Return to Gilmore (A journey of two laptops)

For those of you who live within Metro Manila, I'm sure you're familiar with places here that are hubs for one thing or another. If you're a gear head, then it's Banawe Ave in QC or Evangelista Street in Makati for you. If it's textiles, it's Divisoria. Flowers? Dangwa. And if you're into computers, there's no better place than Gilmore Avenue in QC.

I learned about PC Options in Gilmore way back in the late 90s. It was the only computer shop back then. Over the years, several computer shops started their business there and became successful enough to open several branches all over the country. From a single building hosting PC Options, several more sprouted along Gilmore Avenue and even along the other nearby streets that it has become the de facto place for all your computer needs.

So when my mom wanted to have my niece's laptop fixed, the first place that came to my mind was Gilmore. There were a few shops in Gilmore I.T. center that repairs laptops.

The last time I went to Gilmore was sometime last year, when my main desktop PC / HTPC (home theater pc) died and i went to buy a replacement. So my mom, my dad and I headed to Gilmore yesterday (January 18, 2013, after dropping by at Divine Word Columbary first) and I was planning to head straight to Gilmore I.T. center, but even before we got out of the car, there were several guys asking us if we wanted to have our laptops fixed. I guess they saw the two laptops in the backseat (I brought my brother's old powerbook to get a replacement power adapter).


While my dad waited for a parking space, my mom and I decided to follow this guy who offered laptop repair services. We went around the corner back to Aurora boulevard and headed away from Gilmore for about 50 meters. I was surprised to find another building housing several computer shops, but mostly they specialized in repairs rather than sales. Based on the addresses plastered on some of shop signs, the place is called Gilmore Area, Valencia 4.

Digital Workz. The first shop we went to. Should've skipped them.

The guy referred us to a repair shop named Digital Workz. My mom explained that nothing displayed on the laptop screen. They told us that it will take an hour and about 2500 pesos. My mom was surprised at the price, so she agreed to have it fixed there. As per the policy of most of the repair shops, if they can't fix it, we won't have to pay. And if they do managed to fix it, then it's a steal. My niece asked around some of the repair shops she found, and they quoted her about 4,000 pesos and above.

Now, I'm an electronics and communications engineer by education, and I'm a software developer by profession, so I do know a few things around computers more than most people and i found the price and the time to fix it a bit iffy.

I guess they primarily say boastful things to encourage the client to have business with them. So the price is probably the cheapest they'd ask of you, and the hour is the fastest turn around they'd say. But once they get to look at the laptop, that's the only time they'd truly know what the problem is, and how much it would actually cost. And there's a pretty good chance that they're pulling a fast one.

Take my niece's laptop for example. The LCD on it doesn't display anything although the laptop has power, as the led indicators are on. You can't say that it boots up, since there is no display. A computer does not boot up if the processor or motherboard is defective, and sometimes even the memory. Since i can't check the processor or memory as I don't have spares lying around, there's still a chance of checking if it's the LCD. Most laptops have video out connectors (vga/hdmi/etc) to connect to external monitors. If it's a bad lcd screen, inverter, etc, there would still be a display to an external monitor, unless it's a bad video card/chip. And if that's the case, 2500 pesos is already cheap to get those replaced. But back home, I already tested the external display when I connected it to one of our LCD TVs that had a VGA port. So the laptop powers up, it seems to be booting as the indicators were blinking, and there's no display on an external monitor. So it's likely a bad video card/chip or a board level problem.

Which is why it made me think that these guys are trying to hoodwink customers when they quoted a price first. You can get the memory, hard drive, inverter, connectors, other easily replaceable parts, and even the LCD screen for less than 2,500 pesos depending on your laptop. And if you don't know anything about computers, then you probably don't know that most laptops won't boot up if defective hardware like memory and a hard drive could prevent your machine from booting up. And sometimes, when it comes to memory modules, all you have to do is clean the contacts with a plain old pencil eraser. So just imagine, if your main problem was dirty contacts, you'd be paying someone 2,500 pesos to rub a pencil eraser on the memory modules.

I'm even thinking, that once they found out that the problem is with a defective replaceable part, they'd quote a replacement part on top of the 2,500 pesos they've initially asked you for. So if it's a broken memory module, they might ask you to buy a replacement for them and I'm thinking that it's not honestly priced. A 2nd hand 4 gigabyte (standard for current laptops) memory modules can be bought for less than 1,000 pesos. So if they don't even quote that price on top of the 2,500 pesos service fee, that's still at least a 1,500 peso profit.

