Auranos.org is a computer specialist and one of our main activites is the repair and upgrade of computers, including laptops, desktops, all-in-ones and small form factor computers. We will take on anything from installing extra processors on the most advanced server racks to the soldering of a new charging port on an old Commodore 64. The majority of our customers are only seeking to have their home computer brought back to life or into the modern era and Auranos.org can do that, even if its old.

You will find our prices to be the lowest in Cumbernauld as we are a S.O.H.O. business just the same as many of our business customers and this not only enables us to provide and understanding service to our business customers but also allows us to pass on the reduced costs of doing business to both our domestic and business customers at the same low rates.

Repairs We Carry Out

To provide an exhaustive list of things that can go wrong with a computer would be an impossible task but Auranos.org is able to fix literally anything meaning the only question left is whether or not it is economical to do so.

The first caveat is that you should never have us repair anything which is still within warranty as we are not affiliated with any manufacturer, any repair work we carry out will immediately deem your manufacturers warranty void. There are exceptions to this such as the upgrade of certain parts of a machine which have not been sealed for the purposes of warranty but as a general rule, you should avoid getting a repair done by us if the machine is less than two years old unless you are willing to sacrifice more than one years warranty from the manufacturer for the speedy service we can provide which only carries a warranty of one year. (Most manufacturers will provide a three year warranty).

That aside, the question comes down to whether it would be better to get your machine repaired or go and buy a new one. For desktop machines, it is an extremely rare circumstance where it is more economic to buy a new computer but for laptops and all-in-ones, especially newer models, sometimes the supply and fit of their non-industry standard components can be two-thirds the cost of buying the latest version of the machine. That being said, it is only a small minority of circumstances where this is the case and you will be advised of such a circumstance be the case once your machine has been through a diagnosis.

While there are a great many things which can go wrong inside a computer, surprisingly, the vast bulk of repairs we are commissioned to do involve disk errors, broken screens on laptops and malware infections. Occassionally we may have to replace the processor, the motherboard or one of the ram modules but this will usually involve a diagnosis to see what it is that's wrong with your machine and we will have a price for you when we call to tell you what needs done in order to carry out a repair.

Disk Malfunction

To the delight of many of our customers, no replacement parts are needed for the majority of times when their computers break down. The fragility of mechanical disk drives make them a frequent source of malfunctions but more often than not the malfunction, though often caused by a physical jolt during operation, does not render the disk to be physically broken and it is simply a matter connecting the disk to our linux server to and re-establishing the disks integrity enabling us to reinstall your operating system onto the same "no longer broken" disk. The cost of such a repair is only £40 (or £45 if you need to have your user data restored as well*).

* The £5 pound charge accounts for a data recovery of up to half a terabyte which is more than adequate for the purposes of restoring most levels of user data which most often amount to no more than few hundred gigabytes. Our charge per terabyte for data recovery work is £5 per half a terabyte or £10 per terabyte.

In some situations we cannot recover your user data and the majority of these circumstances involve situations where the disks integrity cannot be restored due to physical damage inside the disk. Where this happens we will inform you that we cannot repair the computer without installing a new disk.

SSD Upgrades Recommended

If the disk is damaged to the point where it needs to be replaces, it is an ideal time to consider upgrading the disk to the more resilient and much faster storage drives known in the industy as solid state devices (or SSD for short). It is not only that an SSD is more shock resistant than a mechanical disk which makes them a preferable replacement but the SSD will be at least three times faster than an ordinary hard disk drive. Given that the time for an SSD drive to find a file to be pushed into the ram is negligible, it is not only the 3X speed advantage which makes an SSD a good choice as in circumstances where lots of files need to be put onto the ram at the same time (such as when booting up, startng up an application or using applications which frequently need to refer to files on the disk, the speed improvement of an SSD over a traditional HDD can be up to 100X faster.

The downside is that they come at a little extra cost to the traditional hard disk which are still being shipped with most new machines today.

The optimal cost disk drive is a 1TB Mechanical HDD as prices are marginally more expensive per capacity for hard disks which are smaller than this and hard disks which are larger than this. For this reason most new machines will ship with a 1TB mechanical disk drive which is more than adequate to hold all the files, applications, games, music, photos and videos that most users will have on their machines. More than adequate in that a disk half the size would have room to spare.

For a marginal increase in the price of a disk, an SSD which is 3 to 100 times faster but only half the capacity can be installed in your machine if your disk needs to be replaced. The price of disks are volatile so it is hard to state a solid price on a web page intended to be around for a few months at least but at the time of writing, a mechanical hard disk of 1TB costs around £40 and a ½TB SSD costs only £50. It makes sense to fit the smaller much faster disk, albeit that costs can be reduced by replacing the disk with the same as was there before.

