PC World Health Check
 

I am just wondering if anyone else has been as foolish as me in entrusting their computer to PC World. Having had a few problems of late and, as it was free by virtue of my 12 month maintenance agreement, I thought a spring clean might be appropriate. How wrong can you be?

A previous healthcheck led to only minor inconvenience in that a couple of programs were disabled from the start up menu and a call to the store guided me to restore things to their previous state. However, on this occasion, PC World excelled themselves. On switching on after bringing the pc home it appeared to start up normally although I noted that the icon for Norton Internet Security did not appear in the taskbar. I could not connect to the internet by either IE or Firefox. Further investigation revealed that a total of 8 programs had been disabled from the start up menu. Six of these related to Norton but in addition "HIDSERV" and "SYSTEMTRAY" were disabled. Even with my limited knowledge of computing I know that System Tray is fairly crucial to pc running.

The call to the store to query their actions is another story in itself. It appears that there is only 1 telephone number to the whole of PC World which is, of course, an 0870 number presumably to maximise income from those in queues and ploughing their way through the various menu layers. Eventually, after a wait in one of the aforementioned queues, I got customer services who after some persuasion connected me to the store. This turned out to be a total waste of time as I was basically told to return the pc to the store the following day to have the errors rectified. No explanation or apology was forthcoming. I decided against another visit to the store and restored the start up menu myself using "msconfig".

I had on my pc both Ad-Aware and Spybot which I normally run weekly. As a week had gone by since the healthcheck I decided to run the programs. However, although the shortcut icons were there, Windows was unable to locate the programs. I can only assume that they were removed during the healthcheck perhaps as part of the unnecessary files process! Clearly PC World staff have something to learn here.

I am posting this as a cautionary tale to anyone considering using PC World for similar services.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Can i ask - out of curiosity - how much did you pay?

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Least you didnt buy a Time machine ,and had to call them all they would do is format format format,Sounds like you had a run in with the infamous warrenty hard sell.If its any consolation I got suckered by Dixons(same group) on my first pc

Re: PC World Health Check
 

2nd line ' it was free ' ;) , anyway , i guess you wont be going back to them :disturbd:

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Like I said the Healthcheck itself was free because of the warranty which I think was £50+ for the year. Don't think I will be taking out another.

Went through the "format" game with them last October. Wonder if they have heard of System Restore?

Re: PC World Health Check
 

A System Restore?. That's a joke .You can't beat a full fresh clean Hard Format and a new install . The System Restore nots worth the HD Space it takes up:td:

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Of course it is, on a few occasions I've used system restore to get my machines back into a workable state when a reformat would have been out of the question.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

http://www.saynoto0870.com/company_search.php
Hi...The above link will give you a freefone num for PC World...
I have found them ok to find out whats on the market...Then buy elsewhere...A neighbour has the extended warranty...after 3 months they still cannot tell her why her dial-up connection to AOL...yuk...times out after 15 mins....

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I always disable system restore one of the first things I do after a format, and as current this laptop has been on Xp running nice and slow poddling along for about 6month now without a format.

Why the need to format so much?

Re: PC World Health Check
 

This has been running fine for about 16 months since last format.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Nice to hear, I know a few people who have used PCWorld for warranty, I also have heard some wonderful stories about there upgrade facility, including harddrive upgrades, when a customer wanted a 2nd Harddrive installed into a E-machines system, when he got it home he heard a clunk... after his son opened the machine up the PCworld trained proffesional staff, had selotaped the 2nd handdrive onto the side of the tower. And needless to say with the trip home etc it had shook loose.

Put me off for life.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

That's just plain ridiculous. Sellotape? :rolleyes:

I could (and have) done a better job.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I use old macarno if theres no spare drive bay :D

Re: PC World Health Check
 

At least that's relatively secure though, unlike sellotape.

sellotape is s**t anyway especially when it gets hot, or wet for that matter.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I was showing my ingenuity not that im a bodge it and leg it type :D :D :D

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I knew that. Novel if nothing else.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

My brother-in-law bought a PC from PC world and due to a hardware failure of a component on the motherboard (the network adapter died) this caused the machine boot problems.

