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Why you can't make money in hardware

Discussion in 'General Open/Public Discussion' started by Brokentusk, 22 Jan 2010.


  1. Brokentusk

    Brokentusk DragonWolf

    I was a nice guy a couple days ago and agreed to look at a friends home network. OK I had to, this guy has done a lot of good deeds for me so I jumped at the chance to pay him back.

    First on the agenda, I take a look at his wireless network. Completely open. Wife is a Dr. Can you say HIPA kids?

    HIPA!

    So I crank that thing down. I didn't do the router on one subnet, computers on another, which confuses the heck out of people. But I locked that sucker down. Kicking 2 neighbors off in the process. I have to balance security with ease of use. Sure I can lock it to NIC's, but then every time he has a coworker come over to brainstorm I have to walk him through adding them to the network.

    Next, his wife is having trouble with her laptop. I pull this thing up, it's rootkit all over the place. Two days later I think I have it cleansed, running one more virus scan and a test to make sure it is blessed.

    I have about 12 hours sunk into this laptop and realize WHY I don't normally do hardware. You could buy an entirely new laptop for what you would pay to get this thing cleaned up. No wonder so many places have a scorched earth policy when it comes machines.

    I did this in off hours, if I had been on the clock I would be ticked to waste this much time.

    No wonder hardware guys go under.
     
    Brokentusk, 22 Jan 2010
    #1
  2. Hamma

    Hamma Commanding Officer Officer

    Officer
    Yikes :eek:
     
    Hamma, 22 Jan 2010
    #2
  3. WarChilde

    WarChilde DragonWolf

    we charge $125 to re-install windows with data preservation and installing software, printers, configuring wireless and whatever else the customer needs. Minimum just to look at the machine is $35. To give a customer a break is $50, which doesn't happen too often.

    Clean-ups are two days max, I usually have it done by the next day if they bring it in early morning. Reloads are about the same time frame.

    99% of the time, it's user error, where whomever is using the computer and where they go online and clicking "ok" whenever a pop-up flashes on the screen.
     
    WarChilde, 22 Jan 2010
    #3
  4. Sentrosi

    Sentrosi Protocol Officer Officer

    Officer
    It's gotten so bad that my mom refuses to go onto the Internet anymore.
    It's downright scary. I thought I knew enough about securing my network against intrusions at home and such, and I've done what I need to do. But working where I'm working right now...it is downright scary.
     
    Sentrosi, 23 Jan 2010
    #4
  5. Om

    Om DragonWolf

    My husband does this kind of stuff at as a favor for the neighbors all the time. He's their hero. They praise his name and buy him beer.
     
    Om, 23 Jan 2010
    #5
  6. Brokentusk

    Brokentusk DragonWolf

    $125 for up to two days of work is criminally cheap. I hope you're doing several in parallel.

    In this case, it was a second-grader who was using it for school. Next thing they know there is an installation complete window up.

    I all but stopped doing hardware for home users years ago when this woman ticked me off. I went to her house as a favor, co-worker of the (now) ex-wife. She was on dial-up. The modem was completely unresponsive. I tell her to go buy some $30 modem, and I would come back and install it for her. But only charge her for the diagnosis. So for about $100 she was going to be set.

    I get a call the next day, "I called my brother-in-law, he said you're a moron and don't know what you're talking about." Click.

    Brother-in-law installs tires for a living, I was a hardware admin who had 1,200 desktops under his care and was doing support on the side to various businesses.

    The ex tells me she was livid that I made her pay to diagnose the problem and was taking her computer to Geek Squad. She was loudly telling everyone in ear shot how much of an idiot I was.

    A week later, she picked up her computer. $185, the Squad replaced the modem. After that she wouldn't talk to my ex. I always assumed she blamed me.
     
    Last edited: 23 Jan 2010
    Brokentusk, 23 Jan 2010
    #6
  7. WarChilde

    WarChilde DragonWolf

    12 work benches for desktops, 7 for laptops, almost always all full every day, in addition to going out onsite service calls at $75/hour. It's always nice to see a line of machines to work on.

    To replace a modem, would be the cost of the modem plus labor. I'd have done $25/modem, and $35/labor to install and verify dial-up connectivity.

    As long as you don't talk down to people or start throwing out acronyms, you get to know people, they refer you as a business. Of course, when people get to be asses I refer them to the owners, I don't need to get into pissing contests for work I've done.
     