You should call for alternative solutions if you are looking to reduce costs further as we can replace your disk with second hand parts if you are willing to forgo the full years warranty on new parts we supply and fit and there are often brand new disks of hard to predict sizes which are available to us at prices which may be cheaper that normal.

User Data Recovery

The standard labour charge for a repair is £40 but this does not include the cost of data recovery. In alot of circumstances, our customers prefer to have their user data recovered from their broken machines. There are circumstances where this is not possible but in most situations we will be able to retrieve all the data stored within the "User" folder of the root directory of your boot drive (or the mac or linux equivelent), which is where all your downloads, documents, videos, music, etc will be stored by default for almost all your applications. To repair your PC and restore your user data, excluding the cost of replacing the disk if it is physically damaged, the cost will be £45 and this extra £5 charge takes account of user data levels which do not exceed a ½TB. While your disk may be a whole 1TB in size, it is very rare that the user data would exceed 300GB but in the unusual circumstances where you have every song in the galaxy stored on your disk, the job becomes a data recovery job as well as a bootup repair and the charge for each ½TB is £5. This also applies in the circumstances of recovering data from external storage devices including USB sticks.

While your disk may have a physical defect in it, this does not neccessarily mean we cannot recover at least some of your data. The £5/½TB charge covers the cost of ordinary data recoveries but should you be in the situation where your data is more expensive than your machine, you may want to consider more extreme forms of data recovery which involve clean rooms and forensic analysis of the disk surface but these special forms of data recovery come at an understandable premium cost. Only a very few organisations would have the kind of data which would be worth paying for such extraordinary efforts to recover data so unless instructed otherwise, we assume that the data is unrecoverable if it cannot be recovered by our standard data recovery procedures.

Installation Media for Installed Applications

A somewhat outdated term which still serves a purposes in conveying a meaning is the phrase "Installation Media". Many computers are sold today without a CD-rom drive or floppy disk drive which were the traditional means of reading the "media" (a floppy disk) that were needed in order to install a new program on a computer. As most software can now be downloaded across the internet it could be argued that the internet itself is the install media but more specifically, the exact website with the exact login credentials with the exact name of the program to be installed is kind of what is being referred to by "installation media" in the modern day.

A big part of restoring an operating system when there has been a disk malfunction or some malware has been allowed to run wild is that the old installation of the operating system is killed off to make way for a fresh clean, virus free and fully functional operating system. The trouble is that a fresh operating system may not have all the programs that you used to have on it before the malfunction occurred. Except for the programs that you used which came as part of the operating system, every program beyond this will potentially need to be reinstalled and what we need to know is whether you have "the installation media" for these programs so we can install them for you as part of the service we offer.

We dont mind reinstalling your favourite browser, or anti-virus software as part of the operating system reset but we will not have copies of every possible application and game that it is out there and there will be costs to us involved in the downloading of such software which we will need to charge for at a price depending on how much of a download it involves and how much we can just leave the installation to be something happenning in a fully automated matter while we focus on other repairs and how much an installation will require our direct attention. An ideal customer will be able to install the additonal software when they get their machines back but we are prepared to do this for you at a cost but we are extremely wary about being asked to install software for which we do not have the licence key or credentials to perform a legal installation.

CAVEAT EMPTOR We have came across circumstances where we have managed to fully recover the user data but have been unable to provide the customer with a means by which they can read or edit that user data without the purchase of a software license for software which they previously had installed. Having alot of experience amongst the open source movement, in circumstances where an installation has been lost, there are a variety of software applications for various different purposes we may be able to recommend as a free alternative but with the exception of only a few programs such as The GNU Image Manipulation Program or The Blender 3D Modelling Suite, many of these open source alternatives will not be up to the standard of the paid-for software that we will require a license key to install.

It may be too late now that you are looking into getting your computer repaired, but it is always a good idea to keep a copy of downloaded installation files either in a folder within your downloads folder or on an entirely separate external hard disk. Don't despair though, as many software houses provide online downloads of their software and it is often the case that you can get an activation key simply by sending them an email from the email address you used at the time of product registration.

This of course is applicable to fancy software applications which are beyond what would be involved in a standard installation of Windows which now ships with Microsoft Office 365 as part of the operating system itself, video editors and the various free and paid for software which is available on the windows store. Most users will not have specialised applications installed on their machines and the only license key needed is the licence key for windows itself, which being digitally signed will be automatically recognised as soon as you put in your microsoft credentials for the first time (for example if you use outlook, windows store or log in to the edge browser). In the case of laptops, Microsoft will have a record of your processers CPUID and will consider your new installation of Windows to be authentic as soon as it has access to the internet.