He rang the PC world's advice line and was told to run the restore function (this is basically a packard bell PC using an NEC software restore function stored on a FAT32 partition of the hard drive).
However, the machine refused to boot into the restore partition and although he could log into windows using my XP Pro CD, there appeared to be a lot of file corruption and no means of effectively repairing it. The machine was using XP Home.
As a consequence of this boot failure, he was instructed to format the hard drive, thereby removing the entire drive contents and no means of restoring the software as Packard Bell did not supply software on CD and you are therefore totally reliant on the restore partition. Had my brother-in-law been a little more tech savvy, he could have used the DVD writer to back up his system, but as he is not, he is now totally reliant on the restore CD's being sent from Belgium.
This is before the hardware problem can be 'formally' diagnosed as having no means of loading windows, further diagnosis is extremely difficult.
However, it is also evident that without the warranty, people like my brother-in-law may be stuffed as they are totally reliant on the support that the vendor offers.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

One thing i will say,

PC World = bunch of Ametuers

Re: PC World Health Check
 

harsh :erm: , my local store did me no harm , good and bad in all things ;)

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Quite - I think it depends what store you go to as well.

I'm more or less in between Bedford and Stevenage stores.....

I'd NEVER go back to the Bedford store again as they really were less than useless. But Stevenage on the other hand wasn't bad at all.

MMMmmm

Re: PC World Health Check
 

This is typical of some people, while I'm not defending the apparent actions of some staff at some PC World stores, there are some good people working for the company, it's all to easy to say everyone who works there is crap. I work as a technician there to earn money to pay my way through university and I always try to give good service and have never had a complaint against me. I have to do 3 or 4 'healthchecks' ever day I'm at work so I can tell you exactly what they involve. What annoys me is customers who have no idea how to use or protect their machine complaining because we've recommended they do a reinstall after our virus scanner has deleted half of windows! It's your responsibility to keep a data backup, not ours and infact you sign some paperwork when you bring it in that says this. In roverts case it may have well been a technicians blunder but it could also have been the new Healthcheck software we have to use, this includes special verions of Webroots SpySweeper and Norton Antivirus which install themselves when the healthcheck is being done and then are removed when finished. On very rare occasions it has been know that if the machine has already got either of these pieces of software installed then their registry entries may be effected when the healtheck versions are removed (presumably because they use the same entries or something), the people who produce the software have been informed of this. I'm not defending this particular store but if you're not happy then try speaking to the store manager, if they're decent enough they may offer you something in the way of compensation. Also you should have received a report back with the machine, take that with you as it should have the name of the technician who carried out the healthcheck on it.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Nah, use the tried and trusted IT bloke method of cable ties and blue-tack (sorry - highly adhesive, impact absorbing packing paste :D)

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Looks like someone stole your idea.....

http://www.internetreadypcs.co.uk/ca...roducts_id=379

I did consider getting some and doing a case at one point - but I can't trust my boy not to poke his fingers inside :)

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Dagnamit :D

Re: PC World Health Check
 

You get what you pay for and most companies cannot afford to honour their initial warranties in a proper manor either.
This is because most demand cheepness to quality.

£50 for a health check will buy you 1-2 hours servicing. A full and complete health check depending on the pc spec can take from several hours to days.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I forgot to mention in my original post that no written report had been given to me when I collected the pc, let alone the one-to-one consultation with a technician which they claim happens.

When I booked my pc in I was told that the healthcheck might take up to 2 days to complete. I was therefore surprised to get a call to say it was ready early afternoon on the day I had taken it in at nine. Further investigation showed that the pc had been turned on at 11.30 meaning that the whole process took just over 2 hours.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

There is a new name for PCworld's techincal staff.