    WarChilde, 23 Jan 2010
    #7
  8. DonkeySmiler

    DonkeySmiler Eater of Gnomish Persons DragonWolf

    What sucks is that even though you fix the problem(s), you aren't fixing the person's brain who screwed up the computer in the first place..... so a couple weeks pass and the viruses are all back, and then they call you and go "but I thought you said it was fixed!!1!!!1!1" - And at this point you are forever trapped. ;)

    On a slightly related note, one of our users called Friday morning letting us know that the printer was not working. I asked if it was the printer we had put a big "Out of Order" sign on..... it was. It was at this point I explained to her that the reason the printer was not working was because it was out of order, ergo the sign...... good times..... :mad:
     
    DonkeySmiler, 23 Jan 2010
    #8
  9. Hamma

    Hamma Commanding Officer Officer

    Officer
    :lol:

    ahh end user IT support.
     
    Hamma, 23 Jan 2010
    #9
  10. DonkeySmiler

    DonkeySmiler Eater of Gnomish Persons DragonWolf


    Ugh I know. I can't believe I am back to working in such a position.... but I was pretty desperate to get back to working for Ohio State and was willing to take what I could get.

    I had a lady the other day tell me her computer was broken. I asked her to show me the problem.... she loads up farmville on facebook (it was throwing an error). I wanted to be like, are you serious?
     
    DonkeySmiler, 24 Jan 2010
    #10
  11. Hamma

    Hamma Commanding Officer Officer

    Officer
    :lol: :lol: :lol:

    The things people thing require support.. classic.

    I had someone ask me for white ink once when I did Tech Support in a High School haha
     
    Hamma, 24 Jan 2010
    #11
  12. springwheat

    springwheat DragonWolf

    I only do basic hardware stuff for family, close friends and some coworkers. Its not worth it for anyone else.

    If they don't have a warranty, they're a moron and you should avoid them.
    If their warranty has expired, the PC is probably so old and decrepit you're just inheriting a whole bucket of problems.
    Its out of warranty and the user broke something, which means they will expect to pay you once to fix a problem and congrats, they now assume you have issued a warranty that covers any future incidents with the PC.
     
    springwheat, 25 Jan 2010
    #12
  13. CrawlingKane

    CrawlingKane DragonWolf

    In maine i only charge about $25/hr. I also put a disclaimer when i give them back their computer. If you don't keep up on the stuff i'm telling you, you will be back. and I will gladly take your $25/hr. I have one customer that comes back to me probably once a month. Last year I probably earned a good amount of money from him alone. I love having a hobby that makes me money.

    The best part is going to a Police Department (i'm a Criminal Justice Major) and they have me fix their computers, instead of their IT guy.
     
    CrawlingKane, 17 Feb 2010
    #13
  14. Brokentusk

    Brokentusk DragonWolf

    Dude that is insane. $25?

    I used to charge $50 an hour, but I found out that people thought I was too cheap. They felt I was an amateur and was charging an amateur rate. I jacked it up to $125 an hour and was turning down work inside of a month.

    All that said. I've got my personal machine so jacked up right now it is unreal.

    My processor died. I figured it out when I installed a new drive and put XP on it. The install put in dual boot but it can't find the NTOSKRNL to load.

    I've disconnected everything but the old drive and done fixboot, fixmbr, bootcfg /rebuild. I keep getting a message that it can't rebuild the boot.ini.

    "Failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations."

    Which is hilarious since I am logged into the recovery console on the one it can't find.

    Why wouldn't I pull the plug and call it done? My checkbook is on that install. The installation CD for the software is cracked. I need to pay bills but I have no idea what I need to pay.

    Next step is to kill the XP pro install and install xp64 on it (I know, but it's what I've been running)

    Then cross my fingers that the install will fix the original install. OR will fix it enough that I can edit the boot.ini manually to find the original.

    But I don't have a lot of hope for this since I've been editting a boot.ini file since Sunday.

    Did you know there is no utility out there to tell you the ARC information on a partition?
     
    Brokentusk, 18 Feb 2010
    #14
  15. WarChilde

    WarChilde DragonWolf

    I've been using Active Boot Disk for quite some time now. For hardware testing I use Hiren's a lot of of the time. Both have binary hex editors with which you can use to modify the MBR.
     
    WarChilde, 19 Feb 2010
    #15
  16. Brokentusk

    Brokentusk DragonWolf

    I gave up. My partner works at a {major aircraft company} and they sell surplus PC's. He got tired of listening to me and grabbed a Dell GX620 for $100. Which isn't bad at all, considering my Thermaltake 650 watt power supply, hard drives, and Nvidia 8800 video card dropped right in.

    No actual files were lost so I am almost back to where I was. Just weird to see such a small case on my desk.

    http://tumblog.activeden.net/post/395234001/clients-from-hell
     
    Brokentusk, 20 Feb 2010
    #16
  17. WarChilde

    WarChilde DragonWolf

    Glad you got your stuff working again. That's a pretty good deal on that Dell, worked on quite a few of those and those are good work horses.
     
    WarChilde, 21 Feb 2010
    #17

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