We don't like to unnecessarily charge our valued clients any more than necessary. Many other services charge a flat rate fee of as much as $90.00 even for simple repairs. While it may seem like we 'nickle-and-dime' our clients, the simple fact of the matter is that our prices are usually far lower than our competition. Ordering services may be a tad more complicated, but work orders are completely itemized and no part of any transaction should seem convoluted or unintelligible.

We always give free estimites whether over the phone, over the internet, or in-person. We ALWAYS contact our customers before any of our technicians deviate from the estimate or quote and we always ask for permission before making repairs that modify the initial estimate amount. At any time in our repair process you feel uncomfortable about the estimate amount changing, we will happily halt repairs, finalize an invoice for rendered work, and suggest other tech services in the area that may be able to further assist you.

Turn-around times vary whether services are rendered in-house or on-site. Most services offered on-site (in your home or business) can be completed same-day. In-house services enter a cache of first-in, first-out so repair time can vary depending on how many other PCs we're currently fixing. Hardware replacement usually only takes a few hours after system diagnosis, but issues with the operating system or software can increase repair time anywhere from two to four days.

RapidTek does accept walk-ins, but they're subject to a free on-the-spot system diagnosis and there's some paperwork you'll need to fill out, so it's not a fast process. We will not accept a PC if it's just "dropped off", so expect to stick around for up to 45 minutes. We know that sounds like an inconvieniance, but it keeps our technicians from approaching misdiagnosed PC issues and further wasting your time.

RapidTek does offer rush services with an extra $30.00 payment. Adding the rush charge puts your PC at the very beginning of our service que. We will not accept more than two rush tickets at any time simply because it's not fair to the rest of our clients, but it's extremely rare that we have more than a single rush ticket at any given time.

At the moment we only accept cash, guarenteed checks, and money orders. We would love to accept credit and debit cards and personal checks, but as a small business we just don't have the resources yet. Trust that our first major change to operations will be the move to accept more varied forms of payment. Checks can be made payable to the technician who repairs your computer by name. We will not hold or wait to deposit your check ammount even if it's requested. Non-payment due to suspected check fraud will be reported as soon as it's encountered. If there's any question about your ability to make a full payment after repairs have been rendered, please talk with your technician. We reserve the right to handle payment plans and delayed payment on a per-case basis.

RapidTek guarentees all rendered services for a period of 14 days after completion, but there are a few stipulations. If repairs included malware removal, the malware varient and effects must remain the same. In other words, if you get a virus, we clean it, and your computer is infected by a different type of virus, we cannot reimburse you. If the same variant is discovered, we can either reimburse you or attemt repair your PC a second time for free and reimburse you for additional travel.
Most stores allow a 14-day return policy on computer hardware, so if a device is found to be faulty after installation you can be reimbursed for both the hardware and our labor fees, or you can choose to return the hardware, order another component, and wait for us to install it without any additional labor charge.
Software is an entirely different story. Unfortunately due to the nature of state and federal laws regarding software return, we cannot reimburse for any purchased software or software licences even if the software was purchased by recommendation from a RapidTek technician. We know that sounds like super bad news, but we may consider re-purchasing the software or licence from you and overpaying to meet the amount of the original purchase price. We'll try to buy it from you or find someone who will.

RapidTek offers a 14-day service and warrenty guarentee and we like to think it's relatively straight-forward. If our rendered services don't repair your PC, you don't have to pay us. If the error is caught within 14 days after the service has been completed, we will reimburse you.

We will match our competitor's prices assuming your idea of a competitor is the same as ours. We're an independent computer repair company, which means we cannot match "big box store" prices. In other words, if Geek[Noun] is running a special 75% off hardware installation price, we cannot. We can't beat "family member" or "best friend" discounts if someone you know is our competition. Offers on sites like Craigslist or Backspace cannot be considered either because there are far too many desperate technicians who are willing to do low-quality work for dirt cheap. We do call to confirm pricing before honoring a price match, so please bring in contact information if at all possible.

To correctly troubleshoot and diagnose your computer, we need to know as much as we possibly can about it. The easiest way to relay that to us is by providing your computer manufacturer's name and model number. Usually we'll ask you for that before we ask you any other technical questions. It could mean the differance between getting a free replacement from your manufacturer and having to pay for the part from us.
We collect more information about your computer including it's hardware specifications, the operating system version, your MAC address, the computer's serial number, and the software we use may log and store additional information. We collect the information to better support you if you ever return to RapidTek for future support and to simplify our warrenty and service policies.

