Madison Computer Works, Inc. — Local services in Madison

My mother in law is 92 years old and lives in Florida; my wife and I live in Madison, Wisconsin.

My mother in law reported to us that her laptop computer was no longer working. Her son, a retired computer administrator responsible for the mainframe for a major city, was visiting and speculated that the power switch was broken as the reason for why the machine would not turn on. We contemplated purchasing a new laptop for her but the learning curve would be, we thought, too great versus a machine she had been using for more than three years.

We told her son to ship the machine to us as our experience with Madison Computer Works was so positive last year we were convinced that they could fix the laptop and if not they still could retrieve the data (including numerous files of family photos).

In the interim her son kept insisting she really did not need the laptop, she needed only to learn how to better use her cell phone; she in turn started repeating this position stating it was easier for her to see the cell phone than her 13 inch screen on the lap top; wanting to be like everyone else she saw sitting in waiting rooms with their phones, not knowing that they most certainly too owned laptops along with those phones.

She recently had a stroke and was a bit blind in one eye so the proposition that a 4 inch screen of a cell phone was preferable to a 13 inch laptop screen was ludicrous to say the least.

Despite all the resistance and opposition the son sent the laptop to us. We met with Mr. Peter Michalski outside of Madison Computer Works and outlined the issue.

Even as the machine was at Madison Computer Works both the son and mother in law told us not to spend money on a repair and simply throw it out.

Three days later I received a telephone call from Mr. Michalski letting us know the laptop was up and running. The battery was bad he said. I replied that the machine never ran off the battery only AC. He explained that when the machine began to start up Windows detected that the battery was dead and as a result would not start. He removed the attached built in battery, deleted all the bloatware on her laptop, updated all the programs and installed an anti-virus program that would run in the background seamlessly.

We were almost ecstatic at the news and when we brought it home it was running as new, and this is a machine that is running Windows 7!

Since Florida, my mother in law moved into an assisted living facility in another state; she now has her as new laptop and is receiving emails with pictures attached and let us know that she now no longer likes her cell phone because it is too heavy to hold up to her ear! She acknowledges and recognizes now how much easier it is to see pictures on her laptop screen. Moreover we created and installed many new filles in My Pictures for her, so she can view as slide shows, before returning the laptop to her; she is delighted with it.

The moral of the story is even if you have a family member who is highly computer savvy and perhaps even earned his living working with computers, if that person tells you the case is hopeless, and to throw your computer to the curb, I highly recommend getting a second opinion from Madison Computer Works. Brian Lisse is the owner; ask for Peter Michalski. There is a very good chance they can resurrect your machine from...

Madison Computer Works saved our computer, as well as time and aggravation. In the middle of a Windows update process, our custom built computer (by another store) would not restart. We brought the computer into Madison Computer Works on Thursday. We were told that the drive could have failed or that somehow the update was interrupted causing the the update to fail. The first scenario would require a new drive, the second scenario would require a fresh clean install of Windows; they would make their best effort to get Windows to reboot. Both of the the worst case scenarios were very dispiriting as anyone who has had to configure Windows from its' native state, to say nothing of downloading and/or installing all the programs one uses knows; a great deal of labor and time. When I first checked in for an update I was told despite numerous attempts, via various different methods, our computer would not boot up. This was late Friday afternoon news; we were assured they would continue working on our machine on Monday. Late Monday I spoke with a different person who told us when we built the computer we should have been advised to use a battery power supply as a back up in the event of a power interruption, so as to prevent a similar event in the future (which I gladly authorized). The person I spoke with described many of the programs that were in the computer as "crapware" but more importantly they prevent updates, so these programs would need to be uninstalled. I pleaded with this person to please try to get us back to our original Windows installation. On Tuesday Brian Lisse, who I later learned is the owner, called to let us know he was successful at getting into our original installation. Brian told us that ASC (one of the crapware products) would not uninstall. Only later did I see on the invoice that he needed to use a special program tool to uninstall it. Lastly Brian provided us with a script, created by Madison Computer Works, which we could easily use to back up changes and/or new documents. This script would only back up the new changes. This script was set to work in conjunction with the software in the battery power supply backup. Brian did all the setup for this device in advance for us; battery installation and demonstrated the software as well as how his script works. He added a pdf of FAQ's for the script as well. All our Windows updates are now current and Brian tested the computer for restarting in front of us before handing it over. The computer runs faster than ever before; it is, to use the word tweakers who try to squeeze every last bit of performance from their rig, "snappy." It is worth mentioning that Brian did not try to upsell/push us on any support plans or products. This review sounds like a rave, and raves imply exaggeration. It is no exaggeration and is well deserved. We are very appreciative. "Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend" - Theophrastus Brian saved us a great deal of...

I reached out to Madison Computer Works when my desktop began booting to a black screen that only showed a cursor. I dropped it off shortly after 9:00 on a Wednesday, and they said they couldn't work on it until the following Monday. I did not hear from them until the following Wednesday, a week after I had dropped it off. The voicemail said they could not replicate my issue, but they fixed some corrupted files and suggested buying more RAM. Fine, but that was not the issue that needed fixing. I would have preferred a call before an hour's work was done to say they were not seeing the same problem. I declined extra RAM and picked up my machine. The same boot to black screen happened as soon as I plugged it in. They helped with some troubleshooting over the phone, which turned out to be one of the monitors. They admitted they did not test the VGA port, so it's unclear if it is the monitor or something about the port itself. They also offered to loan me a cable so I could do more troubleshooting, which I declined.

I'm unhappy to have paid a high price for the issue to reoccur, the time working was spent on other things on my computer, and attempt at an upsell. However, the staff was kind, respectful, and helpful when I was interacting with them. They also did phone troubleshooting to help identify the problem, even if they didn't solve it in the store.

A mixed...