If you don't know these things, there's a big chance you're getting ripped off.

While waiting I looked around for a replacement charger for my brother's old Apple Powerbook G4.  Now like any smart buyer, I did my research first. It's rare to find any new and original power adapters for sale for a laptop last manufactured on 2006. You can only find replacements and I searched them online. I opted not to buy anything that requires shipping from outside the country or even within. There's a big chance that they're defective, and you can't replace them if they fail within the warranty period without spending for the shipping.

So I looked diligently for Philippine sellers that were willing to meet up or pick the item up at their place. My condition was that we should be able to test the power adapter with the laptop. The cheapest I could find was 1,500 pesos and was willing to meet anytime. I agreed to buy the power adapter, and we decided to meet at Trinoma at around 6pm, in a Starbucks where they have power outlets.

While looking around, I found a couple of shops that had 2nd hand adapters, only, they sold it for upwards of 1,800 pesos. Of course i found it incredulous so I declined.

I went back to Digital Workz where my mom was waiting, and asked if they had a powerbook G4 adapter to test if the laptop would turn on as I wasn't sure that it was the only problem. They said yes, so I went back to the car to get the powerbook.

When I found my dad I asked him if he wanted anything to eat as it was about 4pm, and he's used to taking merienda during that time. Shakey's was no longer at the Gilmore I.T. center, replaced by the new convenience store The Family Mart, which seems to be popping up everywhere (there's quite a few already in Ortigas). Even the big PC Express store was replaced by a Mini Stop and a drug store I think.

There's a chinese deli around the side of Gilmore IT center, so I brought my dad there. He settled for a meat bun, so we went back to the car where he ate his merienda, and I picked up the laptop. On the way back, several guys were again hustling me (which i think is the correct term at that time, instead of being hassled) for laptop repairs. I tried to ignore them, but then there was this guy who stuck to me all the time, and he introduced himself as the one who brought us to the repair shop earlier. I tried to ignore him, as I already knew where to go, and it irked me that he needed to escort me all the way back. It seems to me that he's earning for every client he walks to the repair shop. It irritated me because he had nothing to do with what I was planning this time around. I know that he's just trying to earn money, but you have to remember, whatever the repair shops are paying him, is mostly likely being taken from you.

When I got back to the shop, the guy then acted like he was again referring me to the same shop. Turns out that they didn't have the correct power adapter, as they only had the magsafe adapters for the newer apple laptops.

A little bit later, my concerns were affirmed. They could not repair my niece's laptop, so they referred it to the adjacent shop. It seems that their method of repairing, is replacing all of the replaceable parts and checking if that worked. So imagine that, 2500 pesos for troubleshooting, and if they lucked into a bad replaceable part, they'll just replace that and ask you to pay 2500 (for a part that most likely sells for less than 1,000 pesos) or more, if they can convince you that the part is more than 2500. This is likely, because we were never told that if a part needed to be replaced, that the 2500 was not enough to cover it.

Motherboard repair. Looks promising.

The next shop over looked like they could do a board level repair (like replacing chips on the motherboard as well as reballing for ball grid connections) since they have a few equipment there, not to mention that I saw this guy soldering something on a laptop's main board. So this one shop made me ease up a bit, since it looks like they know what they're doing.

The hustler then spoke with guys at the other shop (PBM Computer Repair Center, I think), and I overheard the hustler saying Digital Workz couldn't fix it, explained the problem, and then said that the agreed price was 2500. So the guys at PBM  took the laptop, but had to put it aside first as they were still working on a couple of laptops.

The hustler, again asked me to have the powerbook looked at by the PBM guys. I then explained to him that I just wanted to check if the powerbook was still working by testing it with a power adapter. If it wasn't I'm willing to have it checked, but not agreeing to have it repaired. Apple laptops are notorious for expensive and hard-to-source parts and I'm not willing to spend more for an old laptop than the power adapter. PBM did have the correct power adapter, and the powerbook turned on a few seconds after it was connected to a power source.

The hustler then pestered me for a few minutes trying to convince me to buy the adapter for 1,800. I told him that I already had a seller I was meeting later, and I was getting it for 1,500 pesos. He then asked the shop owner if they could sell the adapter to me for 1500, to which he reluctantly agreed. Again, the hustler kept trying to convince me to get the adapter already, saying we're already there, and the warranty's good for a few months (I was barely listening) and they'd replace it if it failed within the period. He seriously ticked me off, and I felt harassed. I then spoke in a strong voice that I had already made a promise to buy from the other seller. Just to get him off my back, I gave him the smallest bill on me (50 pesos) and told him it was for testing the laptop using their adapter. He took it and left.