Unactivated Windows Installations

You should also note that it is possible to use an unactivated copy of Windows with reduced functionality such as being unable to change the back ground picture or the windows colour scheme or access the Windows Store. We will still install a fresh installation of Windows even if your opeating system was not previously activated. We leave it up to you to do what is needed for activation, whether that be logging in with microsoft credentials or buying a software licence. If the latter is the case and you are not impressed by the reduced functionality of an unactivated Windows installation, you should bear in mind that as dealers in second hand computers, Auranos.org can often provide "second hand software licenses" at a fraction of the cost of a full retail license. We are also able to install alternative operating systems which employ virtualization technology capable of running almost all Windows Software at 95% of the speed they would work at on Windows and sometimes even faster!

A common issue we receive at Auranos.org are broken screens. Sometimes they are cracked, sometimes they are smashed sometimes they exhibit nothing whatsoever but a blank screen and sometime they show obvious signs that the image is flickery or even mangled.

In these situations you need a replacement screen.

While there are industry standards associated with laptop screens there are great many factors involved in selecting the correct screen and it is always neccessary to know the exact model number of the laptop and sometimes even its year of manufacture or serial number in order to get a screen which will fit.

As well as things like whether the laptop has a touchscreen functionality other factors associated with the screen include not only the size, the resolution and the electonic couplings but also the quality of the display in terms of how fast it can refresh and what way the individual pixel crystals operate such that every laptop is different and its not an easy task to provide a list of prices for every laptop.

It isn't a hard and fast rule but a good guideline figure that the price of a replacement screen will be somewhere between a quarter and a third of the price of the laptop when you bought it. In addition to the supply of a replacement screen, it isnt simply a case of plugging it in as it would be on a desktop. We dont generally supply laptop screens unless we intend to fit them and on top of the price of the screen itself, there is an additional standard labour charge of £40. It is intended here to give you a rough idea of what it will cost to replace the screen but if you wan't a quote call Stephen on 07903 064488 with the make and model number and he should be able to tell you exactly what it will cost and give you an idea of how long it will take to repair provided he doesn't come across any complications.

You can also get a quote by post or email, the contact details of which you can find on the Contact Page.

It is posited by some that malware exists on almost all consumer computers in the world. There is no doubt that the accepted policies of major technology corporations are blurring the lines of what constitutes spyware, trojans, viruses and other forms of software which have been traditionally called malware but are increasingly being referred to by neutral terminology such as "closed source software with undocumented features" in order that important contributors to Computer Science can avoid being sued by wealthy powerful organisations who would insist that when they carry out certain practices it is somehow a benefit in contrast to it being something nasty when the exact same practices are carried out by people who were once considered black hat hackers. That is to say, rogue organisations which engaged in the self-same behaviours of major technology corporations which had always been regarded as malicious acticities.

At Auranos.org, we take a scientific approach to computing. We see no difference between Google snooping into the files in your storage spaces or scraping your passwords from communications that they monitor and those exact same activities being carried out by any other party. It is the same practice and the question comes down to one of trust and gut instinct which is beyond the realms of unemotional scientific analasys of the situation as it currently subsists.

In light of the social monitoring and location tracking activities of major tech corporations which seem to enjoy an immunity from prosecution by state parties negelecting their legal obligations to protect their civilian populations from such intrusions, Auranos.org is preparing for a situation where the right to install malware on another's machine without their knowledge or consent, may prescribe into law if it remains unchallenged for the terms which are prescribed by law in the various countries these practices are going on.

At the current time we act according to the view that malware which has been installed or written by a major technology corporation should not be considered malware unless the customer specifically asks for such malware to be removed.

Our malware removal process is much more thorough than anti-malware programs such as Malwarebytes or Mcafee. These programs are useful in preventing malware from infecting your system but sometimes they detect false positives (perceive a legitimate program to be malware), and sometimes they allow true positives to get through. They are not 100% secure from malware which is more often than not designed to get round virus checkers in some form or other.

Our process involves removing everything from a computer (including its operating system) and only putting back the stuff that we know to be safe. This guarantees that no malware is present (given the caveat mentioned in red above) when you receive you computer back from a malware removal repair.

