This is true when your PC breaks down just days after its warranty expires. Or worse, after you've paid a couple of hundred dollars to fix a problem only to find that the machine is not fixed properly.

This was what Doreen Ang, 34, an administrative personnel with a local plastics manufacturer, experienced.

In January this year, one of her two PCs at home could not boot up for no apparent reason.

As she had a spare computer at home, she didn't bother to fix the broken one until a month later when she came across a PC repair shop near her home in Serangoon North.

A repairman from the shop came to her home to inspect the three-year-old PC but said he could not fix it there.

'At first, he said the problem was with a video card. Later, he said he wasn't sure if the problem had to do with a virus,' said Doreen.

'Anyway, he didn't explain what was wrong but said he needed to bring it back to his shop.'

It took him five days to fix and return the PC. The bill was just under $200.

However, the computer went flat again two months later. Although the repair shop gave her a three-month warranty, she 'just couldn't be bothered to fix it again'.

Doreen's woes call to question the competence of mom-and-pop shops scattered throughout Singapore that claim to be 'PC repair specialists'.

Some of them are at local IT malls like Funan DigitaLife Mall and Sim Lim Square, while others market themselves on classified ads and the Web.

Can these repairmen be trusted?

There's no blanket answer.

Expertise and service quality varies from shop to shop.

Stick to official repair guys

PC enthusiasts advise technology novices against going to unauthorised repair outlets, even though the service may be cheaper than original manufacturers'.

'The person at unauthorised shops could be as clueless as you are. It's a risk you take,' said Ken Wong, 36, who used to fix his own desktop computers. He no longer does so as he has switched to laptops, which contain soldered parts that are hard to swop.

As the faulty bits may not be replaced with original parts, there's no way of telling if the store keeper had merely scrounged around his electronic junkyard for old spare parts for your PC.

That was why Ken went to Acer's service centre to replace the spoilt hard disk in his laptop five years ago - even though he had to pay about $300.

Indeed, there are horror stories on local forums about the unethical sales tactics of certain Sim Lim Square stores.
Another PC enthusiast, Terence Teh, 34, has advised friends against going to there for help, saying 'they are likely to get conned'.

Convenience matters

The problem is that official service centres are usually out of the way. For instance, Acer's service centre is at

International Business Park. Toshiba's is at Kallang Sector and Hewlett-Packard's, Alexandra Road.
Here's when well-known retailers like Challenger and Courts come in handy.

Although an 'unauthorised' repair centre, Challenger's nine PC Clinic outlets islandwide take in more than 500 desktops and notebooks for repair every month.

Challenger has been fixing computers for over 15 years. It has a team of 25 PC specialists.

Courts' Dr Digital service, available at its Tampines and Ang Mo Kio megastores, is two years old. The retailer said there has been an increase in demand for its service but declined to specify.

Dr Digital is run by local systems integrator iTech Vision, which has been in business for 12 years, under a revenue-sharing deal.

iTech is the hardware maintenance contractor for many government agencies including the Singapore Police Force and the Housing Board.

AGenius Computer Systems, a small local systems integrator located at Jalan Pemimpin, also performs on-site diagnosis and repair for home and corporate users. The 14-year-old company receives calls from 50 to 100 home users every month.

itham@sph.com.sg

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 27 August 2008.

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