ADD: A few of you seem to think we "agreed" to a 10-minute, _free_ diagnosis. This was not the case. We would have given them the time and money they asked for. Kyle literally had my business debit card in his pocket. Instead, Geek Squad took the system back, rushed to misdiagnose it, and sent us on our way. They never offered to keep it longer and take a closer look. Sorry about not being able to gather any footage inside! Florida two-party consent laws limited our options. Next time, we'll try something in a state where one-party consent laws exist. I also hope you appreciated my subtle country accents during the reenactment. This is the South, after all 😂

The fact that the guy kept insisting to check the part number of the card for warranty instead of trying to just sell a card kinda makes me appreciate it. Besides, no 1 would expect the plug on PS side to come off randomly in a PC that has well managed tied up cables. It was a quick free checkup afterall. So yeah

Does Kyle have a twin brother named Lyle Salazar?

It’s important to note, they’ll spend more time if you schedule an appointment. Walk in diagnostics are very often a quick overlook and free of charge without repair. Although the Best Buy in my town has monitors they plug your PC into at the desk so you both can talk over the problem while seeing it.

Been doing Computer repair for 16 years. Not once have I ever came across this fault. Unfair and unrealistic

I used to work at Geek Squad. My team was pretty experienced and diagnosed problems easily. I guess it depends on which one you go to

I'm not saying that they did a great job, but honestly, what are the odds that a non-sabotaged system would have this problem? The cable was disconnected at the power supply, where it would never have had any strain AND there's a retaining clip to defeat in order to get it half disconnected as shown. For a 10 minute free diagnostic they made the call that would have been true in 999/1000 cases.

I used to work at Best Buy and between you and me we didn't have RTX Titans sitting back there to validate with. We had 5450's and a couple of GT 610's. You'll notice both of those cards don't require supplemental power. So this kid, back in the day making my $1 above minimum wage while getting yelled at for spending too much time on a single PC, would have plugged in another card and told you the same thing.

I would like to honestly see someone do the reverse of this to you: Give YOU a 'damaged' system, and see if YOU can fix it. I think that's a video idea.

Also, they did not try to sell you a new GPU. They advised to go back to the seller, or to MSI to RMA the card. That's proper.

The fact the bestbuy guy told your brother that he could RMA the card I thought was pretty legit. Wasnt exactly telling him his only option was to spend money

I was the lead tech at a BBY store from 1996 to 2004, and left just after they bought Geek Squad. Our store was consistently #1 in our region for repair time and customer satisfaction. We even made a plaque and hung it on our wall that said "Our Goal is the Fastest Repair for the Lowest Price". But after converting to Geek Squad we were told to trade some of that satisfaction for $$$ for the company. The final straw for me was charging $60 for virus removal and $60 to run the recovery disk. We were told to never try to recover any of the customer's data.

I worked for geek squad (13 years ago). I worked in two different stores and the 1st store was great. Everyone was really knowledgeable and cool. I guarantee we would have caught this even with a 10 minute diagnoses as one of the first things we were taught to do was check all the simple easy stuff first like a cable not being plugged in. I’ve had a number of people I helped where they think something like their ram doesn’t work and you check it and see that one of them is not seated properly. The 2nd one was unfortunately not so great, everyone was cool but no one really cared about their job. I blame out manager at the time as he didn’t try to train anyone, didn’t care, and would sometimes make fun of the customer for not having basic knowledge about PCs. Not everyone is in to computers which is why they would come to geek squad. Sadly his attitude rubbed off on others and was a big reason why I eventually quit. So just know it really just depends on where you go and the person that’s helping you. Really like any job that provides a service

Also I credit them for not trying to get them to buy one and saying it may possibly be under warranty.

Not defending Geek Squad but I hope no one thinks this is a fair way to assess their service as a whole, but I think many will anyway.

You did everything possible possible to try and make them look bad and then based your video off of one store. Smooth.

