Computer Repair & IT
Computer Repair in Burbank — at your desk, not in a shop
PCs and Macs fixed where they live. Slow machines, viruses and pop-ups, blue screens, dead drives, failed upgrades, printers that won't print and small-business setups that nobody documented.
- On-site service — your machine never leaves your home or office
- Homes and small businesses, from a single laptop to a ten-desk office
- Data recovery attempted before any wipe or reinstall, always
- No-fix, no-fee on diagnostics that turn out to be unrepairable
Why on-site beats a shop drop-off
The traditional computer repair shop model asks you to unplug a machine, drive it somewhere, leave it for four days, pick it up, and then discover that the problem was actually your monitor cable or your Wi-Fi. Half of the "my computer is broken" calls I take are not the computer at all — they're the network, the printer, a peripheral, a display, or a power strip on a bad switch.
Working at your desk means I see the whole environment. It also means your data never leaves your house, which matters more than most people think. And for the many Burbank residents running an editing bay, a home studio or a color-critical monitor setup, it means nobody has to break down a carefully calibrated workstation to diagnose a RAM fault.
What I fix
The computer is slow
The most common call, and the most commonly misdiagnosed. It's rarely "you need a new computer." In order of frequency it's a mechanical hard drive that should be an SSD, a startup list twenty items deep, a thermal problem from four years of dust in the heatsink, a failing drive throwing read retries, browser extensions and "PC cleaner" software actively making things worse, or genuinely insufficient RAM for what you're doing. A 2017 laptop with a fresh SSD and 16 GB of RAM feels new for about $250 in parts, and that's a far better answer than $1,200.
Viruses, pop-ups and scams
Browser hijacks, fake "Microsoft support" pages with a phone number and an alarm sound, search redirects, unwanted toolbars, adware, cryptominers, ransomware. Removal, then the part most people skip: figuring out how it got in and closing that door. If you've already given remote access or a payment to a scam caller — this happens to a lot of people, and it is not a stupid mistake, it's a well-engineered attack — I'll walk you through the credential resets and bank notifications in the right order.
It won't turn on, or it crashes
No power, no display, boot loops, blue screens, kernel panics, spinning beachballs, random shutdowns, overheating, fan noise like a jet engine, liquid damage. Component-level diagnosis: power supply, RAM, drive, GPU, thermal paste and cooling, motherboard.
Hardware upgrades and repairs
SSD upgrades with full migration, RAM, graphics cards, power supplies, laptop batteries, keyboards, screens, fans and cooling, desktop builds and rebuilds. Mac SSD and RAM upgrades where the model permits it (which, on modern Apple silicon, it largely doesn't — and I'll tell you that instead of selling you something impossible).
Data recovery and backups
If a drive still spins and is recognized, logical recovery succeeds far more often than people expect — deleted files, corrupted partitions, failed Windows updates, drives that suddenly ask to be formatted. If the drive is physically failing, I image it first and work off the image, which is the difference between one careful attempt and a drive that dies mid-recovery. No recovery, no fee. If it needs a clean room, I'll tell you honestly and refer you rather than experiment with your only copy.
Then we set up a backup that actually runs, because the third time I meet someone is usually the third time they've lost everything.
Printers, peripherals and the rest
Printers that are offline, won't connect over Wi-Fi, print blank or streaked, or refuse third-party cartridges. Scanners, webcams, docks, multi-monitor setups, drawing tablets, audio interfaces, external drives, and getting a Mac and a PC to see the same files.
Small business IT for Burbank and the Media District
Most small businesses in this area — a five-person post house, a dental office on Olive, a restaurant on Magnolia, a shop in the Downtown Burbank corridor — are too small for a managed service provider's monthly contract and too dependent on their systems to have no support at all. That gap is what I fill.
- New workstation deployment, imaging and standardization
- Shared drives, NAS setup, and file access that doesn't depend on one person's Dropbox
- Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace setup, migration and user management
- Backup design and, more importantly, restore testing
- POS terminals, receipt printers, barcode scanners and card readers
- Onboarding and offboarding — the offboarding is the part everyone forgets, and it's the one that bites
- Basic security: MFA rollout, password manager deployment, phishing awareness, patch discipline
- Documentation, so the next person doesn't inherit a mystery
No monthly retainer required. Call when you need it, or buy a block of hours at a lower rate and draw against it.
Burbank has an unusual concentration of editing workstations, render boxes, home studios and creative rigs — Warner, Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and a hundred post houses are all inside a few square miles. Those machines have specific failure patterns: thermal throttling under sustained render loads, PSU sag with high-draw GPUs, scratch drive failures, RAM instability that only shows up on long jobs, and color-managed multi-display setups that break after an update. If you're losing a render at hour six, that's a diagnosable pattern and not bad luck.
