We cater to the computer needs of businesses, government agencies, and individuals. Our rates are fair and competitive and have only been hiked slightly twice in the last eight years. We offer many unique services such as after-hours by appointment, making house calls, and pickup and delivery of PCs.

OUR COMPUTER SERVICES

 In-house computer work versus "house calls"

The most economical way to get a computer repaired by SatCom is to just bring your tower in to our office, in downtown Many.  On in-house computer work, we charge $38 per hour "hands-on" time, which means you are being billed or our actual time on the computer rather than for the entire time spent, as is the case with "house calls".  Most cleanup tasks / bare full system recovery tasks average around $57.00. 

WHAT TO BRING:  All you need to bring to us is your tower and, if you have them handy, any discs that came
with the initial purchase of your computer.  We don't need any cables, cords, monitors, etc.  Now, for laptop computers, we do need the power adapters/chargers, so be sure to bring these in.  Our office is located in downtown Many right across from The Sabine Theater and right next to Edward Jones.  If you like, you can just come in and let us know you are here and we will be glad to get your computer out of your car and into our office for you.  It is no problem whatsoever for us and those steps in front of our office can be quite tricky!

Pickup and delivery

We also offer pickup and delivery of computers for a cost of $35 within five miles of our office, with $2.50 per mile on way added beyond five miles of Many, or we will work with you on mileage if we are able to schedule around having someone in your area.

ADD ONS...............

WHAT TO EXPECT:  When we take your computer in, we get your name and phone numbers and need to get the best description possible of the problem(s) you are having.  Please be prepared to tell us any problems you are having (or at least any problems that are nagging you)  so we can try to get your computer in the best shape as possible.  Among information we like to find out at the time we take a computer in that you may want to have handy:

• What Internet service do you have?
• Do you have a password to get into your computer?
• What data/documents are important to you in the event we need to perform a full system recovery (such as pictures, emails, Word documents, any financial-related documents such as Quicken and QuickBooks data)
• Do you have financial management software, such as Quicken, QuickBooks, Money, PeachTree.
• What programs do you use the most?

Once we've taken your computer in, we enter your information into our computer ticket system that will enable us to check the status of your computer at any time you need!

COST

We are very communicative on cost issues.  If it looks like the computer problem involves hardware (a tangible part that needs to be replaced), we always inform customer and quote for that particular part.  We never allow a ticket to exceed $100 without first going over things with the customer.  Very rarely do our tickets exceed $100 unless there are additions involved that are preapproved by the customer, such as Antivirus, memory upgrades, etc.

TURNAROUND ON COMPUTERS

Our normal turnaround for computers brought into our shop is within three business days.  We are often well ahead of this benchmark but we do occasionally get backed up and fall behind on this.  Feel free to ask what kind of time you are looking at at the time you bring your computer in.  Also, if you have a high priority case, all you need to do is let us know and quite often we can put a rush on computers by request.

Regardless of our caseload, please do expect to leave your computer with us.  We apologize, but we do not offer any "while you wait" services. 

HOUSE CALLS

House calls are offered on a limited basis- for tasks that need to be performed "on-site" such as network setup etc.  We charge $65 an hour actual time for house calls inside the Many city limits and $85 first hour, $65 thereafter for calls outside Many city limits.

CLEANUP VERSUS REFORMAT

Better than half the computers we see in our office have software-related problems, most commonly viruses and other pests that cause a computer to perform slowly, behave badly, or a mixture of the two.  Once upon a time, we were able to cleanup more than 90 percent of the computers that came to us (once upon a time being 3-7 years ago).  This no longer is the case unfortunately, as both the severity and the number of viruses, worms, malware, spyware, adware, trojans, etc. has grown.  Now our  cleanup ratio is more like less than half the computers we get in, with reformats being recommended on the rest.  A reformat (which means wiping your computer completely out, preparing the hard drive for a full recovery of the operatng system and then reinstalling the operating system and installing and testing all drivers, and installing all Service Packs and critical security updates for your operating system.

Because of the number and severity of viruses, etc., we now ask a customer when they bring their computer to us if they have data (photos, pictures, documents, etc) they want saved in the event we do recommend a recovery.  We limit our cleanup attempts to 30 minutes hands-on time and then proceed towards a format if things aren't going well on that end.

There are some interesting things we take into consideration when determining whether it is best to format.  Among them:

• The brand of computer (HP and Compaq for instance are notorious for not providing customers with recovery discs, which adds anywhere from $25 on up to the customer's cost if we have to order the discs, so we go a little above and beyond on trying to clean these up),
• If customer has recovery discs.  With the exception of most Dell computers, without recovery discs, a recovery will run a bit more (around $76) if you do not have these discs because we've got to locate drivers for all devices. 
• Programs the customer has and whether or not they have discs for these applications.  We can back up data all day long, but we can't back up actual programs.  Therefore, customers need to have their discs for us to reinstall their software.  If a customer has a program that is critical to them, such as QuickBooks, but no discs or product authorization number, then we try a little harder on cleanup.

Cleanup cautions:  Anytime we do cleanup rather than reformat a computer, particularly when there are high numbers of pests and registry errors, we caution a customer to watch their computer closely for the next 2-3 days and make sure it is behaving as they feel it should.  We do a few basic tests to make sure we are satisified with the performance of the computer before we release it, but the customer will be the best determiner of whether things are as they should be.  If problems persist and we need to perform a recovery, we do discount the recovery by 50 percent of the cleanup.

DATA RECOVERY COST

If we do reformat, and need to backup your data, this task will add anywhere from $19 to $36 to the job on average.

WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER A REFORMAT

After a computer is reformatted, please be prepared of the following:

• You will need to reinstall any applications not reinstalled by us (we will install any programs a customer likes). 
• You will need to install drivers for peripheral devices, such as printers and scanners.  They are simple to install, just follow the instructions that the discs walk you through and never plug into the comptuer until you are so instructed.  We can install any devices you wish if you bring them to us (such as printers, cameras, but please no scanners as transportation of them can be tricky and problems can result!)

WARRANTIES

We do guarantee our services will provide you a better-performing computer.  We have learned the hard way that we can't actually put a "warranty" so to speak on computer services.  We send it out working, but if you get the computer home and start downloading like crazy or surfing haphazardly, then any pests that attach themselves to your computer don't fall under our service guarantee.  That is why we ask you to watch your computer closely for 2-3 days so you can determine that you are satisfied.  We want to be as kind to our customers are possible, but it is not feasible for us to offer indefinite warranties on our services, as regular use of a computer can cause issues, therefore, please don't bring your computer back weeks or months later and say whatever we did did not work for you! 

COMPUTER PERIPHERALS

For the most part, we do not service or repair computer peripherals (printers, scanners, cameras, etc).  We are experts on computers, and we can fix just about any problem with your peripheral as long as that problem is within your computer.  But if the problem is with the device itself, we can not usually repair.  The only exception to this is laser printers, because we they are more complex and we have had pretty extensive training on the repair of these higher dollar value items. 

SPECIFIC SOFTWARE ISSUES

While we can fix many and perhaps even most problems related to the most common software programs, such as Microsoft Office and QuickBooks, we do limit our troubleshooting of specific software problems, such as ITunes, Pogo, and particularly antivirus programs.  We will review with you the options as we see them if we aren't quickly able to resolve specific software issues, please understand that again we have learned the hard way that it is simply not feasible for us to indefinitely troubleshoot odd software issues that we may not even be able to resolved wtihout something drastic like a format, and sometimes even this may not work if your problem is particularly unique.  We are willing to work with the tech support of the manufacturer of the software as long as customer is willing to pay for our time.