At the best buy I worked at I remember Geek Squad being pretty skilled at pc builds and fixing different pcs. Most of them were steam gamers so it makes sense.

Ok, so I'll give them a C- on this... While they missed the proper diagnoses, they didn't charge for the service and didn't try to pressure him into purchasing a card right then and there. I'll chalk this up to being pressured into quick turn around by corporate micromanagement.

I was expecting them to say something like "well you try turning it off and on again?"

I work at geek squad and I’m pretty confident in my team being able to find that issue simply because we have tester units, before we tell the client it’s a bad gpu we put in our own clearly here it will fail so we would move on straight to swapping power supplies which immediately will tell us the issue

They didn't diagnose it correctly but they didn't hit you with a fee. That's good. But the thing that impressed me the most was that they didn't try to sell you another video card. They didn't take the time to get it right, but they weren't an evil store ripping people off. Some places would have charged for the diagnosis, sold you another card and sold your card to someone else. Could have been worse.

In my high school networking course, teacher had a "physical first" mantra. which is to say, before you do _anything at all_, make sure everything is plugged in properly

Yeah, at least they didnt charge anything, unlike some businesses these days

Fun fact: Some asus (can confirm old ones atleast) and my gigabyte 1060 actually show a message on the screen that the power cable isn't plugged in and that you should check the connection. Interestingly that MSI card didn't have this feature.

So... An average user doesn't unplug things.....I think for most customers Geek Squad is a very beneficial use. For someone who builds computers... They shouldn't need help lol

I actually don't think that was a terrible failure on Geeksquad's part. Yes, they did not do a comprehensive diagnostic, but they didn't charge for it. The employee probably thought he was doing you a favor. If someone called me with that description I would think GPU or PSU. If someone brought it in to our shop I would look at it for free in that amount of detail, and possibly give out that diagnosis (with the caveat that a more thorough diagnosis would be required). Likely though, at the "free" stage we would have quickly tested the PSU by plugging in the 24 pin, CPU power, and GPU power leads into a PSU tester and discovered the fault. I would think a typical shop would be in the territory of charging an hour of labor to actually start tearing in to the build though. A busy shop's time is a commodity that we protect as much as possible, while balancing that with helping the customer as effectively as possible.

This is the equivalent of telling a doctor you’re coughing and then “exposing him” for prescribing you cough medicine you don’t need.

You can always be glad they didn't try to push something onto you that you didn't want/need. In my experience at Staples as an EasyTech, we were encouraged to give a quick list of things that could be wrong and things that were likely wrong, and possible fixes. Typically we had a 15 minute window to diagnose something without charge in order to keep service quick. There was always an option to have them leave it there for some in depth diagnostics, but it was never pushed. We did, however, give them a rundown of how much it would cost to look further. One thing you have to understand is that the retail tech associate is 9/10 seeing software related problems, and rarely sees something like this. My takeaways from this: 1. They diagnosed a problem and found a solution (though not the right one), thinking that the goal of the customer wasn't deception, but rather genuine concern. 2. They did not charge you for some EXTREMELY basic diagnostics. 3. They gave good advice for the solution they gave. Best Buy has some stupid premiums on their GPUs, and they could have easily sold you a new one without looking further into the issue. Instead, they told you to go the route of RMA if the card was indeed bad. This is extremely ethical, and I applaud their advice there.

I took my computer to geek squad once. Best Buy caught fire and I had to pick up an upgraded model from another Best Buy. I still hope it had nothing to do with my computer.

It was a free 10 minute diagnosis. No one should be surprised by the results. He didn't try to sell you a new card either. For the situation I'm impressed.

The question: "Can you trust Geek Squad with your computer troubleshooting?" Your sample size: One Store. Hmmmmm

I worked for h Geeksquad for 3 years. There is a big difference between turning it in for diags and having the CA consultation agent up front looking at it or having the repair agent look at it for a couple of minutes between other repairs.