Most of us technicians are used to being completely independant, and to be sucessful while being an independant computer technician, it's imperitive to remain competitive. That doesn't mean severely cutting our prices to choke out competition, but rather balancing the competitive nature of the industry with our core belief that clients simply shouldn't be charged for more than what is fair.

RapidTek offers pick-up and drop-off at an additional charge of $10 for transportation. Pick-up must be scheduled and we insist on calling or contacting you before drop-off. Drop-off may not occur same-day and may also need to be scheduled. Rushed InHouse PCs must be picked up and are disqualified from delivery or drop-off unless renegotiated.

Let me level with you; they aren't. I have a Comptia A+ certification and Microsoft certification and while they work to prove I know how to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair Microsoft operating systems and PC hardware, that's not the limit of my technical knowledge or know-how. Much like in nearly any other group of people, I know "computer technicians" who pass certification exams but never apply any of the information or do any hands-on and I know techs who don't bother with certification who could best me by a long-shot.

Simple. We don't charge you for it. We'll even call around and try to recommend another local technician who can offer an alternative method. If you choose to let us attempt recorrecting the computer, we'll do it for free; but it'll require your patience. Hardware may need to be returned and repurchased, and software costs may not be recoverable. We really regret that, but we just don't have the capacity.

That depends on what we're talking about. Any computer running Windows should be equipped with an antivirus application and one or more anti-spyware, anti-trojan, or anti-rootkit softwares. Free antivirus applications rarely come with component software that constantly scans your computer while it's in use, so that's one good reason to purchase antimalware software, but don't be fooled. If you have access to a copy of Norten or McAfee from your internet company, it's not the same. While they aren't trials, they only protect against the top 200 most infiltratious types of malware prolific on the internet. Full version and purchased antivirus software can detect and remove up to 98% of all malware varients ever relased.
If you can't afford the oppulance of a purchaseable antimalware suite, the free stuff works. It doesn't work as well, and to ensure full detection and removal may mean running several of them. It's up to you to decide whether that's an inconvieniance or not.

Good passwords and up-to-date. Those are the two most important things to remember. Make sure your passwords are complex and don't make them personal in any regard. It's a good idea to include a mix of abbreviations, accronyms, numbers, and words. Optimally you could make your passwords completely random and store them in something like KeePass.
Programs should always be updated as soon as updates are availiable. That includes your operating system, device drivers, all of your software, and especially your antimalware software. Hackers and script kiddies can exploit holes in old or outdated software on your PC to gain access to your computer. New patches and updates fix those holes and ensure your PC is more secure.
From there, things get a lot more complicated and everything becomes an undertaking. There are far more factors involved.

It's getting to the point where there really isn't much difference between browsers. Some have a faster page-render engine (Google Chrome & Opera), some allow for far more user configuration (Firefox), and some are amazingly close to web-standards compliance (Maxathon & Chrome). I'm sure you've probably heard people say "Internet Explorer sucks", but today Internet Explorer is technically in the same arena.

Malware can affect your computer in a miriad of ways. Usually the first give-away of an infected system is slow internet speed, but malware can install unwanted programs without permission, slow down your computer's start-up time, or practically block your PC from the internet all together, redirecting you to other websites with more malware. It can also be responsible for disabling privilages of your Windows user account, corrupting files and folders either personally important or necessary to the normal operation of your PC.

Ar RapidTek, we always, ALWAYS try to save system reformatting as a last possiblity but if all else fails, a system reformat can completely wipe a hard drive clean of malware and a new operating system can then be reloaded. I may be speaking in generalizations, but viruses cannot kill a computer. They have no effect on your hardware, so a reformat might be a relatively expensive option, it's also the last resort that could save your old computer from turning into closet or garage fodder.

That depends on what's wrong with your computer. Most hardware can be replaced for much less than the cost of a brand new PC, but there are limits to repairing and upgrading older machines. Eventually repairing a hobbling system with consistant issues is like offering an old man a third cane.
As you learn to do more on your computer, you tend to outgrow the abilities of your current PC. Sometimes it's just better to buy into newer technology than try to upgrade your existing PC.

