Services
Need our help? We gotcha! See which one you need, and contact us at berkeley@the-it-club.org!
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Standard Tuneups
Completely free of charge, our Standard Tuneup rejuvenates your device with a cleaning, re-pasting, and fresh OS installation. The entire process takes around an hour, but makes your device perform faster than it was new, and that's our guarantee!
We use only the best materials in all our Tuneups, including:
Honewell PTM7950, a high-performance, long-lived thermal paste replacement immune to performance degradation
Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise LTSC, a feature-rich, bloat-free edition of Windows with a super long support cycle
JB Quik-Weld and threadlocker, to reinforce the chassis and tighten up loose hinge screws
Thermalright Odyssey thermal pads (or equivalent) with a high 12.8 W/mK thermal conductivity and long servicel life
Tuneups cost exactly $0. We provide them to serve the community, reduce the amount of electronics that get thrown away, and show just how accessible right-to-repair can be!
Flagship Tuneups
Flagship Tuneups
Do you want your computer to run unreasonably fast, cool, and quiet to a degree it never achieved even when new? Do you want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your device, all without changing its appearance or functionality?
Flagship Tuneups are for people who really, REALLY love their device. They're a premium service that brings the benefits of surface lapping to the general public, in a cost-effective and hardware/software-agnostic way. Instead of a one-off procedure that can cost $500 in parts and labor and take 8-10h, we've made it so fast and affordable that you can drop off your device, go out to dinner, and it'll be done when you come back.
How does it work? Flat surfaces aren't actually perfectly flat. That means when you press two "flat" surfaces together, there'll be some air gaps sandwiched in between, which reduces heat transfer. You can fill those air gaps with stuff like thermal paste, a toothpaste-like substance which helps conduct heat from one surface to the other. But thermal paste can't conduct heat as quickly as metal, so you want to minimize how much you need to use. Surface lapping, the core of a Flagship Tuneup, polishes the opposing surfaces to a nearly flat, mirror-like finish. This means the holes that thermal paste needs to fill are miniscule, providing massive improvements to temperatures, performance, noise, and even battery life.
Flagship Tuneups include everything in a regular Tuneup and even more:
10,000-grit sandpaper, polishing the heatsink contact area to a mirror shine
Pressure paper and high-precision calipers to verify surface flatness and pressure distribution
Custom metal and glass lapping tools (down to 0.0001" tolerance) to maximize flatness
Intensive hand-sanding to adjust flatness and pressure distribution to be focused on CPU/GPU hotspots
Extended CPU + GPU burn-in testing to validate performance improvements
Even though this is our star product, Flagship tuneups cost $200 or less, which is an incredible price given the unbeatable results!
Performance you can feel. Temperatures you can't believe. Available nowhere else.
Liquid Metal Removal
Liquid Metal is a fantastic replacement for thermal paste...until it isn't. While it has a very high thermal conductivity of 73.5 W/mK (most thermal pastes sit under 12), it quickly oxidizes and de-wets, resulting in extremely poor thermal contact within months of use. While this affects everything with LM, it's particularly common on Asus gaming laptops and certain other devices. Due to the properties of LM, removing it has historically been a difficult and time-consuming process.
Not anymore. We've figured out a process to permanently remove LM from the processor die and replace it with conventional TIM (PTM7950), with a time and cost comparable to a standard re-pasting! PTM7950 features performance nearly at that of liquid metal, but delivers maintenance-free operation and long-term reliability that LM simply cannot..
But wait, there's more! When combined with a Flagship Tuneup, we're able to beat the thermal performance of LM! And that's a guarantee!
Loaners
Need a laptop? You can borrow one from us! We offer loaners at all times of the year, even during summer break when Berkeley doesn't offer loaners.
As long as you can provide a valid ID and a timeframe on when you plan to return the device, you're good to go! Computers are such an important aspect of today's society, and we want to make sure everyone has access to technology.
When you return the loaner device, we'll help you get all your data off it before we securely erase the loaner. We do not retain any of your data.
Repairs
We've all had that one shattered display, bad battery, or broken charging port that costs a fortune and all three of your kidneys to repair. We're committed to making repairs accessible to everyone, lowering the barrier to reviving your device. Here's what makes us different:
Free evaluation: You can come by and have us look at your device, free of charge.
Accurate cost estimates: After an evaluation, we'll give you a quote on the total time and cost of the repair. But this isn't just a quote: if the repair somehow costs significantly extra, we'll absorb the cost!
High-quality parts: We use OEM parts whenever possible from our partners like iFixit, ensuring you're never disappointed by a substandard part. And of course, we use the same materials found in our Standard Tuneups.
Full cost transparency: We provide a full, itemized breakdown of the cost of parts and labor used during the repair, and we'll even send you the exact links of the parts we purchase!
Fast turnaround time: Depending on the procedure, we can finish many repairs in under an hour, minimizing disruptions to your schedule.
Commissions
We build the best computers at any price, guaranteed! That seems like a tall ask, but we really mean it:
Full component selection transparency: We send you the exact links to the parts we purchase, so you know exactly how much it costs for us to build your PC.
No hidden fees: The price of a commission is the cost of all the parts, plus 20% extra. No hidden fees, terms, or other nonsense.
Flagship Tuneups for even cheaper. If you want us to polish the processor/heatsink of a commissioned computer, that's 50% off the regular price! By baking it right into the PC, you'll have outstanding thermal performance straight out the box, through the entire lifetime of your PC.
Ultimate build flexibility. Mega-tower? Portable ITX box? Bench table? Custom loop? We've done it all before. We'll work with you to craft a PC to your needs and likings.
Extended burn-in testing: Each commission undergoes a 48-hour combined CPU + GPU stress test, subjecting it to unnaturally high loads to make sure your computer performs optimally for years to come.
We just need to know a few preferences before we start building:
Budget
Size (full tower, mid-tower, mini-ITX)
Intended use case (Gaming, CAD, etc.)
What you want the computer to look like (white-themed, dark-themed, RGB or not, etc.)
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