Repairing Computers

I'm a Computer Information Systems major and that might be a good place for you start. You learn everything from programming to web design to networking to computer security to computer business applications to computer assembly. I think you get the drift!
 
I started out reading and learned the basics but the book didn't show how to put a computer together. So I ordered a kit. Before it arrived, I went on the Internet and found instuctions on how to assemble a computer. Good thing I did because the computer had no instructrions!!!! Is this normal?

When the computer arrived, I took my time putting it together. When I ran into a problem, I went to the Internet and You Tube to see if I could solve the problem. When these options failed, I asked questions on this forum. I'm happy to say my computer is running well and I'm very happy with it.

The rest of my education will have to come from hands on and school. These are expensive routes to take but I guess the next step necessary. Is school worth the money? Wouldn't it be better spent on buying different parts and putting them together and getting that hands on education? Maybe I need to start advertizing on selling new computers first and then work into repair. Any thoughts on this guys?

Sounds like you've taken great steps already - taking your time and carefully looking up things when you run into trouble instead of forcing stuff / bodging your way through it is a great attitude to take, and one that will get you far whether it's in building / repairing / programming / whatever!

Hands on experience is great and the more the better, literally - if you can try and get hands on experience with different types of PCs as well (rack mounted servers, small form factor PCs like shuttles) even better.

At this stage though I think it's important to ask yourself how far you want to go in this sort of field and what exactly you want to look at doing - if it's just the hardware side with building and repairing computers, and the software side in terms of general maintenance, it'd probably be worth asking around some local computer repair shops. If you haven't got any qualifications then you will have to work your way right from the bottom up however much experience you tell them you've got, but once you have worked your way up you can gain a lot more valuable experience this way than just buying lots of parts and putting them together yourself, and you'll be earning something to boot!

If you want to go into programming and that sort of thing then it's a whole different board game however - I could go on for hours about it but the long and short of it is unless you've got very good connections with people that can get you work and you really know what you're doing already, going to some form of educational establishment will REALLY help you out here, I wouldn't recommend going down the other route of learning a few bits then trying to get odd jobs here and there.

However, qualifications and school do have their place whatever type of work you're looking into, and a lot of companies may require some form of certification - if they don't require it they'll almost certainly look on you more favourably because of it. Yes it can seem all very expensive, but in the long run you'll probably find it's well worth it!

Hope that helped :)
 
I only want to build and repair computers, nothing more. What started me on this idea was because I took my laptop on for repair and the minimum they charge is $40 and that was to just run an anti-virus program!!! That doesn't take much time and you could be fixing another computer while the software is running!
 
Ah, is this just personally or because you perhaps want to work in this field? I (perhaps wrongly) assumed it was the latter. If it's just personally then I wouldn't bother with a degree or spending loads on qualifications, they'll probably help but if it's just learning how to do general repairs then a bit of time spent reading books / googling around on the subject (though as always don't take everything you see on the internet as gospel) will probably be all you need :)
 
I would like to do this because I enjoy computers and want to earn a little extra money.

Thank you for taking time to chat with me and to make my question more clear.

just make sure you completely understand what you're doing before working on someone's computer though, just a heads up, you could really piss people off if you mess something up and can't fix it...
 
Go to tech and start off by getting an A+ Cert, it isn't hard and time consuming for that matter... you learn a lot of the basics in Hardware.
 
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