the Cost of In Store Computer Repair Services

My sister-in-law has an Inspiron Dell Laptop computer, which is only a couple years old. unfortunately her warranty had just expired a few weeks prior to this incidence. My 2 year old decided to urinate directly onto the keyboard when I left the room. I didn't even notice until about 20 minutes later after he was already in bed, which meant the pee had enough time to start soaking into the computer.

When I noticed that the computer was wet, and after I discovered it was urine, I started to clean off the key board. I used a tissue to wipe in the crevices, and everything appeared to be fine. It didn't short circuit or turn off or anything like that.

Then I noticed that liquid was leaking down out of the battery compartment. So I took the computer apart and tried to dry things out. I accidently broke one of the keys off too. I shut the computer off and let it sit for a while to see if it might decide to stop working, and all seemed fine, for the moment beside the missing key. Luckily the only thing wrong was the broken key, and the space bar didn't work either.

We brought the computer into a larger electronic place and they wanted to charge about $200 just to clean it out. I did some calling around, and found a local shop near by that could fix it for a total of $78 including the cost of repair and labor.

I called the place and the guy who answered the phone was extremely kind. He asked in detail what had happened, and I explained the situation, even though I was really embarrassed. But he didn't laugh at me, which was really nice. I thought for sure when I mentioned the fact that my two year old boy decided to take a leak on it, that he would have automatically comment about what an idiot I was for leaving the computer around the hand of a baby. But he just went on with accessing the situation. He told me how much they would charge for the diagnosis, and labor. He was very straightforward of everything that would need to be done in order to fix it. Every where else that I called just gave me a range which was hundreds of dollars of a difference. After I told him the make and model of the computer, he took my number down, and called me back with the exact amount to relpace the keyboard. It would only be $39, and the fix it would be $39. Then automatically asked me, would you like me to order that part for you and set up an appointment. Everywhere else that I had called charged about $50 for 1/2 hour of labor, where as they charged a flat rate of only $39. It took about an hour to fix the computer, but all in all, they were very friendly, professional, and extremely helpful with the entire situation.

Make sure you call around to get prices. Don't just trust the larger named businesses just because you have heard of them. I am sure they do a great job too, but sometimes they will just charge you an arm and a leg. A lot of the locally owned businnes have better prices and better services.