Renaissance Computing

I took my computer in for a screen replacement yesterday and these guys were incredibly professional and just plain nice! The only reason I give a 4 star is because I’ve never taken my computer anywhere else so I don’t have anything to compare it to. If you need a repair and you need it quick, I highly recommend this place!

I’ll be honest, I wanted to support small local business, but our experience hasn’t been good. My wife and I bought a laptop from them about 8 months ago. After purchase I had to bring it back 4 times because the wifi wouldn’t stay connected, kept bouncing us off. I bought a new modem, had suddenlink come check my line, didn’t help. Every other computer in the house, and every device, connects fine. Now, after 4 trips in, I only get bumped offline a few times in 30 minutes. My wife hates it but I can live with it because these guys just weren’t helpful or very interested in fixing it.
Every time I called, and every time I went it, I talked to someone new. I thought wow there’s a ton of people working here because I never saw the same face twice. The thing is, they didn’t communicate with each other either, so I had to explain the issue from the start every time I went in. They made the problem better, but did not completely fix it, and I’m only writing this review now because I’m upset after having the computer drop the internet connection 6 times in the last 10 minutes. But I have to live with it, not worth going back to them and explaining what is going on all over again to some different guy who doesn’t seem to care.
I will not be buying anything from this business again, and will recommend to friends that they don’t either.

I bought a computer here last year when I started doing consulting work at home. The staff directed me to an appropriate laptop for a decent price, and I picked it up with everything already installed. Everything has worked great until a Windows update disabled my Microsoft Office products. Thankfully I called and one of their staff walked me through a solution on the phone. I was able to get the problem fixed in a short amount of time and get back to work. They could have charged me for the service call, but they didn’t. I am very happy — they saved me a ton of time and money! Thank you.

They are nice but they seem like they don’t really want to help you build sweet fast computers. They are focused on the customer looking for a budget built PC. The store is good for buying small stuff like RAM and optical drives. They should be good at repairing PC computers as well. I have heard good things about their repairs.

I’m a mac user… so it’s kind of interesting that I was able to get what I needed at Renaissance. My external hard drive broke… with over 8 years of data… freak out time! After visiting the only Mac store in town, feeling like they could take or leave my business, I took the hard drive to Renaissance to get my data recovered… which they were able to successfully accomplish within 3 hours (for rush job fees). While the data recovery could possibly have taken place at any local computer shop, what stands out to me most was the quality of customer service. I felt like my business was valued, a priority, and that the competency of the technicians was superb. The guy who did the intake was sympathetic to my plight, patient, understanding, and honest about what the technicians would or would not be able to do, and in what time frame. I was promised a phone call at the end of the day for a status update… and sure enough, at closing, I received a call that my data had indeed been successfully recovered, and that I could come pick it up right away or in the morning. I love it when a company follows through with their follow-​up. Thanks renaissance for valuing my business, following through, and also successfully meeting the challenge!

When looking for a quality computer repair company, I feel it is much like finding a decent mechanic. They typically charge an absurd amount of money for repairs and you are at their mercy for length of time it is in the shop. So when this company was highly recommended to me, I thought it was going to be a great choice. I have been to this company three times now. The first time they were very helpful and quite on top of fixing my computer and it was completed in timely fashion. This is where they sucked me in. The second time I took my computer to them for repair they were great about fixing it, but had it for a lot longer than they quoted me. The third I took my computer to them they had it for three times longer than they quoted me. I was a little peeved about the length of time they had it but felt okay because when they called me to tell me it was ready they informed me that they would only be charging me $ 40 since I had taken my computer to them recently. However, when I got home I noticed my laptop was missing a cover panel on the bottom of the computer (no big deal) but the clincher is that when I booted my computer up, nothing on the computer was mine! They had loaded someone else’s programs, photos, documents. etc onto my laptop. I had to take it back and hoped to god they had my data on a drive in their magical little geek shop somewhere. Turns out they were unable to recover any of my data and told me there was a possibility that my data was unrecoverable to start with. I suppose that is believable, but still completely sucks. They did however do their very best to make me happy. They refunded my money and re-​installed all the programs they could plus a few upgrades at no cost. My computer is working fine thus far but is completely blank. The owner of the company and the technician working on my computer were very apologetic and swore this had never happened in their 18 years of service. Mistakes happen, but I just hope this mistake doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Took my dying PC laptop here and they couldn’t help me (thankfully they didn’t charge me for taking a look at my laptop) They tried selling me a bunch of different laptops but I wasn’t interested. Most of the guys who work here are big nerds (no offense) but know their stuff. It’s also in a really weird part of Arcata.

I’ve bought three computers from Renaissance: two for myself and one for my business. They build a system to meet your needs, so you don’t pay for anything you don’t need and you can beef up the stuff you do need. They transfer all the data from one machine to the other, deliver the new computer, and get it all set up and talking to the network. Best of all, they have incredible tech support. If you have ever waited on hold only to have someone in India tell you to reinstall Windows, you know how awful it can be. At Renaissance, a real person here in town answers the phone and can very often fix the problem over the phone, log into your machine (if you let them) to check it out remotely, or come to your location to work on it. Best of all, because they built the machine, you’ll never hear «oh, that’s your sound card. Call the manufacturer of the sound card.’
I depend on my computer to get my job done, but I don’t want to spend hours troubleshooting problems with the machine. Renaissance has been worth every penny I’ve ever paid them. Highly recommended.

They are a nice little company for people who know little or nothing about computers. Their products are of a decent quality (referring to parts, I know little about their systems made from said parts). Their customer service leaves a little to be desired, I returned a series of parts to them while building a computer and while they took them back they give me dirty looks every time I come in despite the fact I have bought hundreds of dollars in parts from them, mostly due to a lack of alternate computer stores. They are a bit pricey, if you know what you are doing and are on a budget go online unless you need the part ASAP as I do sometimes. Again though, not a bad place to go if you have money, and know little about computers.