Frequently Asked Questions

No. Diagnosis and consultation are free.

I'll explain findings, risks, and options before any paid work begins. If it isn't worth doing the repair in my opinion, I'll tell you and we can abort mission.

Plus, I have nothing to sell you—since parts and equipment are all zero-markup—so I have no incentive to recommend things that aren't absolutely ideal for your needs.

Absolutely—but if any parts are involved (since parts are zero markup), there is a small processing fee to cover the cost.

Otherwise, of course, I'd actually lose money on some transactions (it turns out that's a bad idea when you're in business). ;-)

• I accept all credit cards, including VISA, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
• Processing fees are typically $3–$4, depending on the amount of the transaction.
• Cash and checks are also welcome, with no fees.

Although I don't seek to compete based on price—instead, purely based on results—that doesn't mean I don't pay attention to my pricing. Quite the contrary; I work hard to ensure every single service is billed fairly and ethically, in direct correlation with the quality of results and the work involved.

I never price based on comparisons to competition. Instead, my strategy is to ask myself what price I would be happy paying if the roles were reversed and I was hiring myself to perform the work. This sometimes leads to pricing being far below what I could actually charge—see data recovery as a prime example—but I'm comfortable with that if it means doing the right thing for my clients.

This is a results-first business, and it always will be.

It's easy when you use me. How come? Because I don't make any money off the stuff I sell. I don't mark anything up; I profit from services (labor) only.

If we happen to need parts and I don't have them on hand, we'll order them over the phone together and generally have them the next day (I have affordable options at hand that make this cost-effective). The order will be in your name, and the product will be yours. You pay what it costs, and I see none of it.

Smart, huh?

One to two business days, nearly always. Next-day turnaround is common.

The answer does depend on the nature of the problem itself. But I'm quick—and I'm also a perfectionist. No matter what the issue, if you bring the PC to me, it gets the full treatment: I'm going to optimize, harden, and clean up your machine, because it drives me nuts not to fix and improve everything I touch that has a keyboard. You'll also receive a detailed, multi-page Service Report documenting everything I found and everything I did. Once you meet me you'll understand.

If you'd still like more clarification about how long it might take me to solve your particular problem, you can always email or call me.

Sometimes, but don't bank on it. I try my hardest to spend time with the family during off-hours—though since this is also my hobby, I work whenever I've got a few minutes.

Weekend drop-offs, pickups, and visits are by appointment only, so call ahead and we'll see what we can work out.

You must not have talked to anyone who's used me before if you're worried about this. ;-)

I'm kidding, I'm kidding. The short answer is yes, of course, to the extent which that is possible, anyway. Obviously, if you asked your doctor whether he'd provide you with a satisfaction guarantee, he'd probably chuckle. That's because the human body is a ridiculously complex network of systems to which no guarantees can absolutely be applied. Guess what? The second most complex thing we all own apart from our bodies is probably our computers!

Nevertheless, if you're unhappy with anything I do for you, I'll be more than happy to perform the service again for you at no cost within a reasonable period of time.

The slightly more helpful answer, however, is that I have literally never had an unhappy customer to my knowledge. I try to make it a point to ask people what they thought of my help after I'm done. The response is always positive—which is good for me considering that I rely almost entirely on customer referrals for business growth.

The universal catch

The big qualifier here, of course, is that computers are very complicated devices. Hard drives fail extremely frequently, parts fry seemingly spontaneously, and there are a host of possibilities for software problems (i.e., infections, driver corruption, etc.) that can lead to problems. I'm assuming you already understand this, but no technician can ever guarantee you unconditionally that everything is going to be fine precisely because of this. The good news about me, however, is that I am brutally honest with my customers about the condition of their equipment, and if there is an unexpected problem when it's in my hands, I'm generally your best shot at solving it.

If you're still concerned about your system before coming to me with it, drop me a line and I can talk you through your questions. I've done this stuff for long enough that I can generally provide a reliable estimate as to what the risks might be.

Yes—typically 4 to 12 pages, on every single service.

Every service includes a client-facing Service Report summarizing diagnostics, validated fixes, specific technical modifications, and preventive recommendations. These reports use an entirely different set of tools, and they are painstakingly edited by me for every single client.