Computer repair pricing
On-site in Burbank. Business rates are the same — no corporate surcharge for a small office.
| Service | Typical price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| On-site diagnostic | $85 | Credited toward the repair |
| Virus / malware / adware removal | $140 – $210 | Full clean, browser reset, hardening, no reinstall unless necessary |
| Speed-up tune-up | $120 – $180 | Startup, thermal, disk and driver work |
| SSD upgrade with data migration | $180 – $340 + drive | The single biggest speed change available for an older machine |
| RAM upgrade | $95 – $150 + memory | Includes verifying the right spec first |
| OS reinstall with data preserved | $180 – $260 | Windows or macOS, apps and settings restored |
| Logical data recovery (drive still spins) | $200 – $450 | No recovery, no fee |
| New computer setup & data transfer | $150 – $260 | Everything moved, nothing left behind on the old machine |
| Small business support (per hour, on-site) | $135 | Blocks of 5 hours at $110/hr |
How a job actually goes
- 1
Tell me what's wrong
Call, text a photo, or fill in the form. Photos of the model plate or the problem area cut the guesswork enormously.
- 2
Get a real price range
You get a range before I drive out, not after. If it's a job that needs a licensed contractor, I'll tell you that on the phone instead of wasting your time.
- 3
I show up in the window
You get a text when I'm on the way. Shoe covers, drop cloths, and the work area left cleaner than I found it.
- 4
Pay when it works
Flat price agreed up front. Card, Zelle, cash or check. Parts I install carry the manufacturer warranty and my labor is guaranteed for 90 days.
Questions people actually ask
Do I have to bring my computer somewhere?
No. Everything is done at your home or office in Burbank and the surrounding area. Your machine stays where it is and your data never leaves your building. The only exception is a job that genuinely needs bench time — a full desktop rebuild, say — and even then, only with your say-so.
My computer is really slow. Do I need a new one?
Usually not. On a machine from roughly 2016 onward, swapping a mechanical hard drive for an SSD and topping up RAM produces a bigger real-world speed improvement than buying a new budget laptop, for about $250 in parts plus labor. You'll get a straight assessment: if the machine genuinely isn't worth upgrading, I'll say so and help you pick a replacement instead.
Can you get my files back from a dead hard drive?
If the drive still powers up and is detected, recovery odds are good and I work from a full disk image so nothing gets worse during the attempt. If it's clicking, not spinning, or physically damaged, that's a clean-room job and I'll refer you rather than risk your only copy. Either way: no recovery, no fee for my time.
I think I fell for a tech-support scam. What now?
Disconnect the machine from the network and don't reconnect it. Don't uninstall anything yet — evidence of what was installed helps. Call me and I'll triage remotely for free: what to reset first, in what order, and whether the machine can be cleaned or should be reimaged. If money changed hands, contacting your bank comes before anything technical. This happens to careful, intelligent people constantly; the scripts are extremely good.
Do you work on Macs as well as PCs?
Both. macOS reinstalls and migrations, Time Machine setups, startup disk problems, kernel panics, battery and drive replacements on models where those are serviceable, and iCloud tangles. On recent Apple silicon Macs, storage and memory are soldered — nobody can upgrade them — and you'll be told that rather than sold something else.
Can you support my small business without a monthly contract?
Yes. Most Burbank small businesses I work with call as needed. If you'd rather have predictability, a block of 5 hours at $110/hour (versus $135 ad-hoc) covers most quarters for an office under ten people and doesn't expire.
Will you help me buy the right computer?
Free advice, no commission, no affiliate links. Tell me what you actually do with it and your budget and you'll get two or three specific models. Then setup and data transfer runs $150–$260, including making sure the old machine is wiped properly before you sell or recycle it.
What about Wi-Fi problems — is that a computer repair?
Often the root cause, and it's a separate discipline. If your machine is fine but your connection isn't, that's a networking job — see networking and Wi-Fi services. Frequently one visit covers both.
What neighbors say
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“Our Samsung fridge stopped cooling on a Friday. Armen came out the same afternoon, found a failed evaporator fan, and had it running before dinner. He showed me the old part and explained exactly what happened. No upsell, no drama.”
“Three-story townhouse with Wi-Fi that died on the top floor. He ran a hardwired access point instead of selling me another extender, and now I get full speed in every room. He labeled every cable in the closet too.”
“Four cameras around the house plus a doorbell, all on my phone. He walked the property with me first and moved two camera positions based on where our packages actually get dropped. Clean cable runs, nothing hanging.”
Computer Repair across Burbank and 25 miles
Based in Burbank, on the road every day across the east Valley, the Verdugos and the west San Gabriel Valley.