Heat Damage to Computers and Gaming Consoles

Heat is a common enemy of your electronics.  Dust, poor cooling design, and improper handling kills more electronics than old age or electronic defects.  Many devices suffer from the same kind of heat damage that requires a reflow service.  We offer these services in-store.  It happens to laptops (laptop gets power but nothing shows up on screen); Xbox and Playstation (video gets weird or locks up after playing for a while, or gets red rings, yellow light, and other error codes); Desktop Computers (same symptoms); and even appliances like the Roku Player.  Apple Desktops and Laptops suffer from the same thing, so no brand or design is immune.  Successful repair service is $79 (plus parts, if needed).  A non-refundable deposit is collected toward laptop/desktop repairs, but not for gaming consoles.

Why buy from us when you can order it from an online vendor? A) We're a locally owned business (and have been for over 11 years). B) You can walk in and talk to us to get help. C) Now through Dec 31st if you spend over $50 in parts we'll install it for FREE! (Offer excludes repairs and operating system installation.)

Are you a fan of ours on Facebook? You can find us at http://facebook.com/ComputerRoom.

Keeping It Simple

We like to keep things simple, even if fixing your computer is not.  We've always charged flat-rate for our services.  Our tune-up service does everything you need to have your computer to work right again -- remove viruses, optimize your operating system, get rid of junk applications, maximize your system's performance, stress test all your hardware, do all your updates, back-up your data to reload your operating system, and more.  If you need something extra installed, OK, just let us know... no extra labor fee! 
Standard Tune-up services are $99.

Now we've made that $99 worth more! Buy a back-up hard-drive from us (must be same size or larger than your current operating system drive) and once your tune-up is completed, we'll clone your whole drive to the backup unit for no additional fee. Your back-up drive will be ready to boot in case your current hard drive crashes for any reason. If you need help connecting it, come on by and we'll help you with it too (no additional charge). This is a $50 value! Hard drive prices vary based on size and availability. Currently 500GB drives are running $89-$99 for desktop and notebook versions.

We still do free while-you-wait basic hardware diagnostics. No appointment needed! Before you buy something you don't need, come on by and let us check it out for you. We're also now fixing out-of-warranty Xbox, Playstation, Wii, iPad, iPhone, iPod and other devices. We replace cracked screens too.

Thank you for supporting your local family-owned geek shop!

Summer is Here Already?

Here in the Midwest we're used to crazy weather but Mother Nature has pulled out all the stops this year.  She forgot to give us a Winter and is bringing Summer early (but if she'd keep the baseballs in the stadium instead of dropping them on our heads in hail-form that would be nice)! Unfortunately for us that means our slow season is here.  Fortunately for you that means we're changing things up and adding some new services!

First, we're going to cut our hours on Saturdays to 10am - 5pm starting May 5th.  Saturday nights are extremely slow so we're going to cut out earlier and enjoy an evening with our families and friends through the summer.

Second, we've added new repair services for Xbox®, PlayStation®, and iPhone/iPod®.  We're now repairing the hardware in the gaming consoles for heat damage or other failures and iPhone/iPod® devices for broken screens.   Of course, we're still doing that for laptops too.

Third, we're now resellers for Charter® Internet and TV services.  Residential customers will soon be able to schedule installations for any Charter® service in our store and receive discounts for installation charges and services.  Business customers can work with us and a Charter® business representative to get services as well. 

Fourth, we're now adding Crash Courses to our training schedule for mid-May.  We have over 50 topics and will continue to add new ones as long as you want to learn.  Each topic will be covered in an hour with a 30-minute demonstration and a 30-minute Q&A session. 

Fifth, we've made advances in our data recovery processes.  Don't format those camera cards, phone cards, or hard drives.  Don't run the restore/recovery disks before we save your data!   There's some nasty viruses and root-kits running around that hide your data and tell you your hard drive is failing.  We can save your computer from that too!

Sixth, not new but widely unknown... Kara offers digital photography services and will be adding photography classes to the schedule too.  Specializing in Event and Candid photography, she is available for private lessons as well.

Seventh, we're small and understand we can't always beat the prices of a sale from a big box store or have the selection of other electronics you want.  We like to save money too!  If we can't provide you with the products you need, we're now offering personal shopper services and will meet with you on-location in the Fairview Heights, O'Fallon, Shiloh, and Belleville areas to help you purchase items at other stores without the pressure or misinformation from salespeople.  There's insight that comes from being the people who have to fix the electronics you buy and we're happy to help you!