The other laptop repair shops.

It was already 5 pm that time so I texted the seller of the power adapter that I might not make the 7 pm meet up. Around 6 pm, it was the seller's delivery guy who texted me and we agreed to move the schedule, to about 8 pm.

By that time, my mom had a chance to chat with some of the employees of one of the shops. I won't mention which one. We then got a clearer picture of how things worked around there.

The non-technician employees were mostly helpers. They're the ones who got ordered around to pick up supplies and whatnot. They get paid about 300-350 pesos a day, with free lunch.

Now the hustlers, they were different. They were paid 400 pesos a day to loiter along Gilmore Avenue to look for potential customers. They also get paid for every successful referral to a shop. The pay is different depending on how much the shop earns from servicing the laptop. So that 2500 we were supposed to pay? At least 500 of it goes to the hustler.

So if you're like me (or my mom who's the one footing the bill) who works hard for every centavo, that 500 peso commission is just too much.

I will pay for the cost of the replacement part, I am more than willing to pay the services of the technician, and I am willing to pay a little money as profit for the owner, but I'm never one who likes to overpay, especially for a service I've never asked for in the first place. Now, if you're reading this, and you want to get your laptop repaired, just ignore everyone and head straight to a repair shop.

Around 6:30 pm, the PBM tech still couldn't fix the laptop (I saw the guy replacing the processor with another one and it still won't display anything), so we agreed to be back for it on Monday. So we headed back to the car where my dad was waiting.

When we got there, my dad started telling us what happened to him while he waited in the car. He said he was inside the car eating his meat bun, when he felt that the car rocked a bit. He looked to the passenger side of the car, and saw a car with its door open with an old lady getting out, while clutching a baby. It seemed that the old lady was too concerned with the child that she didn't realize she bumped my dad's car with their door.

My dad got off, concerned that the lady was having a hard time getting out that she'd hit the car again with their door. My dad approached the driver, who seemed to be her son, and told him that it looked like their door's edge, hit my dad's car and there were a couple of small dents. The guy grumbled that it couldn't have been his door, since that it would mean that his door's edge should have gotten dented as well. Which is pure BS of course, since that part of the door is the sturdiest.

Now my dad is a pacifist, he doesn't like confrontation. So he didn't say anything more, but the old lady started yelling and badgering my dad, saying all sorts of things, like maybe my dad rocked his car on his own. The old lady kept at it for a while, and his son left to whatever shop he was going to. My dad just moved away from the old lady who still kept at it.

By the time we had arrived, they were already gone. The other people who was hanging around the area, spoke up and told us that they saw the whole thing and they said it was really the other party's fault, and they did hit my dad's car with their door. My mom told my dad that it was fortunate that she wasn't there or there'd be a bigger commotion.

I don't like confrontation as well, and I get that from my Dad. That's because I'm hot headed, and I have a short fuse when it comes to family, which I got from my Mom. So I try to avoid confrontation as much as I can. Just thinking of it really pisses me off. My dad's 68 yrs old, from his account, the old lady was around her 50s, and her son mostly likely in his late 20s or early 30s. Now to gang up on a near 70 year old guy who was by himself, who wasn't looking for a fight and was just trying to prevent getting his car hit again, is extremely low. I'll leave you guys to whatever karmaic system your religion has, if you actually practice a religion to begin with.

We then headed to Trinoma to buy the power adapter. I was asked to meet at a Starbucks near J CO Donuts and Mang Inasal. But when we got there, there was no available wall socket to test with. I found one outside of Mang Inasal so we tested there. The laptop turned on, so I paid the guy and then went back to the car.

Liempo!

I think this was a buco pandan drink

We decided to have dinner at Trinoma and headed to the LandMark food court. We ate at Chuck's Steaks ( I actually ate here a few weeks back, it was the weekend before January 8, as I was looking for a gift for my wife, I'll blog about it another time). I ordered Liempo with Java Rice, since I ate the Porkchop with Egg previously. My dad ordered the T-bone (he just loves those), while my mother ordered Chicken from Jollibee.

After the meal, it was already past 8pm, so we headed back to the car and went home.

Update:

The repair shop couldn't fix the laptop either. It's a graphics chip problem and they can't source it from their suppliers. So I guess that laptop's just good for scraps then. Oh well.