Repair! Usually by a long-shot. Well, the answer is 'repair' until the computer gets so old that repairing it would still present you problems because it chugs on the slightest task. In that instance it's far more expensive to continue owning an old computer you practically can't do anything with. Not 'money'-expensive, but time and frustration-expensive.

Future-proofing is the act of buying a PC that exceeds your hardware requirements as to keep the computer working longer. If you tend to replace your computer every two or three years, don't bother future-proofing. Nobody needs 16GBs of RAM to create a spreadsheet or write an email. The kind of people who should be interested in future-proofing are people who work on their PCs and don't replace them as often as they would like to. Future-proofing is like squeezing a little more life out of something that most people only use for four years. It's not a shameful thing, though. This very site you're reading through is being scripted on an 11-year-old computer.

When newer versions of software are released, eventually they demand more from your PC and if you don't upgrade, you won't be able to continue using the same software. As software is installed on the system, some of it will insist on running when you boot up your computer. The more software you install over the years, the slower the PC will seem to get. Adding a RAM upgrade would help your PC run more programs at once. If you have a desktop, upgrading a power supply and graphics card will allow your computer to play more complex and better looking video games. You'll know when you need an upgrade when you need to do something on your computer that it isn't capiable of and you wouldn't consider the computer 'old'.

On laptops, RapidTek offers upgrade of RAM and the hard drive. On a desktop, nearly anything can be updated. The simplist updates are the RAM, power supply, video card, and hard drives, but nearly anything can be updated from the processor to the motherboard itself and RapidTek can replace or upgrade any of them.

RAM allows for more programs to run at one time. While upgrading to a faster type of RAM might allow your computer to access programs stored in RAM a little faster, a RAM upgrade does not increase the speed of your computer. The only type of upgrade that would make your computer faster would be a processor upgrade.

You shouldn't switch to using a Mac unless you're already as familiar with MacOS as you are your current operating system. If you've used versions of Windows for years, you will need to relearn how to do near everything on a Mac, and it isn't nearly as simple as most Mac users claim. You may also run into issues with software compatibily; for instance, there is no version of Microsoft Excel for Mac and the same could be said for many Windows software staples.
Mac users usually like to claim that MacOS is far more secure than Windows, but latest tests show that OSX is far less secure than Windows 7, and with so many people buying into Mac computers based on obvious misinformation, viruses and malware for Macs have increased substantially within the last two years.
There is no longer any reason to prefer a Mac over a Windows PC on the basis of hardware superiority. As of 2010, Macs and PCs use the same graphics chipsets, the same kind of motherboards, the same RAM, and virtually all other hardware is exactly the same as a Windows PC counterpart.
In other words, unless you have a specific preference for MacOS over Windows, there is virtually no other reason to prefer a Mac to a Windows-based PC.

Probably not. While most Linux distributions are much more feature-rich, secure, and stable than Windows operating systems, Linux is also very hard to learn if you ever want to do more than surf the internet. It's far harder to find a technician that knows enough about Linux to repair your PC, and Linux communities are elitist; you'll have a hard time following tutorials because they simply assume you already know the basics.

RapidTek cannot service Macs under manufacturer warrenty or any kind of third-party warrenty service like AppleCare or GeekSquad. Any time anyone opens a warrenty-supported Mac, Apple will refuse to make any repairs under warrenty. While you might have some luck with third-party warrenty providers, if they need to request a part or send your laptop in, Apple will still refuse to support your Mac. If your Mac is less than a year old or you've purchased any kind of warrenty for it, make certain the technician you take your Mac to is licenced to repair Macs and that their work will not void support from Apple.
That said, if you own a Mac that is more than a year old and you haven't purchased a warrenty, RapidTek can gladly help you out with software and operating system issues. We don't repair Mac hardware because it's not readily availiable. Most of it has to be purchased from Apple and they ususally refuse to sell to independant computer technicians favoring that the client send the Mac to them... and pay Apple instead.

Remote support operates on a technology called "remote desktop". It allows us to run an application on our computers and see the desktop on your computer. We can control the mouse and keyboard in turn taking full control of your PC even though we may be across town or across the globe. There are some limitations, though. The connection isn't persistant on system restart, so any time we need to run a program which requires that the computer be rebooted, we have to initiate a connection again.

