Bench & on-site service — 3361 Heron Way, Portland, OR 97209 Mon–Fri 8:00–18:00 · Sat 10:00–16:00 (Pacific) Call 503-782-7740
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Services

Everything we fix, install and look after

Nine technicians, one workshop on Heron Way, and a van that covers the metro area. Below is the honest scope of what Sablefir Systems takes on — and at the bottom, the handful of things we send elsewhere.

01 — Bench repair

Laptop, desktop and all-in-one repair

The majority of what crosses our counter. Cracked screens, snapped hinges, liquid spills, keyboards that lost half their letters, machines that shut down at 88°C because nobody has cleaned the heatsink since 2021.

We keep common panels, fans, batteries and charge boards in stock for Dell Latitude and XPS, HP EliteBook and Pavilion, Lenovo ThinkPad and IdeaPad, Asus, Acer, and MacBook Air / Pro from 2015 onward. Anything we don't stock is ordered same day from a Portland or Seattle distributor.

  • Micro-soldering for charge circuits, backlight rails and shorted caps
  • Full thermal rebuilds with quality paste and pad replacement
  • Battery health testing and genuine-cell replacements
  • BIOS/UEFI recovery and firmware reflashing
  • Post-repair burn-in of at least four hours before handover

Typical turnaround: 1–3 business days in stock, 3–6 when parts are ordered.

Technician performing a component-level laptop repair
Board-level work station, Heron Way

02 — Software & performance

When the hardware is fine but the computer isn't

Slowness is a symptom, not a diagnosis. We measure before we recommend, and we tell you when spending money would be wasted.

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Operating system rebuilds

Clean Windows 11 or macOS installs with profile, mail and licence migration. Old machine imaged first so nothing is lost in translation.

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Malware & ransomware cleanup

Offline scanning, persistence hunting, credential rotation and a written incident note. For business ransomware we work to the backup first, the negotiation never.

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Storage upgrades

SATA to NVMe migrations, RAM expansion where the board allows, and honest advice when a 2013 chassis has run out of road.

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Email & account rescue

Locked Microsoft, Apple or Google accounts, broken Outlook profiles, mail that silently stopped syncing after a password change.

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Printer & peripheral setup

Network printers, label printers, scanners and card readers configured properly instead of shared off one person's desktop.

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New machine setup

Bought a computer elsewhere? We'll strip the bloatware, migrate your files, set up backup and hand it over ready to work.

Server rack and cabling installed by Sablefir Systems
Recovery imaging rig sits alongside our rack bench

03 — Data recovery

Getting files back, with paperwork to match

We handle logical recovery in house: deleted partitions, corrupted file systems, failed software RAID, formatted cards and phones that stopped mounting. Every job starts with a read-only image so the original media is never written to.

Drives with physical head or motor damage go to a partner cleanroom in the Pacific Northwest. You approve the quote in writing before anything ships, and the chain of custody is recorded at every hand-off.

  • No recovery, no fee on logical jobs (evaluation is free)
  • Encrypted return media, or your own drive if you supply one
  • File listing supplied before payment so you can confirm the data is there
  • Working copies destroyed 30 days after collection unless you ask otherwise

04 — Managed IT

A support desk for offices too small to hire one

Per-seat, month to month, cancel with 30 days' notice. No three-year contracts and no equipment leases with our name on them.

Per-seat rates
A

Day-to-day help desk

Phone, email or remote session. Answered by someone who already knows your printer's name.

B

Patching & monitoring

Windows, macOS and third-party updates on a tested schedule, with disk, backup and antivirus alerts landing on our board, not yours.

C

Microsoft 365 administration

Licences, shared mailboxes, MFA enforcement, conditional access and tidy offboarding that actually revokes tokens.

D

Procurement advice

We quote hardware at cost plus a flat handling fee, and we'll tell you when the cheaper model is the right one.


What a contract includes

  • Named primary engineer and documented backup engineer
  • Written response targets by severity, reviewed quarterly
  • Asset register, network diagram and licence inventory
  • Monthly one-page health report in plain English
  • Unlimited remote support during business hours
  • Two on-site visits per month included at 3+ seats

What sits outside a contract

  • Hardware parts and third-party licence costs
  • Large project work (office moves, full cabling installs)
  • Out-of-hours emergency call-outs, billed at the published rate
  • Bespoke software your vendor must support directly
  • Anything we'd have to guess at — we quote instead

05 — Networks, cabling & Wi-Fi

Infrastructure the next technician can read

Labelled ports, a patch panel that matches the diagram, and a photo record filed with your documentation.

Survey

Wireless heat mapping

We walk the floor with a survey tool before quoting access points, so you buy three instead of six.

Install

Cat6 / Cat6a runs

Certified terminations, tested and documented per drop, with fire-rated cable where the building requires it.

Secure

Firewall & VLANs

Guest Wi-Fi separated from staff, payment terminals isolated, remote access over VPN rather than exposed ports.

Connect

ISP transitions

Fibre changeovers coordinated out of hours so nobody loses a trading day.

Extend

Warehouse & patio coverage

Outdoor and long-range links for yards, patios and second units, weather-sealed properly.

Tidy

Rack remediation

Inherited a cupboard full of spaghetti? We rebuild it in an evening and hand you a map.

06 — Backup, continuity & security hygiene

Backups only count if someone tests them

Every backup we build gets a monthly sample restore, and the result is emailed to you whether it passed or failed.

LayerWhat it protects againstTypical setupTested
Local imageDrive failure, bad update, accidental deletionNAS or dedicated USB rotation, hourly to dailyMonthly file restore
Off-site copyFire, theft, flood, ransomware spreadEncrypted cloud target, nightlyMonthly file restore
Immutable snapshotsAttackers deleting the backups themselvesWhere the platform supports it, 14–30 day lockQuarterly
Microsoft 365 backupMailbox and SharePoint deletion beyond retentionThird-party daily captureQuarterly item restore
Documented recovery planNobody knowing what to do at 6amOne-page runbook, printed and filedAnnual walkthrough

Being straight with you

Work we don't take on

Saying no keeps our quality where it should be. For these, we'll usually name someone local who does them well:

  • Games console and phone screen repair (we do recover phone data)
  • Custom software development and database engineering
  • Enterprise environments beyond roughly 60 seats
  • Anything requiring us to bypass a lawful account lock or DRM
  • Cryptocurrency wallet "recovery" — this is where scams live

Getting started

Three ways in

Call the shop

503-782-7740, Mon–Fri 8–6 and Sat 10–4 Pacific. A technician picks up.

Drop the machine off

3361 Heron Way, Portland, OR 97209. Street parking on the north side; ring the bell marked Sablefir.

Portland at dusk

Not sure which of these you need? That's a normal phone call.

Describe the symptom in your own words. We've heard it before and we'll point you to the cheapest sensible answer.