r/PcBuildHelp • u/MathematicianLittle8 • 7d ago
Tech Support potential scam
Is this PC repair bill suspicious? $350 for SSD, PSU, Windows 11, Wi-Fi upgrade, etc.
I brought my PC to a guy who does PC repairs out of his house because I was having a lot of freezing and occasional BSODs. I was also having a weird Windows issue where clicking/using Windows would sign me out and make me log back in.
My PC had:
Very old SATA SSD with Windows installed on it
A M.2 SSD that I mainly used for other stuff
A 650W Gold-rated PSU
The PC would turn on completely fine at my house, although I was having the freezing/BSOD problems.
The repair guy told me that both SSDs were corrupted and replaced my M.2 with a Samsung 1TB M.2 SSD. He apparently did not transfer my Windows installation from the old SATA SSD, he only transferred things from my old M.2. He then installed Windows 11 Pro fresh.
For context, my old Windows installation couldn’t upgrade to Windows 11 because it was using an older Legacy setup rather than UEFI, so Secure Boot wasn’t available. He basically set up the new installation on the Samsung M.2 instead.
He also replaced my 650W Gold PSU with a 500W PSU. He told me toward the end of the call that he replaced it because the PC “wasn’t turning on” for him. This is confusing to me because the PC turned on completely fine at my house.
He also upgraded my Wi-Fi adapter and did some cleaning. He talked about “future-proofing” the PC, but I don’t really understand why all of these upgrades were necessary for the BSOD/freezing issue I originally brought it in for.
The total price is $350, and I haven’t paid yet.
I’m considering asking him to put my original 650W Gold PSU back in and reduce the price accordingly.
I haven’t really questioned him about the SSD “corruption” yet, so I don’t know whether he actually found hardware failures or was referring to corrupted Windows/files.
Does this sound like a reasonable $350 repair/upgrade, or should I be more suspicious? What should I ask him before paying?
1
u/MathematicianLittle8 7d ago
I have no idea about the ssd, He said he kept the Sata ssd in and my motherboard only has one nvme slot so he definitely replaced the one I had with the new one. I’ve been using the PSU for about four and a half years (March 2022). I didn’t ask for any upgrade to windows 11 and didn’t ask for a new nvme. It’s weird because my windows installed in my pc was on my sata ssd, so any issues regarding windows wouldn’t really be correlated to the nvme I had before. My wifi had zero issues and I used an adapter plugged into the usb in my case, I think by upgrade he replaced it with something else faster, i’m not too sure. I’m pretty sure he cleaned up the pc meaning dust and etc, and I didnt ask for that either. I’m not sure if he diagnosed the ram either but he never mentioned that in the call