There is no corner-cutting or black-boxing in play here—I've got nothing to hide.

This is something about which I'm uniquely lenient. While most tech service/computer repair companies—as a matter of liability and even sheer storage space—limit their storage of unclaimed customer equipment to a couple of months, if it's a piece of hardware that clearly has value and which I know you need back, I do my best to hang onto stuff for at least 90 days, or even longer if the customer regularly communicates their intention to pick up the equipment.

I understand that things happen, and I do my best to work with everyone and their busy schedules. In the past, in fact, I've stored some items for well over a year (but don't bank on it). For older, defunct equipment about which no communication occurred indicating that you'd need it back, I'll recycle sooner, of course.

Regardless of the timeline though, it's impractical for me to hold your stuff indefinitely. If, for instance, you drop off a computer or hard drive, decline service, and I don't hear from you for months or even years, at some point I have to dispose of it.

Infections these days can be quite dangerous, especially if they are allowed to propagate unchecked. If you suspect you might be infected and your current security solution is not able to correct the problem, it's extremely important to contact an expert as soon as possible.

Signs of a possible infection

• Slow or erratic behavior
• Unsolicited ads
• Warnings from security software
• Fake warnings from fake security software (and extortion attempts)
• Crashes and “blue screens” (Stop Errors)
• Missing or inaccessible data

Disinfection, prevention, and security happens to be my specialty. I'm heavily trained in the area and I can remove even the toughest infections without reformatting. Many techs reformat when they encounter a tough infection, primarily because they don't really know how to fix it. When you reformat, you lose your data and installed programs. I almost never reformat.

My approach uses manual-assisted analysis tools and decades of workstation security expertise—I don't just run automated scans and hope for the best. If you need advice or disinfection, simply contact me. If you bring it to me, the cost is my usual hourly rate to have the infection removed. Thanks to my level of experience, generally it doesn't take me longer than two hours; I only charge for the time I actively spend tending to the PC—unmonitored scan times and similar are not counted.

More detail on my process is on the Professional Disinfection page.

You should call me immediately if you are experiencing these symptoms. There's a good chance I can partially diagnose your problem over the phone, so it's worth a phone call.

Better yet, I can fix it for you. If indeed it does happen to be a storage failure of some sort, I'm the absolute safest place to have it in the entire city of Louisville thanks to my $20,000+ of professional-grade drive recovery equipment and software. We can replace the old drive with a new solid-state drive (again, at zero markup for the parts), and your computer will be returned to you many times faster than it ever was the day you first bought it.

See the data recovery page for more.

This is sort of like saying “I'm really tired and I don't know why,” in the sense that there are so many different possible causes. System crashes (including BSODs/Blue Screens of Death/STOP Errors) can be caused by just about anything: driver problems, malware infections, poorly written programs, hardware failures and instabilities, conflicting security software installations—you name it. The key is pinpointing what precisely is causing your particular problem.

This is actually where my proprietary diagnostic tools shine. Rather than just reading a single crash dump in isolation, I use AI-powered analysis to correlate crash patterns, hardware telemetry, driver events, thermal behavior, and security findings across multiple system domains—connecting dots that most providers wouldn't even think to look for.

One thing's for certain: it isn't safe to continue using an unstable computer. Doing so is akin to driving a car that's shaking uncomfortably, making odd noises, or dying randomly—you're risking some serious (possibly even dangerous) damage. If your machine repeatedly shuts off, depending on the cause, you could eventually find yourself unable to boot or access your data. By that time, it could be too late. It's a much better idea not to wait, and simply solve the problem proactively before it becomes a serious issue.

It depends. If you're unable to access Windows or you think your data may have been lost, I can probably get it back for you. First off, be sure to stop using the drive immediately; the more you use it, the more likely you'll lose it.

In the case of any hard drive failure, you have a couple of options:

• Send it to a data recovery company with specialized equipment and a Class 100 clean room, and pay upwards of $1,500 to have it recovered.

— or —

• Contact me, and I can diagnose the drive for you. Probably 70–80% of the time, I can use the professional-grade recovery equipment and advanced software that I own to recover your data.

