  That is just me though.  Most of our customers have a hard time understanding everything they need to do to the computer when they get it back home.  Half the time they do not have discs for reinstalling software and/or their printer.

This recent rash of activity has me a bit confused though.  I have admitted on several occasions that I am not the best at malware removal, Tom is!  Some of these more recent infections have had me wondering.  I’ll admit that on a few of them I have “cheated.”  What I mean is that after my removal routine I have then done a repair install on the OS and that seemed to finish up the removal.  Generally I do not like doing that but it was my last option.  I’ve been quite surprised that it has actually worked on a few of the systems.

A few people have mentioned that they have given up on AVG.  Tracy and I have done the same, ever since the first 8.0 release it has been downhill.  If our customer is too cheap to purchase Kaspersky, then we install Avira.  A lot of you show a liking to Avast also.  That is fine, you are entitled to that.  However I will never support them because of the horrible experience I had with them.  A few years back I tried to contact them regarding a few false positives in UBCD4Win.  Their support was slow and horrible!  I think I blocked out some of the memories because I can’t remember every detail of the situation.  Either way, you will never catch me saying anything good about Avast.

I’ll go over my removal routine real quick.  It of course starts with UBCD4Win.  There I run in order: Kaspersky AV, Avira, Super AntiSpyware, Spy Bot, aSquared (sometimes), and finally EzPCFix.  Most of the time I will dig around the Windows and Program Files folders with Xplorer2 to see if there are some obvious folders.  I use Xplorer2 because Windows Explorer will NOT show you some folders, such as: “?onts.”  Wait?  How is that possible?  Don’t ask me, I just know I’ve seen folder names with “wildcard” characters in them.  Since they are not valid names Windows Explorer will not show them!  I then reboot the computer into Safe Mode to install CCleaner and Malwarebytes AntiMalware.  Too bad Super AntiSpyware won’t install in Safe Mode.  I usually just run MBAM and then boot into normal mode.  There I install SAS, run it, run MBAM again, and then run CCleaner.  In most cases that is enough.  Sometimes though there are files that MBAM (or others) will catch and say the will delete on reboot.  The files are always still there though, so I note the location and file names and boot UBCD4Win again to remove them.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions.