Central Computers — Attraction in Newark

My computer had been working completely fine for the past 5-6 months, but suddenly for the past week, it had an ongoing issue of completely and randomly shutting off anywhere between 5 seconds to 1 minute of being turned on. I tried to begin fixing the problem on my own but I had no idea what the problem was and initially thought that it could be due to a faulty thermal paste application causing CPU overheating and creating this shut-off problem. However, after applying the new thermal paste, the temperatures were fine but my pc was then stuck on bios and completely unusable and would not boot to Windows at all. Furthermore, it then wouldn't recognize my hard drive. I searched online for hours but I still could not fix the issue in any way and began to worry because this was a recently new pc that was also quite expensive and I was beginning to ponder whether or not I should sell the parts and instead build a lower performing pc. Thankfully, I decided to at least bring it to a pc repair shop to see if they could diagnose what the problem was and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. When I initially entered, the person at the counter was very friendly and told me where to put my PC for a diagnosis. I had the pleasure of working with a technician named Damien who was very helpful and very knowledgeable. He immediately began to change some things in the BIOS page, and within 30 seconds the PC surprisingly booted to the Windows page. I was dumbfounded as I looked online for hours and still couldn't find anything while Damien was able to diagnose and fix the bios problem that quickly. He then began to run some tests on all of my hardware components and was quick in diagnosing the absence of problems with my GPU, motherboard, CPU, and hard drive. But after putting the RAM in overclock at the BIOS page, the PC shut-off problem was finally found. The PC began shutting off within seconds of being turned on and so I finally knew which component was causing my PC to shut down constantly essentially rendering my PC useless. He went back into the BIOS and shut off the overclock mode and it was smooth sailing for several minutes without shutting off. But thankfully, he also stated that if the problem continued even with the overclock mode off, that it could either be due to too many RAM sticks causing an overdrive/overstress on my motherboard I believe (I have 4x8GB DDR4) or that one of the RAM sticks could be faulty and to test it out by removing slots 1 and 3 and 2 and 4 separately and seeing whether or not the PC would shut off again. When I got home, the PC would unfortunately turn off again after several minutes which was still better than the initial 5 seconds to 1 minute but this was still a problem that I had to resolve. I took out slots 1 and 3 and the PC surprisingly stayed on for about 15 minutes but shut off again. So afterward, I did what I was told and took out slots 2 and 4 and kept 1 and 3 and thankfully, the problem is now completely resolved and the PC is able to run for hours like normal without powering off on its own. I believe I saved hundreds of dollars compared to if I had decided to simply sell the parts and build a less performing PC, bought the same $200 hard drive I purchased (due to me thinking it was faulty because BIOS wouldn't recognize it), or if I had gone to another PC repair shop. I am extremely grateful for Damien's expertise and friendliness as I had also asked him many questions regarding my PC and my own opinions as he very nicely answered them and gave a step-by-step description of what he was doing such as what test he was running and how if the problem was very severe, the tests would display error lines over and over again, or even stating which components were working perfectly fine. I highly, highly recommend coming to this store if your PC has any problems, and asking for Damien if he is available. His expertise diagnosed and solved the problem within about 30 minutes and he was very friendly in giving advice and opinions even to all of my questions. Give this...

They said they had 7 RTX 3070's in stock at 3:38 pm. I got there at 4:20. They said they sold out an hour and a half ago. Apparently the guy working there has no concept of time, plan accordingly.

edited: I got a call back from Chester at Central Computers who explained I wasn't lied to rather that the person at the store screwed up and apparently has difficulty telling time. I'm less disappointed than when I left the store the first time.

2nd edit: I'm impressed, and that doesn't happen often in this world. I got a call this morning from Eric at CC. They had an RTX 3070 and after the prior fiasco they felt bad and we're going to make an exception and actually hold it for me. It's rare these days for anyone to go above and beyond, to do what they said they'd do, and make good on their word. It really shouldn't be that rare but it's note worthy. These guys are stand up guys. True it's still $150 more than that card released at a few months ago but with all this COVID madness around us that's kind of a great deal.

I kind of want to give these guys 5 stars for effort but honestly after the first experience 4 is as high as I can go.

Having had another conversation with Chester I will say Central Computers seems well managed and invested in their customers and staff. The individual you deal with can obviously affect this so if you have less than a perfect experience I encourage you to speak to someone else or management. They seem to be extremely responsive and demand that the customer has a top notch experience. This is very rare in the world of big box stores and...

Dear Central Computers Team,

I previously shared some feedback, but after further reflection, I wanted to be more specific about my experience. Please find the attached screenshot showing a significant price difference for the same product—Corsair Dominator Titanium RGB DDR5 memory—compared to multiple online retailers as of September 27, 2024.

While I am a strong supporter of local businesses, I find the $50 price difference challenging to justify. I reached out to your store and was informed that the reason for this is that the memory sticks were purchased at a higher cost price. However, as we all know, electronics prices tend to drop over time, and it doesn’t seem reasonable to expect customers to pay above the current market rates for a product.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to clear out stock before prices drop further, allowing you to compete more effectively? I genuinely want to see local businesses like yours thrive, and I’d much rather give you my business than order from large online platforms like Newegg or Amazon. However, it becomes difficult to justify doing so when such a significant price gap exists.

I believe implementing proactive price matching would be beneficial. Not only would it help keep customers loyal to local stores, but it would also encourage more people like me to make the conscious choice to support businesses like yours, without having to pay a premium unnecessarily.

Thank you for considering my feedback. I look forward to seeing how you can make adjustments that benefit both your store and...