Who pays the cost for the license software?
Buy a new one
$200.00
Any laptop with a “floppy” is probably too old to service.
BTW, I have a servicable laptop with one problem. The electrical jack where the power cord plugs in is faulty and it need to be replaced. I have been told it’s one of the toughest repairs on a laptop. Can this be true?
“Fair” is a meaningless term. Charge what the market will bear.
If you are providing a quality service, you’ll find that you can charge more than others. If your service stinks, you’ll find you have to charge less.
I know you wanted a number, but it just doesn’t work that way. I have a guy that does all our heat/ac work. He charges more than the going rate, but I know the work is done right and he is dependable. If I have a question or problem I know he’ll be over in the dead of night to fix it if needed.
Tip:
One area you can get into is setting up a PC to hook up to a big screen TV. Applications (netflix, hulu, tuner card, windows media player, etc...) and hardware (hdmi video card, wireless keyboard & mouse). Big hole in the market right now.
“Install Win Xp with Service Pack 3”
Ummm... You are a couple of generations of operating systems behind the times.
Just curious, what do you use for said diagnostics?
The local ‘repair’ shop did everything you listed (albeit they installed OPEN OFFICE) execept for number 6 (because I didn’t take in the monitor or keyboard - I have a tower instead of a laptop) for $60. Cleaning a laptops keyboard (properly) can be a tricky and time consuming thing, so the cost might be higher for a laptop.
My best suggestion is that you call some local repair shops and see what they charge.
Not much help, but my local PC repair shop charges $75 to reload the operating system, if they or you already have the license key.
Your car dealer would charge you $75 per hour to repair your car. Are you any less skilled?
If it’s a federal computer that’s in question, I think $1,000,000,000,000 should be a fair price.
Are you logged in?
:-/
Does it have to be HP?
Buy a new one. Or buy a Mac.
I’d agree $200+ if your including real licences, if your going to be doing this alot you shouls slipstream this all in to 1 install cd. Had to replace my SO’s vista 64 drive, would have done it myself but I’m running xp and ran into partition format problems. Had to go to bestbuy. drive was about $100 and copying the partitions was another $100(and they screwed up the diagnostic partition at that)
$150 to $200 is about the going rate. Keep in mind that this is a pretty straight forward job, seeing as you are starting out with what used to be called the old F.F.R., Fdisk, Format and Reinstall.
$137.54
Hard to say I do a lot of work like this but I do it as a hobby. I got my start 40+ yrs ago as a Ham Radio Operator of course I have worked tech in this also.
Iwould first ask what the laptop is worth if it is a $100 one it isnt worth this type of upgrade because what you are talking about doing would be in a range of 150 to 300 depends on you.
I have a question that’s kind of related. Are non-working laptops (only several years old) worth anything in trade for partial payment to repair another laptop? My daughter has one that won’t boot and I have hated to advise her to just junk it.
Twice as much as you told them when they dropped it off.
Works for most contractors.
Consider the age of the CPU and software, then consider that at $200.00 you are approaching the low end price of a new laptop. If you exceed that, depending on your current machine you might consider buying new.
Some things are better done on a "project" basis (flat fee or quote +/- 10-15%)
The project you outlined is really a $200+ job. I do it for friends or existing customers for $150. If you do it right, you also install av software, helpers (7zip, filezilla etc), Acrobat, Primo PDF, Open Office, flash and Java.