Introduction:

Hello everyone, today I am going to be looking at Tech Advice’s “new” service, computer Tune Ups. This service was already available as an alternative to an SSD upgrade but was considered a repair. It was decided to make it a standalone service to give it more structure and a more predictable price. I am also trying a new structure for these blog articles on our services to try and answer some of the questions you may have on the service.

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What is a Tune Up?

A computer Tune Up is a software-based service (i.e., We won’t be taking the computer apart to perform the service) that aims to speed up your device without having to pay almost double for an SSD upgrade. A Tune Up also gives you the opportunity to have any small issues solved such as removing apps that are causing you hassle or make changes to settings to make it easier to use.

Why would my computer need a Tune Up?

Every computer reaches a point where it starts to struggle with basic tasks such as opening files, and even browsing the internet despite having fast broadband. While I would always recommend getting an SSD in these case as it could be a sign of hard drive failure, for some people however the cost is too high. A Tune Up tries to speed up the computer at a lower cost but the success rate and size of speed improvement is much lower, especially on slower and older computers.

What is involved in a Tune Up?

When you book your computer in for a Tune Up, we perform a series of tests and basic troubleshooting procedures.

The first thing we try is a simple Restart as this can sometimes solve simple issues and clean up system files.

Next, we open the Task Manager to identify any software, both genuine and malicious that may be hogging your computers resources. At this point we will either remove them or try to reduce their impact on the device by changing some settings.

The third thing we conduct is an Anti-Virus/Malware scan to both protect our own internet network and to rule out malicious software as the cause of a slow computer. If a virus is detected we will remove it for you, if however, we think it is a large job we will contact you first as the service may need to be escalated to a repair which costs more.

Once the computer is deemed safe, we will connect it to the internet and make sure Windows is up to date, as Windows Updates can sometimes cause issues for slow computers. At this point we will have checked to make sure you have sufficient storage space to store the updates, if not we will contact you to discuss your options.

Once all the above have been checked we will conduct some more advanced tests and optimisation programs to ensure there are no deeper issues with the computer.

In some cases, as mentioned above, there will be little to no change in the performance of the device, at this point we will contact you to decide on what you wish to do next.

How much does it cost?

A computer Tune Up will always cost €50 to perform. If the Tune Up fails to have an impact you may request not to pay the full amount. Whether or not you pay anything will be decided on a case-by-case basis, e.g., If the device required a lot of attention during the process or updating it takes a very long amount of time, we may request something to cover the cost of internet usage and time spent.

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Conclusion:

As I have mentioned a few times during this article, an SSD is the only solution that will almost definitely improve the computer’s performance. A Tune Up may help some computers and it certainly won’t do any harm, it just may feel like a waste of money if you decide to upgrade to an SSD after.

Thank you for reading this article on our new service, if you would like to avail of it you can find contact details here. As always, leave any suggestions for future content in the comments below or on Facebook, you can also email them to help@techadvice.ie.