Atleast he tried to tell you about the warranty might be better. Instead of "hey you should buy a new one from us"

Not saying what geek squad did was correct, but I work at another company who has a similar service center. The technician wasn't being paid for his work. He's probably under pressure from management to not give away free labor so he did a quick look so he didn't have to charge you. Had you let them charge you and take it back for a more thorough look they probably would have found the issue. Your mentioned they didn't charge you, but are you expecting them to work for free? You get what you pay for, except in this case you got more than you paid for. I trust the guys in my department fully, but if we're not being paid for our time we probably would have given you the same answer. Repair centers aren't free to run, and they're not free to employ either. Let them charge you and take it back and see what they come up with, because judging a free diagnosis isn't really fair to geek squad.

I work at a small computer repair shop. A guy brought in his PC. He said he went to BestBuy and they said his psu was bad. When I diagnosed the PC, the front panel connector was wasn’t plugged in. It worked fine but if went ahead with the BestBuy solution, he would have payed over $100 on a new psu when only a connector was unplugged.

I used to work for them as well. I actually have a video telling a story of another "Agent" that worked there. He kept bragging about how he had been a system admin and people under him etc etc. He was always messing things up and He often worked the shift before me. I hated coming in. I once came in and he was at the counter and I felt sick to my stomach. I asked what he was doing and he said ...oh lord..he said that two women came in because a website would not load and they couldn't log in.......that is it man that is it.......You know what he was doing to fix it? .....He was running windows updates......I got so mad I asked how long they had been there he said 4 hours.....I told him to leave I was so angry. I went in and cleared the cache, reset internet settings, cleared winsock and dns cache, reset browser settings, and restarted the system. It took maybe 5 minutes and they were able to log in just fine. I told them yes that it may be a sign they have an infection and they may need their system cleaned up. But they were happy to just have it working for now and I waived the $30 quick fix fee that was supposed to be charged. The guy that I was so mad at had came back up and watched what I did and asked how I knew that stuff......I just could not believe him. The kicker is now he really is a system admin for a mechanic shop. I just do not see how......

Not to start an argument because I don't know the whole situation in full of the interaction but I do currently work at Geek Squad, I have built multiple of my own computers and am very experienced with troubleshooting most all computers, and honestly I can tell you I might have done the same thing as that agent. First off I agree if you build a computer or buy one like that you should know your computer better than Geek Squad, sadly thats not the case or else I wouldn't see people bringing in custom builds or pre-built gaming computers to have worked on ALOT. Second not sure the interaction you had at that store but I know all Geek Squads are on reservations and that sadly will affect how much time they have to look at the computer which I know you said you would have given more time or money if they asked or requested it, but if they were trying to fit you in with a quick diagnosis that is what I would have expected to happen. Lastly the main thing I disagree with you on is that even though yes it's just one cable that doesn't make it an easy fix. That cable does not just come loose from normal use or even the drive over to store in the car. You had to edit the video because of how long it took you to intentionally take out the power supply, unplug the cable, and put it back. I get that there was lights and fans on the card which does indicate some functionality but checking to see if someone disconnected the internal cable would not be apart of normal on the counter troubleshooting unfortunately because of how the check in and counter system works at most stores. Like I said I understand where your coming from and thinking it's an easy fix but that was not a fair even playing field test of Geek Squad. Coming from my perspective and how Geek Squad is setup it would be rare I believe for someone to check for hidden tampering like an internal cable on a computer. Yes it would be unfortunate if you had went and bought a new GPU but then again I can guarantee if geek squad put it in for you (which they would have to cause you wouldn't know how if you didn't know what was wrong to begin with) and they found it was the cable or had additional time if the computer was checked in to diagnose it properly, it would be refunded for work and have the graphics card returned when they found it was just the cable. Setting someone up to fail doesn't really test somones' credibility. It shows you controlled the chances of the outcome. -Agent Jasper-

To be honest I would have said the same thing as the Geek Squad employee. Cables don't just get magically unplugged, so signs would point to some type of hardware failure. I wouldn't pull out the power supply either to check when being paid minimum wage.

