Computer Surplus — Local services in Redmond

This place is heaven on Earth for vintage tech sops like me. I walked in and my first words were "It's beautiful". I went here looking for a BNC cable and headphone jack adapter and speaker for my Geiger counter. The employee at the register said that the probe plug on it isn't BNC and that it is actually "the same plug used for older surveillance systems", which is still BNC. They said they didn't carry video surveillance equipment. I know that they were used in a lot of old technology other than just that, but I don't think they understood that BNC cables aren't exclusive to that and can be found in other systems. As for the headphone jack adapter, I am almost positive that they carry what I was looking for, which was a 1/4inch male to 3.5mm female adapter. It's one of the most common audio adapters there are. I think they again didn't think that the jack I was requesting was the same type as the ones used in speaker systems and audio networking. It just felt like they thought plugs and cables used for computers were exclusive to computers and nothing else uses them. They started calm and respectful the entire time. I left the store empty-handed, but I loved getting to see all the old tech systems and components. I will likely come back another time since I'm always working on some sort of technology-based projects. The atmosphere of the place gets a solid 5 stars, but the service gets a 2 stars, averaging out at 3.5 stars, which is halfway happy so I will round it...

I want this to be a very unbiased review, but that's hard, actually having been there. They can be very very overpriced if you don't know exactly what you are looking for. For instance, they try to sell Pentium 4 laptops for 300 dollars. (P4 laptops are not worth 50 bucks now days). They don't have much newer technology, and they wont sell the really really old stuff they have. The store is very disorganized. If you know little to nothing about computers, you might be easily tricked into believing that this is a cool or awesome store or that they have lost of good stuff. They are very obtuse and the saying "the customer is always right" doesn't exist here. They will argue with you and make you want to never come back. They always seem "busy" and very unwilling to help you with questions or locating products (I.E. CPUs, GPUs, MOBOs.). Basically, their customer service is nonexistent. However, that being said, this is the ONLY store like this in the Redmond area. Because of that and for some other unknown reason, I still stop by every now and again. Its worth a drop by, but be very careful and do your price research before hand. Otherwise you will spend six times the cost of the normal price. Also there was another guy who worked there that is almost never there anymore. He was nice to work with. I should also say that this review is derived from about 10 years of going...

Ok so my laptop stopped charging. Nothing else was giving me problems. I was sure it was either just the charger or the port. I went to Computer Stop in bellevue last saturday which was bought out by hard drives northwest. I trusted them because years ago they were who I did all my business with. They did a disgnostics today (monday), They said the charger and the port were just fine, and that my issue was a bad motherboard. They could not give me an exact estimate other then it would cost anywhere from 165.00 to 400.00 for the repairs. I am a single parent mom, I do not have 400.00 to spend like that. So I told them to give me back my computer so I could get a second opinion. They wanted to charge me 50.00 for their diagnostics. They did not tell me anything about there being a diagnostics fee! I started crying and they let me go free of charge. On my way home I stopped at Computer Surplus. Guess what guys? My charger was bad! These guys saved me 400.00!!! They are honest. They only charged me 35.00 for a brand new charger which is half the price of places like batteries plus. As long as its the same techs I will only do my business with computer surplus! These guys are the best! Thank you so much. I left with tears of joy. It's hard to find an honest...