Ogit Bodgit and Scarper.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

here we go again , you cant tar them all with the same brush , like i said before , good and bad in all ;)

Re: PC World Health Check
 

The problem with PC world is that 90% of the staff have no background in IT and as such have to follow written instructions (and we all know how often they work out dont we).
I know 3 people who work for PC world and every single one of them asks me for help because they are computer novices, infact 2 of them only have PC's because of staff discount apparently.

Strzelecki seems to be the exception to the rule, you can always tell when someone like him has dealt with your machine as it normally works when you get it back :)
I also agree with whats been said about store locations, the store near me is terrible, not one staff member who seems to know how to use a PC properly. There are three groups of staff at this store...... The know nothings, The know nearly nothings and the infamous "I play games on my PC so how hard can the rest of it be"
Now if your willing to make the 30 minute drive to Aintree from my house thier store is fantastic, or at least it was last time I went there (about 3 years ago). There is still the fair share of know nothings etc but I would have said that half of thier techs actually know what they are doing.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

You many not be able to tar each member of staff but you can have a bad opinion of a company. I certainly do. :)

Re: PC World Health Check
 

but how can the company be bad if 1 person gets good service and another doesnt :confused:

Re: PC World Health Check
 

A PC healthcheck, whether you've paid for it specifically or it's as part of you PC Performance package is allocated a 2 hour time slot on a central booking system. Techs at the store are meant to print out the healtchecks that are meant to be for that day and mark them off when they arrive. On a week day slots start at 9am and overlap by and hour (i.e 9-11 and 10-12) so you'd need at least 2 techs (who know what they're doing) working to get them all done. How ever this rarely happens as it is very hard to do a good thorough cleanup in 2 hours, no matter what machine you have, a virus scan alone can take more than 2 hours and uses a lot of the machines resources. I'm afraid to say it's not really the people who work at the store who can be blamed, most of the stuff is out of their control. A majority of healtchecks are booked via the call centre in Sheffield (not run by DSG) by people who a paid purely to answer phones, they don't actually know what they're doing most of the time (we always have numerous double bookings), the diary system doesn't help either, it gives no flexibility for overlap. Plus if a customer brings in a machine late then that can throw everything off course. We are given software which we have to use (unless it fails to install on a machine) that is basically a 'fill in the boxes, tick the answers, run the scanners kind of thing, that then generates a report and sticks it on the desktop (you should have that at least rovert?). Where I work we create this report but also type up a brief one on the store booking system, print off 2 copies, one for the customer and one for the records, that way disputes are a lot easier to rectify. Also our customer service staff are told to explain the report when they give back a machine.
Maybe I'm lucky, I gained all the knowledge I have before I started working there and have a genuine interest in computers. I also hate not finishing a job, I don't trust anyone else! I think Stoke store may be lucky too as it has a few good techs and some dedicted customer service people but we still suffer the novice problem. I think it's a combination of stores finding it hard to fill positions, average pay and interviewing being done by managers for positions they know little about. You all complain, but why do you buy stuff from there?

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I agree, you get good and bad staff in any company. Look at NTL for proof of that.

The problem is with PC World is that the staff they employ are good sales people, but not so good at the technical support. Two examples. My boss, when he first started his degree, didn't know an awful lot about PCs. He bought an old 486 PC off his mate, that (for some reason) had no onboard IDE connectors, only SCSI. He needed a larger hard drive, went into PC world and asked about SCSI hard drives. He was told that he shouldn't be bothering with SCSI as it was yesterday's technology and about to be phased out in favour of IDE.

Another example. I went in PC World a couple of years ago, looking for a DVD writer. Now, compatibility with DVD Set top boxes was important to me, so I asked for either a DVD +/-R/RW combo drive or a DVD-R/RW drive. The guy told me I should not be considering any drive with -R as +R was better for everything (BTW, +R is better for most things, but not where compatibility with set top players is needed). We actually argued for several minutes, until I walked out.