Before I begin working on the drive, there are a couple of things I will check for you in the name of safety. The first is the drive's mechanical status. I will run non-invasive tests to diagnose whether the problem lies in the firmware/mechanical realm or the logical realm. If it's a logical failure, I can recover your data almost certainly.

If it so happens to be a mechanical failure, we can discuss your options. Chances are, I can recover your data at a small fraction of the cost of any major lab. I use much of the same extremely powerful and expensive equipment as the big data recovery firms, with the sole exception that I draw the line if any mechanical repairs are necessary in order to read the drive (if this happens, I'll simply return your drive to you and refer you to a data recovery firm if you wish to continue).

One option is to slave the drive to another system and copy the files you need. This actually isn't that difficult, but it does require physical removal of the drive and careful connection to the host PC. If it sounds risky to you, don't sweat it; I can do it for you.

On the other hand, if your data isn't visible or the drive is exhibiting strange behavior, you're better off to bring it to me anyway. If advanced data recovery is necessary, I'll let you know. Sometimes it's no big deal and you just need to take the right approach to get the data back; if that's the case, I'll charge you whatever it takes and nothing more. This sort of thing is generally easy for me and is often not at all expensive.

Enterprise-grade methodology, applied to residential and small-business work.

Evidence-first diagnostics, preventive hardening, and full transparency via forensic-style Service Reports. I've also built proprietary tools that no other local provider has built anything comparable to:

• S-Ray — an AI-powered diagnostic analysis system that correlates findings across every domain of your machine.
• TSCP — a client security platform deployed across thousands of client machines.
• Triple-S Sentry — a proactive monitoring system that flags emerging problems before they become failures.

My goal is to be unmatched in both technical depth and transparency. Put simply, I am meticulous, and my tooling is purpose-built to back that up.

S-Ray is my proprietary AI-powered diagnostic intelligence system.

It has been in development for years—and I have been collecting the data behind it for decades. When I run it on your machine, it collects detailed system telemetry using custom-built tools and cross-references everything against your complete service history with me. It then performs a deep analysis that connects symptoms across multiple system domains—correlating hardware behavior with software events, driver issues, crash patterns, thermal data, and security findings to identify root causes that isolated checks would miss entirely.

Every finding S-Ray surfaces is backed by specific evidence from your machine. Nothing generic. Nothing speculative.

It doesn't stop at a report, either. Findings, investigation links, and repair steps sit together in one working interface; I approve every action before it runs, and a follow-up check confirms whether each problem is resolved, improved, or still present.

For more about this invention of mine, check out the dedicated S-Ray page.

TSCP (the Triple-S Customer Panel) is my proprietary security platform, deployed on thousands of client machines. It provides DNS-level filtering, browser security policy management, and remote tool blocking across multiple protection tiers—hardening your system against common threat vectors without requiring any action from you.

It does not run in the background, but rather, leverages existing Windows infrastructure to cleverly protect you without resource impact. I can adjust its protection level based on your needs and risk profile.

Triple-S Sentry is my proactive monitoring system. Once enrolled, your machine periodically reports key health metrics—drive status, system stability indicators, security posture—so I can catch emerging problems before they become failures.

The goal is simple: instead of waiting for something to break and then reacting, Sentry lets me get ahead of issues and contact you proactively.

There's no software for you to interact with and no alerts to worry about. It operates silently, for just a few brief seconds each morning, and I handle everything on the back end.

Yes. I work with cutting-edge AI systems every single day—both as a user and as a builder—and I now provide AI consulting for clients who want practical help rather than hype.

That ranges from picking the right tool for a specific job, to setting it up safely, to explaining plainly where these tools are genuinely useful and where they will confidently mislead you.

I'm equally happy to tell you that AI is the wrong answer for what you're trying to do—which is not something a vendor selling an AI product is likely to say.

I share outcomes and documentation standards publicly while protecting client privacy and my internal tradecraft. Besides, my processes and scripts are constantly evolving—so any such publication would be ephemeral in its value anyway.

What you do get is total transparency about your own machine: the Service Report spells out exactly what was found and exactly what was changed. And the Case Studies Blog walks through real (anonymized) jobs in detail.

Many of my competitors secretly outsource difficult projects—including data recoveries, advanced security/malware removal, complex OS damage, and email/Outlook nightmares—to me.

