House Call Computer Service

Unfortunately John was not able to resolve the hardware problem with my computer. I told him I suspected it was motherboard and in the end, he was only able to tell me that it was «probably the motherboard» but couldn’t confirm. In the end, we agreed to compensate him $ 50 for his time. I can’t say I was very happy with how things went. On the flip side, he seems a knowledgeable and honest guy, so I’m going with two stars overall here.
I called John on a Friday and set up an appointment for Monday morning. I explained the problem — system powers on, fans spin up, but the monitor stays black — and told him I was confident it was a hardware issue. On Monday he showed up on time and I powered up the PC to show him what was up. His response was that he expected it was a software issue and didn’t have the equipment with him to troubleshoot hardware. I found this mystifying: didn’t we agree on the phone it was likely a hardware issue?
At this point, he said he could either leave now and not charge me a fee, or take the system back to his shop to continue troubleshooting. I had a busy week in front of me so I asked him to take the system. As he was getting ready to leave we discussed that he would be paid a reasonable fee for his time if he couldn’t get the system working.
Later that evening he called me back and said he could not get the system to boot and suspected that my theory about the motherboard was correct. However he couldn’t actually confirm this. He didn’t really offer any next steps which was disappointing, so I was back to square one. The next day he returned my system and I gave him $ 50.
I didn’t really feel like haggling with him over this and was more focused on trying to resolve the issue at hand. However, if I were him I wouldn’t have charged me a nickel with the hope that I might consider using him in the future. I definitely won’t now.