The final thing that puts me off PC World tech support. I know a girl who was a section manager for that section in one of their stores, and she freely admits she knew almost nothing about computers..


Regarding their "Healthcheck" service? Well, it doesn't seem to achieve much that can't be achieved by running a good virus scanner, adaware, spybot, Microsoft AntiSpyware amd occasionally running the disk cleanup wizard.

They do seem good at causing problems while cleaning up your PC though..

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Nothing on the desktop by way of report but that's hardly surprising given the other shortcomings discovered from this experience!

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Yes but there is a minority which are okay, but these are very few and PCworld is working on "improving" it's techincal staff.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

I presume that you know all PCWorld staff personally and know all their capabilities?

It is absolute crap to brand the majority of an organisations staff based on your own very limited experience and a few comments made here and there. It's just like the branding of NTL employees that some members engage in. :disturbd:

Re: PC World Health Check
 

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/200...puters_as_new/ :Yikes:

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Easily, if I receive bad service from a company consistently then as the customer my image of the company is tainted. Doesn't matter if it's the norm or not, I'll not go back to them if I can help it. I think you'll find this is how many people are. :)

Re: PC World Health Check
 

The real truth is your average household PC owner is really out of their league.
They have driven profit margins to a minimul low, and many really do not have a clue but are not willing to pay the price for their lack of knowledge.
PC maintenance can and generally is more time consuming than that of your car. The expertise and knowledge required to perform it to a respectable standard is way above.

Heres a prime example you average PCWorld health check cost £50 but that would not cover the cost of a full scandisk check on a lonesome 160GB hard drive which can take hours alone.
Garages charge by the hour, the majority would not pay that towards their PC.

This time round the fault is down to consumer demand, by demanding over and above what a market can provide for the prices offered.

In reality this is more what the PC market should look like

Base system bare minimum £3000
Hardware is covered by a warranty but the consumer would have to subscribe to a maintenance contract, which would then include a quartely visit to perform a health check that will take at least an entire day.

You cannot get this level of service in todays PC market prices so dont expect it.

Else the other option is know your system inside out, build it from scratch, know what its all about and what you dont know but think you need to know find it out.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

A mech has to be working at the car the duartion the works done I can sleep or go out or fix a dif pc while scan disc is running i certainly won't be sat there

Re: PC World Health Check
 

fix automatically is not allways the best option, therefore you need to be at hand at least for any prompts that pop up. Yes in a store workshop you could get involved in other tasks else where but if its a home visit you cant.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

If i was doing a full scan disc it would be in dos searching for bad sectors and trying to recover which on a large hdd will take hours,a job that required this would be taken into workshop not attempted in the home

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Workshop or home you still need to be around to deal with any prompts.
now add:
memtest86 2 pass minimum
check all drivers and hardware inc ports are operational
speed test the hdd to verify its operating in the correct mode
full virus and trojan scan ( 2 programs)
full anti spyware scan (2 programs)
a reg inspector and cleaner
a full defrag
check directx with dx diagnostix inc all tests
run a cuple of benchmarks and stress tests.
usually a customer would also mention a specific problem which will need investigating

PCWorld health check £50 2 hour slot ? Its like going to a car wash where they offer a full valet for a fiver. It cant be delivered so you would not get it.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

Ok you have stretched a clean up to a full system diagnostic,There would have to be faults other just a slow down to have to root so deep for a problem.

Re: PC World Health Check
 

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...d&tm=undefined

looking at the basic description there:
remove memtest86 drop the bad block test with scandisk
the rest of my list is directly related to system slow down and optimisation

but also add the extra benchmarks I wouldnt bother with that should be included as theres a 50 point performance test with the PCWorld health check.

Still adds up to way way way over 2 hours and cannot be delivered for the price