Belmont Technical Services offers a top-quality, confidential, Unst-based fault-diagnosis and repair service for Windows-based IBM-PC desktop computers and peripheral equipment. The service is operated mainly at the top end of the Shetland Islands at the present time (i.e. Unst, Yell and Fetlar), but clients are most welcome to bring machines here from locations further afield on Shetland, if they wish to do so.

     As far as possible, North Isles computer problems are resolved on-site, to avoid having to take the PC and its peripherals away. In the case of certain types of faults (where access to the Internet or to a wider range of resources is needed, where the job is likely to take up a lot of time for no good reason, or where electrical supply problems such as lightning-strikes or surges have caused actual damage to a PC's circuitry), the units are removed for bench repair and returned (or collected) as soon as repairs have been completed.

Repair warranty is three months from the date of completion of a repair, and re-work is also free, if things go wrong again subsequently because I somehow managed to miss something.

    The term 'repair' can cover quite a bit of ground. A great many Windows problems can be traced quite quickly to forced software malfunctions arising from virus or hacker activity; poor or non-existent initial set-up or loading of essential hardware drivers; out-of-date peripherals drivers; Windows itself being out-of-date and requiring free updates from the official Microsoft site; or Windows itself simply getting its Registry in a tangle.

Needless to say, problems of this type can soak up huge and unreasonable amounts of time - much of which is spent simply hanging around waiting for the PC to complete some task or other. Windows upgrades are a particular case in point, because downloads can take hours even on a reasonably quick broadband connection. I tend to take units that need a lot of that sort of attention back to my workshop on Unst, and run such tasks in the background using my own internet connection. In that case, waiting-time in between actual hands-on repair operations is not charged for.