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How much to charge for a bit of work

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  • 21-06-2012 3:30pm
    #1
    tony81
    Closed Accounts Posts: 595 ✭✭✭


    Hi, a small business owner asked me to have a look at his computer running xp as it was slow.
    PC repair isn't exactly my business but I'm doing computers in college so I said i'd have a look. I routed around at it for a few hours.

    it's an xp machine with a half gig of ram. I added another half gig of the exact same type of ram (from my old pc which is going in the bin) and adjusted the virtual memory setting.

    I also removed one of those fake "anti-virus" programs (that is actually malware itself). I disabled a bunch of windows services and programs that weren't necessary. Deleted temp files, defragged hard drive, and disabled a bunch of silly add-ons in internet explorer, used a registry tweaking tool that hopefully sorted out inefficiencies in the registry. Also adjusted some of the boot stuff such as the way the pc tries to boot from the floppy drive for 3 seconds..

    all in all, the computer still works ;) .. it's definitely starting up faster and i assume it's running faster. so job done.
    What should I charge?


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    #2
    Xenoronin
    Registered Users Posts: 1,307 ✭✭✭Xenoronin


    How long did all that take you?


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    #3
    deconduo
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,281 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    Maybe €20-25 I suppose? Depends on how long it took as well.


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    #4
    tony81
    Closed Accounts Posts: 595 ✭✭✭tony81


    Xenoronin wrote: »
    How long did all that take you?

    ah, a couple of hours routing around. say 2, plus the round trip to pick up the computer.

    I don't really have a set procedure like PC doctors would follow & to be honest the computer wasn't in that bad of condition.


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    #5
    uncle_sam_ie
    Registered Users Posts: 3,191 ✭✭✭uncle_sam_ie


    tony81 wrote: »
    ah, a couple of hours routing around. say 2, plus the round trip to pick up the computer.

    .
    How far of a round trip was it? I suppose 40 to 45 euro, don't sell yourself short. A pc doctor would have charged 75.


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    #6
    tony81
    Closed Accounts Posts: 595 ✭✭✭tony81


    uncle_sam_ie wrote: »
    How far of a round trip was it? I suppose 40 to 45 euro, don't sell yourself short. A pc doctor would have charged 75.

    8 miles.

    Anyway, cool! good to know.

    I obv don't pay vat, but I did give them the second hand ram so that's worth at least a tenner ;)

    think i'll say 40. Don't want to overdo it as it would be nice to get more work sent my way. I see his website is woefully out of date..


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    #7
    tunedout
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 448 ✭✭tunedout


    I always charge €50 for anything like that. if it takes between 10 minutes and 2 hours noone is going to argue with €50


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    #8
    conorhickey
    Registered Users Posts: 107 ✭✭conorhickey


    50 to me seems reasonable


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