How long does computer repair take at The Computer Cellar in Durham NC?

Most diagnoses and common repairs at The Computer Cellar are completed within 24 hours of check-in. If uncommon replacement parts are needed, they usually take 1-3 days to arrive. Walk in Mon–Fri 10AM–6PM at 720 9th Street, Durham NC.

Do I need an appointment at The Computer Cellar?

No appointment is needed at The Computer Cellar in Durham, NC. Just walk in Monday through Friday, 10AM to 6PM. We are located at 720 9th Street, Lower Level (basement of The Regulator), Durham NC 27705.

Does The Computer Cellar repair Macs and Apple computers?

Yes! The Computer Cellar repairs both PCs and Macs including MacBooks, iMacs, and Mac Minis. We fix hardware and software issues. Visit us at 720 9th Street in Durham or call (919) 314-3327.

What computer repair services does The Computer Cellar offer?

The Computer Cellar in Durham NC offers virus and malware removal, laptop screen replacement, battery replacement, data recovery, water damage repair, hardware upgrades, custom PC builds, and refurbished laptop sales.

Where is The Computer Cellar located in Durham NC?

The Computer Cellar is located at 720 9th Street, Lower Level (basement of The Regulator bookstore), Durham NC 27705. Open Monday through Friday, 10AM to 6PM. Call (919) 314-3327.

Back-to-School Laptop Checklist: How to Get Your Machine Ready for the Semester - The Computer Cellar

Back-to-school season is the busiest stretch of our year at the shop. Students show up with laptops that worked fine all summer and now suddenly can’t keep up with classes, group projects, and a thousand open tabs of research. Most of those visits could be avoided with an hour of prep before the semester starts. Here’s the checklist we’d run through if your laptop were ours.

1. Run All Pending Updates

Operating system, drivers, browser, antivirus — all of it. Updates that have been pending all summer are going to install themselves at the worst possible moment if you don’t do it now. Plug in, restart, install, repeat until everything’s current.

2. Check Your Storage Space

If your boot drive is more than 85% full, your machine is going to feel slow under any load. On Windows, Settings → System → Storage shows you what’s eating space and offers a one-click cleanup. On Mac, About This Mac → Storage Settings does the same. Clear out the Downloads folder, archive old projects to an external drive or cloud storage, and empty the Trash.

3. Test Your Battery

The last thing you want is to discover your battery only holds 90 minutes of charge during a three-hour exam. On Windows, run a battery report (open Command Prompt and type powercfg /batteryreport). On Mac, check System Settings → Battery → Battery Health. If your battery is at 80% capacity or below, replacing it before the semester is way cheaper than dealing with it during finals week.

4. Set Up Real Backups

The number of “my thesis was on this drive” emergencies we see every spring is heartbreaking. Get a backup running now, before you need it. Options:

An external drive plus Windows File History or Mac Time Machine
A cloud service like OneDrive, iCloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox synced to your documents folder
Both, ideally — local backup is fast, cloud backup survives a stolen laptop

5. Audit Your Browser

Browsers carry a year’s worth of accumulated extensions, sketchy toolbars, and cached junk. Open your browser’s extension manager and remove anything you don’t actively use. Clear the cache. Make sure you’re using a real password manager (built-in browser saves are fine, dedicated managers like Bitwarden are better) so you’re not reusing passwords across school accounts and personal ones.

6. Lock Down Your Logins

Turn on two-factor authentication for your school account, your email, and any cloud storage you use for schoolwork. Phishing emails ramp up at the start of the semester targeting students, and 2FA is the single best protection against a compromised account.

7. Clean It (Yes, Physically)

A laptop that lived in a hot dorm or an un-air-conditioned summer apartment has probably accumulated dust in the cooling system. If your fans are louder than they used to be, or the bottom of the laptop runs hot, that’s a sign. A proper cleaning helps thermals, which helps performance, which helps battery life. We do this all the time at the shop.

If You’d Rather We Just Do It

A pre-semester tune-up covers most of the above and surfaces anything that’s about to fail. Bring the laptop by our 9th Street shop — we’re walk-in friendly and most tune-ups turn around in 24 hours. Call (919) 314-3327 with questions or just stop in.