Honestly, Geek Squad did a fair job in my opinion. They're used to working on pre builts, so they probably weren't even thinking about modular power supplies when he brought it in. Plus, as others have mentioned, they are a high traffic store, so they probably have all kinds of corporate/management expectations to not take too long on any single PC.

I used to work in a small PC repair shop. This would have been a very easy fix, because I would always try another power supply to see if power was the issue, a very common cause. This would lead me to discover the unplugged cable. We often fixed issues like loose cables, or cables plug in incorrectly. Five minute fix, no charge. Diagnosing a problem is all about eliminating possibilities, not jumping to conclusions.

Every other shop that sells electronics in Florida probably has Greg's photo pinned on the wall saying "don't let this man in" 😂

sounds more like the guy was just interested in doing something quick and free for you instead of doing more work and charging you for it. So he prolly missed it in a hurry.

yeah, thats why troubleshooting tree starts with "is it plugged in?".

I'd love to know Greg's steps to check when he does a Fix or Flop with a PC with these symptoms. I've seen him go through a few PCs with no display out and ive never seen him check this. I think the light up logo on the GPU would have thrown me

that was a free diagnosis, i wouldn't trace all the power cables for free. I used to be in AV doing crestron and control4 and no way are we tracing wires for free.

You missed the trick of using a CPU without integrated graphics like a lot of the AMD's 😁😂

IMO,the bestbuy guy made an amazing diagnostic,maybe he just don't want to touch too much parts and add further damage,and he's not gonna tinker too deep on that PC coz you're not the only customer for that day

Now that was a really tricky problem to diagnose. Nevertheless, in my country, stores would take out the card, put the card in their working benchtable to verify if it's really a dead card. Especially small stores where they have the tech working in within your sight, they would do a much more thorough checkup.

they wouldn't expect a psu cable is unplugged. coz kyle said "i even watched youtube videos to make sure i was connecting everything correctly". so they would assume "everything" is plugged in correctly.

Speaking of dead things, do you have any idea what has happened to Cryorig?? Are they going under?

Could you do this same thing but take it to a local micro center? Curious as to their troubleshooting skills

It's entirely possible this Geek has never encountered a modular power supply and the thought didn't cross his head.

I think if I was presented with this problem, checking whether anything was unplugged in the power supply would probably be at the bottom of the list of what I check. I don't blame them for not checking. Although the next thing I would do is remove the graphics card and trying another one. But then I would think that PCI slot is dead/damaged. Then I would try another slot and eventually I would end up checking the power supply. For a 10 minute free diagnosis, you get what you pay for.

and how often does a pci-e power cable come unplugged? never! i really like the craigslist videos but this is kinda lame

There was an investigative report years ago where they took a PC to multiple places ranging from big chain stores to people who come to your home to smaller strip mall shops, the only thing wrong was they'd loosened the IDE cable at the HD so it wasn't connect (and it was visually obvious too). They got told various things all the way up to and including that they needed to replace the entire computer. Out of ALL of the places the only one that did the right thing was some hole in the wall mom and pops computer shop. When they returned to that location the person brought the computer back out from the back, showed them what had been wrong and when they asked how much for the repair he said to not worry about it. Moral of the story is there seems to be barely any shops you can trust.

For anyone wondering why the MSI logo on the graphics card was on, the GPU is getting some power from the PCIe slot, it powers things like the lights and the fans but not the actual gpu

I'm not a fan of this test. The likelihood of a modular power supply cable just "coming loose" in day to day usage is so incredibly low. Especially when this computer was "working fine" before and suddenly wasn't. I do feel like Geek Squad's advertising of "We'll fix your computer no matter where you bought it" is a bad one. That team is specifically designed to set up and support products sold by Best Buy. This all being said, an easy voltage test would have thrown some red flags, so I'm not exactly feeling sorry for them either. This reminds me of car mechanics being intentionally fooled to see if they could diagnose a problem properly. The same chain, Valvoline, has a great repair shop in San Antonio, but the one in Wichita I went to had some really .... inexperienced technicians. It just depends on where you're at, and who's on staff. If you get this trend over multiple locations/shifts, then sure, damn the company, but on a singular test I just can't get behind it. I appreciate what you do Science Studio. Love the channel, really. Tough to feasibly test this without spending gobs of money on travel to get a good sample size.