I should preface my answer by saying that the remote support software that we use and the way we use it makes it completely safe. Remote Desktop software could pose a very real security threat if it were simply left running in the background listening for connection requests when the system boots up. That's absolutely not our intention, though. We scripted our remote support software so that it would NEVER start up on it's own. When any of our technicians are done with a remote support session, we reboot your PC. Rebooting completely severs the connection and when your computer start up again, the software won't be running any longer.

We would either need to schedule an inHome service order with you or refer you to a tech service in your area who can take over.

We offer both onSite and inHouse services. Our onSite service is preferable as our business is just an office in an apartment, but we can offer to take on projects onSite. In fact, we prefer onSite for services like reformatting or operating system installation as they can take a while otherwise.

We offer a 14-day return period for computers we build. If computers are returned defective, we would like the chance to fix it for free, but if you simply want your money back, we will do all the return-work to refund your hardware and send you the check. Labor fees are charged seperately and if there is no substantial reason for return, labor fees are non-refundable. To qualify for our 14-day return policy, all of the original boxes, receipts, packing materials, accessories, and documentation must be provided. As a service to our clients, we will offer to keep everything but the receipt for a period of 14-days so the return process isn't a hassle.

Absolutely! Just keep in mind that there are some services that require a technician be present at your PC. Remote support can only take care of the simple stuff.

We can do anything except off-site storage or multi-volume backup or copying. That means we can copy one hard drive to a second. We can backup or restore an image to your hard drive. We can recover data from several different partition types even if it's been erased or reformatted. We can recover data from partially damaged drives or drives that are littered with bad sectors, but that doesn't always recover 100% of the data all of the time.
We aren't a drive forensics provider, nor can we recover data by removing hard drive platters. Those are incredibly argous services offered by specialists at very, very high cost.

When data is completely unrecoverable on a hard drive, it usually means that the crash is mechanical. This isn't what you want to hear, but there are services that can remove the platters from your hard drive and read them directly, but they are wicked expensive. Like, $2,000 to $8,000 type of expensive. They can't even guarentee full data recovery.

If you wanted to rescue all of your family folders from a hard drive that crashed or refused to boot and brought it to RapidTek but we were only able to recover your bookmarks and email, we wouldn't charge you. Now, if you wanted to back up your My Documents folder and everything was successful except for 20 songs and 10 pictures we can negotiate a final cost.

Networking allows for communication between devices. They could be two computers, a cell phone, a video game console, or a printer. There are an amazing amount of devices that can communicate over a wired or wireless network. Networks also allow the sharing of internet, streaming music, video, and access to files and folders on connected devices.

Wireless networks can be safe, but they require configuration. By default, most wireless routers don't have any type of required security code to access the network which means anybody can get on. Usually the technician your internet service provider sends to your home will ask you to provide an access password, but that's about all they'll do. Access passcodes are crackable, and assuming a neighbor knows how to get access to your router's firmware or use a bruteforce app, they can still get access. Further configuration of the router is necessary if you want a secure wireless network. RapidTek ensures your wireless network is completely secure after router setup, and we'll offer a router security check if we notice your network is insecured.

Hackers don't just attack at random and you don't need to be hacked to get a virus or some other type of malware infection. When a hacker attacks a computer, it usually for one of two reasons. Either to access known sensitive data or to get revenge. So long as you don't insult random people online, you probably don't need to worry about hackers.

Some peer-to-peer and filesharing apps like Kazaa and Limewire install malware to your computer, but most peer-to-peer applications are safe. It's the content you download from the apps that you have to worry about. Less popular filesharing protocols like the Gnutella2 network are virtually riddled with infected files, but even popular P2P software like BitTorrent which filters out most bunk and infected content still poses a threat.

Currently, RapidTek does not offer any kind of web hosting. We can find our clients quality and cheap web hosts, though.

You would need to purchase your domain name from a domain registerant like GoDaddy. Your webhost can then set up your domain name to link to your hosted webspace.

RapidTek will happily maintain your website even if we weren't the ones who made it. If site updates become a regular weekly or monthly occurance, we may want to discuss a business contract option.

Sure we can, but success depends on what your website is about. A website about dancing cupcakes isn't going to get nearly as many hits as a website about golf. it's a challenge trying to find an audience for a niche-interest website.