Solved PC Repair Shop Horror

Sit down ye weary bones and let me tell ye a tall tale of tragedy and woe...

Seriously though, I need some validation here from the good folk on this website that I'm not being conned. I have a GS63 7RD Stealth MSI laptop. 2016-ish, but it's a neat little machine I wanted to breathe a bit of life into. So I bought 2 sticks of 16GB RAM to boost it to 32GB from 8GB (yikes), got a NVME SSD 1TB to upgrade from 250GB, and a 2TB HDD to upgrade from the 1TB.

Sadly, it's notoriously horrible to upgrade. (Here is a teardown video of the procedure I wanted to do, which involves essentially taking out the whole motherboard and then some. Decided it was out of my comfort level and to let someone with more experience do it: ) I also tried cloning my SATA SSD to an NVME myself in my main rig earlier last year and that went pear-shaped. The thread I made should still be here somewhere.

So, I decided to take it to a local PC Repair Store. I told them to slap in the new components and clone the old drives to the new. Now, please note, I'm out of home country right now. LONG personal explanation of circumstances aside, basically I really need this laptop as it's my only PC access for months going forward, my main rig is in lockup, and I was unable to take it to a store until a week before my flight back home. I have no car access here and I'm reliant on the transport and timetable of others. So this was the earliest I could do it.

That being said, told this to the store on Monday, they said no problem, we'll have it back to you in 2-3 days and will give you priority. They took my number, my details, and left me feeling confident.

Roll on Friday. Come back into the store, and...

Told me the SSD clone failed, so they made a whole new Windows installation, and the new Amazon bought RAM I gave them was DOA. Oh, and they installed Windows 11 without my permission and wanted 125 dollars for the pleasure. But my HDD clone went fine!

... Wait. What?

Is this normal business procedure? I have many questions, the major one being why the heck they didn't call me about the RAM so I could return and order a replacement from Amazon in time, let alone the ignorance of just assuming I wanted Windows 11 on my machine. I know it's being rolled out, I'm not adverse to it, but it's the lack of permission that gets me. So, I complained. Politely. I didn't ask why they didn't call - which I should have done in hindsight, but I was low-key panicking at the mess of files and missing user profiles and program icons on my laptop screen at the time. (Side note, my most important files were saved to a USB/external HDD I brought with me beforehand, so my data is mostly safe. But the mess they left me with still kicks.)

I tried to ask what happened, that the RAM was one of the main things I wanted upgraded and I shouldn't have to pay another service fee back home for someone else to install new RAM when I already paid them to do it. (So much for priority, sounds like they rushed my job in the last hour or two before I came to pick my laptop up.) So they told me if I could get a new batch of RAM to them before they closed for the weekend, they'd install it for 'free', and try to get my laptop back to me Monday. My flight leaves Tuesday.

So they told me to get new compatible RAM in less than 2 hours basically. I could tell they didn't think I'd make it, but I did. Miraculously found a store close by that had some (last one in stock), paid double the price, brought it back to them to install. Don't think they were too happy to see me again, but now I have to wait and see if they'll repair it for the day before I leave or cause further mess.

I realise my time constraints exasperated this whole process, but what are your thoughts on this? Is this botched mess par for the course with cloning (in my personal experience so far) or should I just slap myself on the wrist for trying to rush an upgrade job overseas? I know, not the best idea, but my circumstances are complicated which led to this to begin with.

TL;DR: Took laptop in for upgrade, store didn't call me to say RAM was DOA and that SSD clone failed, and they installed Windows 11 without permission. I also have to leave in a few days. Is this bad business practice or to be expected with cloning? Thanks for reading.

Hi, thanks for responding.

I know Windows 10 is free, but I wanted to know if this is usual repair shop behaviour to make whole OS upgrades without permission.

I'd like to think cloning is buttery smooth. I'm self-taught when it comes to PCs so I fill in my knowledge gaps as much as I can via the Internet. That being said, either I have terrible luck or as you say, incompetency plays here. My last clone failed because I tried going from SATA to NVME according to a user on here earlier, which wasn't something I was warned about. This was NVME to NVME, so I didn't think they could botch it. Could you please link me reliable information regarding clones? I'm tired of having to start from a clean slate and it takes hours if not days for me to get my system back to normal. Frustrating isn't the word - I follow guides to a T. Still get burned.

I made absolutely sure the parts I bought were the needed architecture for the laptop's specs. I'm working through Amazon's return policy on the RAM, but I've had to shell out more cash for the rush replacement I needed to give them. I didn't have time to order and wait for an exact replacement.

I'll chase this up depending on what/how they do tomorrow, but given your response it just sounds like a bad job. The shop had glowing reviews on Google, but even with my prior research I'm still getting shafted.

Thank you, I'll look into that once I get my laptop back. So, update.

Apparently the RAM I supplied wouldn't work. I asked them why over the phone and they said DDR4 has different types: the type I bought was 'A' and I needed 'V'.