Wow, I should work for Geek Squad. Because before I even started the video, I thought, "Lemme guess. He's going to unplug one of the cables."

I've worked as a computer repair technician for about 5 years now. I'm the store manager at a computer repair store in canberra australia that has been running for about 10 years. I am certified in networking and qualified in system administration and project management. This isn't that common of an issue to get in but I have had it a couple of times. What we will charge is $80 (our minimum store charge) or a maximum of $120 depending if the cabling is a pain or not. That is AUD How the largest companies work in ausralia (geeks2u as an example) from what I hear, is they find someone who is repairing computers on their own, they then say to them, we will give you clients if you give us a cut. So what happens these "technicians" will then go to the person's house, then they do what work they think the computer needs, charge what they want (mostly charging elderly hundreds). Geeks2u will enforce no standards or procedures. The person who would have been checking your computer is most likely just underskilled and rushed it, it's very easy to plug in a card and see that it works, then say the card wasn't working (By easy I mainly mean it's an easy thing to miss). With experience he should know it's quite rare for the graphics card to be the issue, out of the literally hundreds of desktops I fix, it has only been the graphics card a couple of times. (Most jobs are laptops because laptops are such horrible things)

FYI wire tapping laws (two-party/one-party consent) is actually only for PHONE CALLS, not for in person recording. It is not illegal to record video anywhere in the US unless it is considered a "private area" (not private property), a retail store is most definitely under the "public area" realm. They can legally ask you to leave, and trespass you for any reason (including recording), but they cannot PREVENT or STOP you from recording.

As a Best Buy employee, I’d say your agent probably did a pretty decent job. Geek Squad makes appointments in 20-minute windows so anything beyond that is going to require paying for a diagnostic and then paying more for an actual repair. I’m pretty confident the agent would’ve discovered the real issue if he’d done a full diagnostic, but he chose to give you the best he could in the time he had for free and didn’t even try to sell you anything. It’s an unfortunate fact of business that we face a lot of time crunches, and being as thorough as possible doesn’t mesh too well with that. Combine that with Geek Squad becoming an Apple Authorized Service Provider in the last week and Geek Squad agents are dealing with a lot right now.

Well basically people would think you may have done something on it. Either accidental or natural cause... Does that cable get detached naturally? Accidentally? I mean how do you accidentally detached something way back there. This is me doing troubleshooting on someone elses pc a lot of time. Things like that get eventually checked but it wouldn't be under 10 minutes because that ain't something that normally happens. just sayin'

I'm concerend how the beginning of the video was really choppy, my PC auto loaded the 4k option when i clicked on this tab and it scared me because i thought it was my wifi or my pc lol

I had a similar kind of irregular issue, where a PC wouldn't turn on. Seemed to be dead, no fans spinning, no lights, nothing. It turned out, that one of the wires soldered to the power switch on the front of the case had broken off.

tbf, cable falling off from the psu is incredibly unlikely, especially since the system is so cleanly built. also kyle said he already checked that everything was connected correctly (5:28). taking the PC apart to test with another graphics card involves some risk which would be passed down to the customer as a cost to diagnose. a thorough check would definitely take a lot longer as well, and it seems kyle was waiting for them to finish diagnosing the issue; also a reason for the rush.

I worked for geek squad for a few years, I can't say for absolutely sure but I'm pretty certain that would not have gotten past our team. We were pretty thorough. All of us were "geeks" after all. We were PC enthusiasts who had quite a lot of experience building our own rigs, and of course troubleshooting them. Oh, I'll add that I also would not have charged you for an unplugged cable lol.

