Home and Personal Services

Sales

We cater for all home & personal computer users with dependable & fast laptop & desktop solutions at every price point between $549 & $10,000.

Repairs

With over 20 years of first-hand experience and education in the IT industry, leave it to us to accurately troubleshoot problems with your PC.

Upgrades

If your existing PC is less than 6 years old but running slow, it could simply need a fresh Windows 10 install or some simple hardware upgrades.

Support

In the main, there are two ways to run your computer systems - you either wait for something to go bang or you try to prevent this in the first place!

Virus Removal

With combined industry experience of over 70 years our techs leave no stone unturned when your computer's security has been compromised.

Data Recovery

The loss of personal or business data can easily be one of the most tragic experiences that you can ever face in the world of computing.

Backup Systems

If you create documents, databases or pictures that have any individual worth to you, then you need a simple backup solution to protect them.

File Transfers

For many computer users, when it comes time to replace a computer, the purchase of a replacement machine is just the start of the process.

Wi-Fi

Regardless of how fast your NBN connection is – if your Wi-Fi signal is weak where you need it most then you still can’t browse effectively.

Insurance Reports

Accidental drops, liquid ingress, PCB burnout – many of these disasters can be covered under your existing home & contents insurance.

Solid State Drives (SSD’s) are currently taking the PC marked by storm. They have always had huge performance and reliability advantages they offer over standard mechanical drives – often performing 10 times quicker while also being 10 times more reliable. Now thanks to massive price drops, everyone in the market for a new PC should be using a SSD in their new desktop or laptop. We are now offering these across the board in all our PC solutions. Read more...

We have several main sales lines. Firstly, for the enthusiast computer user and to cater for home users wanting quality, we sell our own Kerr Solutions Premium Workstations which are custom built inhouse in our own service centre here in Rockhampton. This gives us the ability to supply gamers, photographers, movie makers, IT enthusiasts and industry professionals with unprecedented scope for power, capacity and expandability. We can fine tune a Kerr Solutions Premium Workstation to either a budget or to a specified performance level. Our own Workstations have been one of our trademark industry solutions which have built up an enviable reputation for performance and longevity with customers. Many of these computers have given 5 to 8 years of service and have been upgraded to newer operating systems over time without any hardware changes.

Secondly for home & personal users that are happy with a more standard PC, we are keen to offer Hewlett Packard’s commercial range of ultra-small desktops, standard desktops, All-In-One desktops and their extensive range of laptop PC’s. We can also customise these by offering larger SSD’s in models that only ship with small SSD’s and by offering more ram at the same time. For instance, we have not sold a laptop with less than 8GB of ram for well over 8 years now – when you can still find heaps of new models today in chain stores with only 4GB of ram. Minor changes like this can mean the difference between buying a useful PC or just a frustrating piece of junk. The HP commercial range are built up to a standard instead of down to a budget also come standard with 2^nd business day onsite parts & labour warranties.

Thirdly for budget minded users that still want a fast and dependable solution we are now combining the speed of a brand new SSD with Windows 10 features and the power and value of a factory refurbished corporate computer. For this we have carefully selected Intel i5 & i7 models that offer 2 or 3 times the power of a typical new budget PC at around half the cost! These PC’s offer such remarkable value for money, power and reliability that we even bundle them standard with a 13-month parts and labour warranty for your peace of mind. We often call these our Eco IT solutions as when selecting one of these, you are also being kind to the environment. If you simply need quick Internet access, email ability and some standard applications like Word & Excel then there is nothing extra to be gained by spending 2, 3 or 4 times as much on a more powerful PC.

With any of the above solutions the biggest advantage we have over other retailers is the level of our IT expertise and the resulting setup of each and every PC. Before any PC leaves our shop, we have gone to great lengths to configure Windows 10 for both simplicity and speed of operation. All junk and trial software has been removed and all annoying pop-up configuration messages have been dealt with. Every PC has been patched and updated with the latest Windows updates as well as the latest drivers and essential programs such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, Java, Google Chrome and the latest Codecs. Your PC will be ready to use from the moment that you turn it on.

