Review of Tri-Star Computer Corporation

3 years ago

6 stars.

6 stars.

The owner of TriStar has worked magic on my heavily-used Macbook Pro twice now. Both good stories, I'll share them in detail because of the key takeaway when your Apple device breaks outside warranty, a good hardware specialist (meaning skilled and honest) can REALLY help you. I m a programmer who tends to push his gear to its limits, I live in Toronto now but TriStar is still my go-to shop.

First story. Was working early AM. Giant mug of black coffee in front of my keyboard. In a flash of stupidity I bumped it and spilled 3/4 of it on the keyboard (no keyboard-cover either). Despite all first-response measures this was an instant Motherboard Kill. Or, would have been if I d listened to Apple. (When finally done giving cloud-syncing tutorials to a mob of teens and seniors they let me know pretty quickly, I was welcome to do a replacement for roughly the original cost of the macbook which would take a few days.)

TriStar fixed it for about a quarter of that, in a couple days. The owner opened up the Macbook, cleaned the internals (keyboard & motherboard), and *replaced the specific chips* that had been fried. The coffee had spilled through the keyboard (leaving it undamaged: maybe some luck involved there), and followed an eavestrough-like channel straight to the motherboard (great design Apple), shorting out 2 of its chips probably instantly. He showed me a photo, that was pretty cool. You could see both chips blotted with dark brown ooze.

Amazingly after the motherboard repair, I was still able to use the same keyboard, for about a year afterward. It worked pretty much like-new, only gradually becoming less snappy-feeling from wear and tear. (Actually I use my keyboard heavily enough that a bunch of paint on the Command- and C- keys wore off. Just for context.)
After that year, making the laptop a "2.5 yr old" (it's a refurbished 2014), comes my second repair story , when 4 keys stopped working.

TriStar really came through then too, by installing a brand new keyboard in less than 4 hours, again for a fraction of Apple's & their copycats' pricing ("because it's highly integrated which is their top excuse for writing off your device.) Turned out, my keyboard just had dust buildup, which, along with my impatient attempt to repair it myself with bad tools, took out the 4 keys badly enough that it made more sense just to replace the whole keyboard. The new one feels much crisper. (btw 2014-style macbook replacement keyboards are the best ones IMO, apple announced a bunch of later ones were defective.)

And, as if he hadn't already made my day with the repair, the owner gifted me a keyboard-cover too, along with the advice that, you know, a cover is useful to block out both dust and liquids. (I do use it now sometimes haha)

So yeah, picking the right expert make a DIFFERENCE. Especially for Mac owners. Apple (and clones, i.e., Apple-centric boutique shops that sort of mimic all their practices) just want to sell you a new device. In case I've underscored it too little! you need an honest shop who can fix the device you've got, who stands by their SKILL. TriStar is definitely that.