Eighth, we admit we're terrible at maintaining this site.  Do us a favor and "like" us on Facebook too.  http://www.facebook.com/computerroom .

THANK YOU!

We go way too long without updating this...

We're spend so much of our time working with our local customers in our store, I am terrible... truly terrible about updating this site for any of the rest of you. A link today off of ReadWriteWeb made me think about it though. So if that's how you got here, HI!

It's been over 4 years since we moved into our new location. It's truly amazing how time flies. It hasn't been easy at all, but we're still here. As so many big chain stores in the area have gone vacant, we're hanging on as hard as we can through the economic struggles we all are suffering from.

But enough about that. I thought I'd give you a heads up about something we're finally going to do. Yeah, that 1000sqft training room in our store is soon going to see more activity than being my daughter's dedicated Wii studio. We're partnering up with Anthony Walker to bring you some new entry level PC, Office, and general electronics classes. Stay tuned!

Vim: From Essentials to Mastery at OLF 2011

Ohio LinuxFest 2011 is coming up next week, September 9-11. As part of OLF Institute, Bill Odom and Steven Pritchard will be teaching a full-day class on Vim on Friday, September 9. If you're like I was a year or so ago, and you think you know Vim just because you've been using vi forever, you really need to come to our class. Some of the things you can do with Vim will just blow your mind. (And if you don't even know vi, the class will be life-changing. :-)

The main conference is on Saturday, September 10. At 2PM, we'll have a special Vim Geeks Columbus BoF session which, like the rest of the conference on Saturday, you can attend for free.

For more information about the Vim class, see

  https://ohiolinux.org/olfi#VIM

For more information about OLF 2011, see the web site:

  http://ohiolinux.org/

For more information about Vim Geeks, our local Vim users group, see

  http://www.vimgeeks.org/

The full class description follows:

VIM: From Essentials to Mastery

Instructors: Steven Pritchard and Bill Odom

Vim deserves its reputation as one of the most powerful tools in an admin or developer's toolbox -- but it's not exactly friendly and approachable. Even long-time users rarely employ more than a fraction of its capabilities, and new users are often left wondering why so many apparently-sane people won't shut up about how awesome it is. The stark UI, the steep learning curve, the host of idiosyncrasies... mastering Vim is a challenge, and that's putting it politely.

In this class, you'll learn why it's worth the effort.

We'll start by covering the essentials of Vim, like modes, motions, operators, and commands, with an emphasis on why Vim works the way it does in addition to how it works. With the fundamentals firmly established, we'll work our way through real-world examples of using Vim to perform astounding feats that poor souls using lesser editors can only imagine. We'll cover ways to integrate Vim with your environment, tailor it to your work, and generally bend it to your every whim. We'll discuss important settings, advanced techniques, useful customizations, handy scripts, must-have plugins, crafty tips, and sneaky tricks.

In short, we'll explore how to use Vim most effectively, so it lives up to the awesome reputation that you'll soon be telling all your disbelieving friends about.

Bios: Steven Pritchard has nearly two decades of Linux and Unix experience. A dedicated Open Source advocate, he founded the Southern Illinois Linux Users Group in 1994 and has been a volunteer developer with Red Hat's Fedora Project since it began in 2003. He is also an author of the award winning LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, 2nd Ed (O'Reilly & Associates). Steven currently offers his technical services through the Computer Room, a retail technical sales and service company outside of St. Louis, Missouri.

Bill Odom has over two decades of experience as a systems architect and software developer, working on everything from wiki software for Internet startups to global identity management solutions for Fortune 500 companies. He's also a long-time member of the Open Source community, an active member (and periodic leader) of several user groups in the St. Louis area, and served as president of the Perl Foundation from 2005 through 2007.

Steven and Bill are both long-time users and advocates of Vim, and are the founders of the St. Louis Vim Geeks. They've given several well-received presentations, tutorials, and classes on Vim to many Midwest organizations.

Verizon 4G USB Sim Error

Are you getting the dreaded sim error or WMC671 error on your Verizon USB device? I'm willing to bet it's on your laptop and maybe every once in a while after a reboot or a hibernate the device works again. Maybe you get the error and it still connects to the internet anyway? Maybe you've figured out one of your USB ports works with it, but the others don't? It's not a very cordless approach, but get a powered USB hub (a USB hub that has a standard wall-outlet type power cord) and try that. It seems this little dongle is drawing just a little too much power and isn't negotiating with the laptop's USB power management very well.

Good Luck!