So here is the RAM I bought on the fly: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/crucia...ptop-memory-kit-green/6462508.p?skuId=6462508

And here is the RAM I originally bought that was DOA: TEAMGROUP Elite DDR4 32GB Kit (2 x 16GB) 3200MHz (2933MHz or 2666MHz) PC4-25600 CL22 Unbuffered Non-ECC 1.2V SODIMM 260-Pin Laptop Notebook PC Computer Memory Module Ram Upgrade - TED432G3200C22DC-S01 https://a.co/d/bCC1cO7

I don't see anywhere what he's talking about so please explain to me like I'm 5 if I messed up here and what I missed, or if this guy is talking nonsense.

Lastly, they apparently got my laptop up to 32GB of RAM as requested because suddenly they got the parts in stock. From another PC brought in or what, I have no idea. The whole thing is suspicious and I'm pretty disgruntled over the whole mess to put it mildly. Please advise.

georgeks said:

Sorry, took me some time but I found what DDR4 V is.

However the Manual from MSI from here states just: DDR4, 1866/ 2133/ 2400

I am confused..

Click to expand...

Glad it's not just me. I used command prompt to check the RAM they put in my PC, and they popped in Kingston that's around 2400Mhz. They kept the new RAM I bought which was Crucial, 3200Mhz.

So they gave me slower RAM than the one I bought telling me the one I gave them didn't fit. Which I still don't believe. And said it was installed for 'free'. By keeping my brand new one.

I'm livid but walked away just to rinse hands of them, and did a clean install of Windows 11 because my root user directory read as 'Valued Customer'. As you know, this is horrible to change without messing with all kinds of crap along with registry edits. Valued my ******* *****. I have a mess to deal with once I fly back home.

If anyone has any advice or further explanations to this RAM letter stuff, please advise. Otherwise, just close this thread and I'll chalk it up to PC stores not knowing what they're talking about or just a bad experience. A really, terrible, awful bad experience.

Thanks for reading all this mess.

That's bizarre. It's frustrating that packaging/spec on RAM doesn't mention this, let alone MoBo specs. I'll keep it in mind for next time, but it almost feels like leaving it all to Lady Luck and me and her aren't exactly on speaking terms.

I'll try drive-image next time @georgeks and see how I do myself. Still not confident after every clone I've tried seems to fail, including 'professional' help. Thanks for reading through all this everyone. Just one huge headache.

Got a new issue. The battery on my laptop is suddenly going haywire. I've tried manually calibrating it, using MSI's Battery Calibration tool, and holding down MSI's EC Reset button so far, but it's still going nuts. I believe the repair shop is a suspect to this new and unusual behaviour.

The battery drains far too quickly: a once full charge would hold me over about an hour and a half. I'm lucky if I get 30 minutes now. I've ran three battery reports via command prompt and the results are just outright bizarre. At one point the laptop shut down immediately after booting it up, when I left it unplugged overnight once it was at full charge. For it to go to 100% to 0% overnight? Bullshiz. It started blinking orange at me, shut down the moment I pulled the AC out, then when rebooted with the AC back in it went to 80%.

I have no idea what's going on but told it's either the battery itself or motherboard issue. Only started doing this after I took it to the shop, so I'm betting they're to blame. Find it hard to believe the battery could go bad within days of working as expected. Any advice?

georgeks said:

When you say "I've ran three battery reports via command prompt" you mean
powercfg /batteryreport , right?

Click to expand...

Yes.

Thank you. I understand it gets lower with time, but it seems to have fallen off a cliff since I took it to the repair shop to get it upgraded / Windows 11 install. The last report I ran shows it to last 11 minutes. On personal use prior it would last around 90 minutes.

I suppose there's nothing I can do but take it back to a shop to see if I need a new battery or if it's a motherboard issue? I've been manually charging and draining it to low and recharging to calibrate it myself, but I see no improvements. Was hoping someone here might know an alternative home-fix.

@Bruce - I've been manually calibrating the battery by plugging and unplugging my laptop to drain then recharge. The life has improved to around an hour and ten minutes over days of this, so result, though it's still a bit unreliable. I honestly believe the repair shop I took it to caused some weirdness with their failed wipe/Windows 11 'upgrade'.

I wanted to see if there was any further advice for me to try, but if you're looking to close the thread I think you can. Should the battery start degrading any further I'll make a new post.

Special thanks to @georgeks for bearing with me and to everyone who read through my rubbish experience.

Thank you.

I'm on Windows 11 now, with everything you said pretty much summing up my current laptop status. The store I took it to in question is in the USA - I'm back in the UK now. So it's not very easy for me to give them an earful for the mess they made.

To explain my situation better, I'm waiting on a visa to America. I've shipped my belongings over for my eventual permanent move, but until my visa processes I have to stay in the UK. My laptop is the only PC access I have so I decided to upgrade it before I left from my temp visit. Clearly a mistake on my part. Despite my research and the glowing reviews of the place I chose, they made a bombshell of my system. It's better now and I had backups, but it's been a journey for sure.