For a fast diagnosis they did ok, but they should have said "we think it's the video card but if you leave it with us we can do further troubleshooting". At least they didn't charge or try to sell a new card though, so there's that.

I don't know the policies at Best Buy, but when I was a tech at Staples, we weren't allowed to take things apart, nor were we allowed to take off the back panel. Also, the guy said to RMA it, according to your "Re-enactment". Not sure why you didn't mention that at the end.

When I was a PC technician, a thorough diagnosis would have included testing the card in another PC.

Cablemod cables/lack of dust are a dead giveaway that this isn't your normal pc repair.

Silly idea. That doesn't happen in real life. Ever. Period. Those cables on the back, once plugged in? They never go loose. So, if you bring me a dead pc and I find out that the GPU doesn't work, of course I'm going to assume it's broken. Like, how in the wold would you assume that a PSU cable came loose? You may argue that they rushed to diagnose. But, in a real-world issue and not a sabotaged pc, they would 100% be right! Mind you I have no idea who these guys are. Never heard of them. Don't have any reason to defend them.

You say towards the end, "They told us to buy another graphics card" but they didn't. They told you to check the serial number and possibly have it replaced free by the manufacturer.

The "ONLY" thing you did was unplug the power cable... And put in a different GPU.

Well you ruined the video by putting what they said in the very beginning

Why did you change the GPU from Gigabyte to MSI?

My motherboard would show "please plug in the power connector to your GPU" or something like that

Craig, I seriously think you made a somewhat hard test there. True, they didnt test with another graphics card but still, as your brother said he bought it from craigslist, it might've put the repairman to think off the bat: "okay, so this guy got scammed." This video was somewhat inconclusive. Maybe try a more obvious problem next and with a better explanation than just: craigslist

Oof, this is rough, I actually do pc repair, and i feel like even I've missed something like this on a "quick" diag. Mainly because I would test another card, but not actually think to test a card that used both power connectors. It's actually for this reason i quit doing quck diagnostics and i only deal with clients that can dropoff. *note, i'm Not saying that this is OK, and recommending a full GPU change is hugely not cool. Just saying shit happens with quick diagnostics.

I spoke with the BestBuy I.T. supervisor before applying for a Geek Squad troubleshooter position, but they rejected my application. They told me that if I was hired, they would offer me only $9 per hour. I then met someone who had computer problems. I have the conversation recorded that said he took it to BestBuy 3 times and they came out clueless about how to fix his problem. The simple fix was deleting items on the task scheduler. It was trying to run files that did not exist on the computer that was associated with a few programs such as CCleaner and Adobe. In 2021, I decided to receive training through a company to not only work on my skills but to build experience. Previously, I only had some I.T. experience through my video editing job since I had the skills to also fix the company's computers.

It all depends on the knowledge level and proactiveness of the tech. When I get something for repair, I'll check all connections first. Connections can come undone either from poor factory installation or jostling during transit. I've had calls from people who had brand new PC's "broken" out of the box and it was usually a hard drive or graphics card cable being lose or totally disconnected.

In all fairness how often dose someone bring a PC with a modular power supply to Geek Squad ? They probably mostly get Dell's and HP's towers with a $10 power supply 😂.

Did you take it to multiple best buys? You know, repeat the experiment?

A month ago, a Best buy PC sales representative told me usb-c and thunderbolt 3 was exactly the same, just 2 different names for it. So he tried to sell me on prebuilt PC's with usb-c when I said my external devices only function with TB3... Made me wonder how screwed over I get in other things, like auto repairs.

I work for GS. They are suppose to schedule you an appointment to bring the computer in. They check the computer out and offer you a solution. In your instance, it would have been a replacement of a graphics card. They are not able to diagnose anything thoroughly without charging you a $99 diagnostic fee. In my precinct, we would have charged you for a $99 diagnostic fee, $40 for a GPU installation, as well as a graphics card up front. We would have told you it would be 2-3 days to complete (granted we will call you sooner when it is completed), and would have actually refunded the money, for the GPU and GPU installation, once we realized the problem. I suggest you take it to more than one GS before you come to a solution.