User Data Recovery

The standard labour charge for malware removal is £40 but this does not include the cost of data recovery. In alot of circumstances, our customers prefer to have their user data recovered from their broken machines. There are circumstances where this is not possible but in most situations we will be able to retrieve all the data stored within the "User" folder of the root directory of your boot drive (or the mac or linux equivelent), which is where all your downloads, documents, videos, music, etc will be stored by default for almost all your applications. To repair your PC and restore your user data, excluding the cost of replacing the disk if it is physically damaged, the cost will be £45 and this extra £5 charge takes account of user data levels which do not exceed a ½TB. While your disk may be a whole 1TB in size, it is very rare that the user data would exceed 300GB but in the unusual circumstances where you have every song in the galaxy stored on your disk, the job becomes a data recovery job as well as a bootup repair and the charge for each ½TB is £5. This also applies in the circumstances of recovering data from external storage devices including USB sticks.

Installation Media for Installed Applications

A somewhat outdated term which still serves a purposes in conveying a meaning is the phrase "Installation Media". Many computers are sold today without a CD-rom drive or floppy disk drive which were the traditional means of reading the "media" (a floppy disk) that were needed in order to install a new program on a computer. As most software can now be downloaded across the internet it could be argued that the internet itself is the install media but more specifically, the exact website with the exact login credentials with the exact name of the program to be installed is kind of what is being referred to by "installation media" in the modern day.

A big part of restoring an operating system when there has been a disk malfunction or some malware has been allowed to run wild is that the old installation of the operating system is killed off to make way for a fresh clean, virus free and fully functional operating system. The trouble is that a fresh operating system may not have all the programs that you used to have on it before the malfunction occurred. Except for the programs that you used which came as part of the operating system, every program beyond this will potentially need to be reinstalled and what we need to know is whether you have "the installation media" for these programs so we can install them for you as part of the service we offer.

We dont mind reinstalling your favourite browser, or anti-virus software as part of the operating system reset but we will not have copies of every possible application and game that it is out there and there will be costs to us involved in the downloading of such software which we will need to charge for at a price depending on how much of a download it involves and how much we can just leave the installation to be something happenning in a fully automated matter while we focus on other repairs and how much an installation will require our direct attention. An ideal customer will be able to install the additonal software when they get their machines back but we are prepared to do this for you at a cost but we are extremely wary about being asked to install software for which we do not have the licence key or credentials to perform a legal installation.

CAVEAT EMPTOR We have came across circumstances where we have managed to fully recover the user data but have been unable to provide the customer with a means by which they can read or edit that user data without the purchase of a software license for software which they previously had installed. Having alot of experience amongst the open source movement, in circumstances where an installation has been lost, there are a variety of software applications for various different purposes we may be able to recommend as a free alternative but with the exception of only a few programs such as The GNU Image Manipulation Program or The Blender 3D Modelling Suite, many of these open source alternatives will not be up to the standard of the paid-for software that we will require a license key to install.

It may be too late now that you are looking into getting your computer repaired, but it is always a good idea to keep a copy of downloaded installation files either in a folder within your downloads folder or on an entirely separate external hard disk. Don't despair though, as many software houses provide online downloads of their software and it is often the case that you can get an activation key simply by sending them an email from the email address you used at the time of product registration.

This of course is applicable to fancy software applications which are beyond what would be involved in a standard installation of Windows which now ships with Microsoft Office 365 as part of the operating system itself, video editors and the various free and paid for software which is available on the windows store. Most users will not have specialised applications installed on their machines and the only license key needed is the licence key for windows itself, which being digitally signed will be automatically recognised as soon as you put in your microsoft credentials for the first time (for example if you use outlook, windows store or log in to the edge browser). In the case of laptops, Microsoft will have a record of your processers CPUID and will consider your new installation of Windows to be authentic as soon as it has access to the internet.

There are an enormous number of things that can go wrong with a computer, from power supply malfunctions to ghostly keyboards which type all by themselves or indeed don't work at all, at least with some of their keys. Touchpads that dont work and optical drives which have gone up on fire. It is not possible to relate all the circumstances that we have come across in repairing our customers computers.

Stephen is dedicated to fixing all kinds of computer related problems and will endeavour to have your machine fixed expediently, calling you to confirm you are okay with the any additional costs in replacement parts.

Obviously you do not want to pay such a significant amount toward repairing your existing computer when the price of a new machine is within arms reach of the cost of repair. In some cases you will be advised that the repair you need would not be economically repairable. In such circumstances we can restore your data onto a new machine and even cannibalise the parts of your old machine in order to enhance any new computer you buy. We can also advise you on the best machines on the market to meet your needs and even supply these to you, sometimes at discount rates.

Whetehr you need a repair not mentioned here or an upgrade to turn your aging computer into something that will be competent with the latest operating system or just advice on some issue you are having, give us a call on 07903 064488 and you are sure to get the best help available in all of Cumbernauld.