This last week I was disapointed to hear about a $300 bill for a computer reboot.  Shelly, our VP and in-house graphics designer was meeting with a client and during their meeting I noticed how frustrated her client was with her laptop.  I walked over to the conference table to offer some assistance as she pulled the battery out to shut the laptop down, after it locked up.  I let her talk and she began to go into how she had just paid $300 to have her computer worked on and there was no change to the laptop.  So, what did this mean?  No OS reinstall, no spyware or antivirus cleanup not even a quick MSCONFIG run to eliminate unneeded startup programs.  If the tech from ABCXYZ Corp. did work on it their solution wasn't that effective. 

A few days go by and I get into a conversation with someone who starts telling me about their $500 PC repair bill.  They ended up with a new motherboard, processor and memory.  This sounds nice but when is it time for a new computer.  I would have understood if this deal would have given him something that screamed but it didn't.  It gave him a PC comparable to something from Dell at about $699 with a 3 year warranty. 

As we deal with business owners and go work on older equipment there has to be a point where we present them with the reality of diminishing returns on older equipment.  How much does a new PC for them cost?  What would it cost to install?  Is that total cost more or less than the cost of repairs?  Once we know then let them make an educated decision.  After all its not our equipment we are working on and its definately not my money they are spending.