It is an unrealistic problem, so no one would think to even look for that. If the computer had been working previously, for that to happen accidentally in transit, it would have to be dropped from 5m onto concrete, and I dare say, the cable would be the least of your problems!! I doubt you would find a tech on the planet who would even consider that issue, unless he suspected he was being "gotcha'ed"

Daing, I should take my dead KZfaq channel to BestBuy and see what they say!

didnt they tell him to RMA it. thats a huge difference from buying a new card

I work at geek squad right now and I’m surprised you didn’t get more of a sales pitch. I would have immediately checked the PSU, but I know my coworkers wouldn’t have known what to do other then sell you the 1 yr plan.

It's just sad... when I started in IT, the best part of the job was diagnosing and fixing a PC. It's very satisfying and helped you grow in the field. People are so lazy now/no motivation. Great vid dude 👍

Geek Squad agent here. I had someone come to me recently with a similar issue. (He has just built the rig) But he came to me personally, not at Geek Squad. First thing I did was check the wiring, cable management sucked, and I couldn’t trace the wires back, so I just took it apart and put it back together. Worked like a charm 👌 That being said, if I was in the store and someone brought that to me with that description, I likely would have said the same thing. You just bought a dysfunctional rig off Craigslist, I would have felt bad charging you any more for a diagnostic. But depending on the day, and how busy it was in the store, I may have spent more time trying to figure it out. But I work in the back, not the front. The front of precinct agents are trained to troubleshoot quickly, and to hand it off or “escalate” it to us if they can’t figure it out. The CA did the right thing, given the circumstances. You set them up for failure.

Honestly, to give GS a benefit of the doubt. It was a free diagnostic. When I worked in IT, our free diagnostics didn't include opening the case. Just a basic assumption from plugging it in trying to figure out what is wrong. NOW, after we gave the customer what are assumption was, we did also let them know for a certain amount of money that we would actually open the case and trace everything and figure out the exact cause. Not sure why GS didn't give your brother that option unless they did suspect that you were his brother and just messing with them in the end.

Honestly it is a little different when you have a walk in customer right at the desk waiting for you while you diagnose the problem to get back to him.

“To see if Geek Squad is a viable option for you” And you go to 1 of 1200 Best Buy’s in the country. Good job, super anecdotal. Also keep in mind that most of those reps have many PC’s in queue to work on. If they had done the proper diagnostic (the one they charge you for) they would probably not have been able to get the PC back to you same day. This really isn’t a scientific or proper experiment, it just feels like you created an abnormal problem (connectors rarely come unplugged from the PSU on their own) and feel smug that one person didn’t figure it out in 10 minutes. Dislike man, bad content

Maybe they didn't know about the modular PSU, which not many people are aware, but it's a bad sign anyways

In case anyone was curious, GeekSquad is appointment only and is contracted by apple to do iPhone repairs, so when someone comes in with a custom build and asks us to fix it and doesn't tell us what's wrong with it, doesn't make an appointment, there not gonna sit there and pick apart your computer through some awful rear panel cable management to find a problem you intentionally hid.

you told him everything was plugged in correctly and you made sure of that via youtube videos, the odds of this problem happening to a regular use pc are slim to none

I've had great experiences with geek squad especially for out of warranty tv repairs ( reimbursable from amex extended warranty). I don't know about PC's but I don't think they are the ripoff factory you are trying to make them out to be.

Why does the graphics card change from the initial intro to the "this is what bestbuy will see" demonstration....

The window of time they get isn't enough to properly diagnose this "issue" It requires opening the machine, removing the PSU, and examining the wires which is NOT in the scope of work for the consultation. I'd hardly use that to gauge their skill set. However, they DID not set proper expectations, assuming you aren't lying for clicks.

Great service from GS i would have diagnosed it tho! when i tried to nab the card and the new one did the same!