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One of the great joys of the PC is that it's so easy to repair. The largely modular nature of desktop and, increasingly, laptop computers means that fixing a fault usually involves little more than changing a component. The catch is that you have to know which component is at fault and, perhaps more importantly, find the time to do it.

If your livelihood depends on a PC, time spent trying to repair one is time wasted not working. Do the sums and you'll probably discover that it can often be cheaper to get someone else to sort it out while you get on with earning a living. The question, of course, is who do you ask to help?

Use Google to search for "PC repair UK" and you'll get a long list of companies that offer everything from fixing physical damage to recovering lost data. Most are small outfits that serve a local area (there's a comprehensive directory, complete with user reviews, at http://tinyurl.com/5ftuxy), but there are also a few services that operate nationwide.

Just as car owners consider main dealers to offer better peace of mind than smaller, and usually cheaper, independent garages, so PC owners have good cause to expect a higher standard of service from a large, well-financed operation when it comes to out-of-warranty repairs. Of the four nationwide PC repair services in the UK, three are backed by household names: TechGuys is the in-store help desk of PC World, part of

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Dixons Sales Group; BT Home IT Support is part of British Telecom; Geek Squad is a joint venture between US electronic retail chain Best Buy and Carphone Warehouse; while the fourth is PC Callout Limited, an independent operation that was established in 2002.

Each of these services claims to offer a complete range of computer-related services, from setting up hardware to troubleshooting software problems and fixing faulty hardware. Bold promises on a website are one thing, but how do these companies really measure up when called upon to fix a real problem?

In order to put these four national PC repair companies to the test, we posed as an ordinary punter with a problem laptop. Home visits were arranged with three of the companies. The fourth organisation, PC World's Tech Guys, does not do home repairs but will collect laptops, sending them away for a few days.

The laptop in question was a Samsung X10 running Windows XP. It was cutting-edge in 2004 and, despite a wobbly screen and some cosmetic wear and tear, it is still a solid performer for most tasks.

Our story was that the hard disk had been upgraded a few months ago by a knowledgeable friend, but the laptop hadn't been the same since. After repeated Windows stop errors (aka the notorious Blue Screen of Death), the laptop was restored to factory freshness with Samsung's Windows XP Professional System Recovery CD. That appeared to cure the crashing, but then Windows Update refused to budge once Service Pack 2 had been installed.

Unfortunately, the laptop also managed to pick up some spyware along the way, as demonstrated by a bright red alert that appeared on the desktop one day. Pop-up warnings in the Windows Notification Area and on the Internet Explorer homepage further emphasised the need for an urgent fix.

To make matters worse, Windows then began to complain about "unrecoverable errors", before reverting to the previous Blue Screen of Death situation. To cap it all, Windows sometimes refused to boot at all, citing "Operating system not found".