We can also offer a complete data transfer service to get ALL of your important information, software and settings across from your previous PC. These value-added services that have been fine-tuned and honed over our last 20 plus years of being at the forefront of the IT industry. There is no way we could offer these professional IT services while trying to sell you fridges, microwaves and vacuum cleaners from the same business.

With all the IT hardware that we sell, we go to a lot of trouble to make sure that we are recommending and selling devices that work. There are many brands and products that we simply will not stock because they don’t perform. This is another difference that separates us from a chain store – it is our reputation at stake. We stock specific brands of Computer Screens, Internet Routers, Wireless Access Points, External Hard Drives, Network Cameras, Network Switches, Wi-Fi Adaptors, USB-to-Serial Adaptors, USB Hubs, NAS devices, Display Adaptors, Keyboards & Mice.

Repairs

When you’re not well you turn to an industry professional – a Doctor. So why take chances with the health of your PC? Everyone I talk to knows someone who knows someone who is an IT expert! The fact of the matter is that our industry is so specialised and fast moving, that unless you are a full time IT tech then you are nowhere even close to being an industry professional. We are regularly called upon to fix problems after the friend of a friend has already done his best to fix it – and often this was when the real damage was done. Read more...

Upgrades

The ‘brain’ of a computer is the Central Processing Unit (or CPU) and every CPU has a power rating (benchmark) by which to compare it to others – just like a car engine has a Kilowatt or horsepower rating! Normally the more you pay for a PC, the higher this benchmark is and the more speedily it will operate. If you have a midrange computer that is 2 to 6 years old – and especially if it has an Intel CPU of the model name i3, i5 or i7 then it can run Windows 10 efficiently and fast. We are now selling the 8^th Generation of these iconic Intel models however even the 2^nd and 3^rd Generation Intel’s and all models since, still have plenty of power. These CPU’s do not slow down or become weak with use – but rather they operate at the same speed they did when new, normally until something else in your computer breaks.Read more...

There have always been a lot of underpowered junk PC’s available from chain stores and this is still the case now. So, all too often we see customers that have replaced an older powerful PC with a brand-new budget PC which is of far lesser power. Don’t let this happen to you! Either come in and see us or do the homework yourself. You can find your particular CPU model number by looking under the ‘System Information’ section in your PC and then find it’s individual benchmark rating online at www.cpubenchmark.net or just Google (for example) ‘Intel i5-4690S benchmark’ to find your CPU rating (approx. 7,421 in this example). You can then compare this directly to a CPU rating from a PC that you are considering purchasing. In the above example a CPU with a benchmark of approx. 3,700 will literally have half the power – while a CPU with a benchmark of 15,000 will have double the procession power!

No article about PC upgrades would be complete without reference to both PC memory (RAM) and Solid-State Drive’s (SSD’s). These components also have a bearing on computer speed and efficiency. During the 2018 year, SSD prices have now dropped to a point where they have become an affordable and best alternative for every PC. In fact, if you replace the HDD in your computer with a SSD and do nothing else, you will see at least a doubling of its apparent performance. Adding extra computer system memory (RAM) is also a cheap and effective way to speed up and existing PC – particularly if you currently have less than 8GB of RAM. A computer with only 2GB will be slow to the point of not being useable and 4GB is still on the skinny side to efficiently run Windows 10. Conversely going beyond 8GB of ram in the average PC will rarely yield any appreciable advantage and can equate to throwing money away.

My current suggested PC specifications for the average user to aim for (and to run Windows 10 quite nicely) would be a CPU with a benchmark of at least 4,000 teamed with 8GB of RAM and a 250GB (or larger) SSD. You will only need a larger SSD than 250GB if you are wanting to store 10’s of thousands of photos, or a similar number of songs, or hundreds of high quality movies. SSD’s are currently also available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB sizes.

Windows 7 & 8 Note – if you are currently running Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 we can professionally upgrade you to Windows 10 without any further licensing costs. Again – come in and see us about this upgrade because regardless of anything that you’ve heard, Windows 10 when installed and configured correctly is far better than any previous version of Windows – and just as easy to use!