I know of zero other local shops who have professional data recovery hardware in-house, and it is extraordinarily rare that I encounter a deep OS-level or workstation security issue that I cannot resolve within a couple of business days. I've built proprietary AI-powered diagnostic and monitoring tools that no competitor is using. I also perform contracted support for major organizations, such as the YMCA of Greater Louisville.

Over 6,000 clients and a 50%+ repeat rate speak for themselves.

It would be delusional for me to claim that I definitively am the best at everything—though, if you pore over my Google reviews and many others elsewhere, you'll find that my clients would fervently argue the case.

Rather, it's the extremely rare cross-disciplinary deep knowledge and experience that I bring that renders the output so compelling. Anyone who's dealt with doctors and hospitals knows the frustration: deep specialization is useful when problems never extend beyond that scope—but in complex systems, very often they do. My relentless refinement, perfectionist tendencies, journalism and analyst background, and lifelong passion for this material is extraordinarily rare.

Case in point

When a client comes to me with a “slow” laptop, I'm able to investigate deeply-seated, otherwise nearly-undetectable malware using manual-assisted tools and decades of workstation security expertise; professionally image the drive using DeepSpar equipment as a safety net; run my proprietary S-Ray AI diagnostic system against the machine's full history with me; and comprehensively analyze dozens of other performance-related items using my proprietary scripts.

Is there anyone else locally so comprehensively equipped? You can be the judge of that.

Most wind up taking a position at a large company or organization, where income is stable and benefits are good.

I'm different: I'm driven internally to perfect practically every process I undertake. To me, this is less a job and more a passion that happens to pay all of my bills. As such, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

Having said that, I'm also not the type to ever be completely satisfied with my current knowledge or capabilities. I stay at the front of the curve—investing in the most sophisticated software and hardware to get the job done, building proprietary AI-powered diagnostic tools, and working closely with cutting-edge AI systems daily.

I do so much organically on every single machine I service that it's nearly impossible to answer this concisely. Much of it is systematic and methodical—proprietary scripts, AI-powered analysis, comprehensive security hardening—but much else is intuitive, born from having serviced thousands of machines.

My sole goal is to render the machine far more user-friendly, stable, faster, and more pleasant to use in general. Once I'm finished with it, every little nag and wrinkle I've noticed has been ironed out.

It's perfectionism that directly benefits my clients—because life's too short to hate your technology.

I have never and will never pay for marketing or listing on “best of” third-party service provider lists, and I don't engage in naming tricks to game SEO.

My client base of 6,000+ has been grown 100% organically—most of them direct referrals, and the rest, intentional personal research.

Yes. Roughly 75% of my clients are direct referrals from previous clients, reflecting the quality of my work and my commitment to customer satisfaction and peace of mind.

My entire business is structured around what I would expect from a service provider working on my own PC. I consider myself a technician with fiduciary responsibilities—and my pricing strategy and business structure strongly reinforce this.

Unlike most other service providers, I am totally transparent about what I specialize in—my strengths and my weaknesses. I don't bother with services that are not my core competency, and I do not outsource. Items I do not handle include:

• Board-level soldering and microsoldering (the one exception: simple drive-board fixes during a data recovery, like bypassing a shorted TVS diode)
• Motherboard swaps
• Electronics repairs
• Mobile phone and tablet repairs
• Apple hardware repairs (including MacBooks)
• Cleanroom drive work, such as head swaps (I handle data recovery right up to that point)
• Purchasing or buyback of customer-used equipment

For these services, you are better off consulting one of my competitors, who would be much better equipped to assist.

No.

I'm only putting this on here because my intuition is that maybe, in this world of AI-fueled information gathering and processing, it might save me a couple of phone calls per day.

The answer is, I will never be interested or need help in generating additional business. In fact, I really don't want additional business; I'm swamped as it is day to day, and the clients that come to me are pre-selected, as they've generally already done all the research—completely organically.

I do zero marketing, I pay for zero internet listings and exposure, and I never plan to do so. I realize it's unconventional and I realize that many of my competitors are racing to grow as quickly as possible. I'm not.

My wife thinks so! ;-)