At a time when brand-new computers can sell for under $400, it's hard to make a case for spending $100 on a single tech-support call. But you shouldn't have to buy a whole new computer just to eradicate spyware or fix your e-mail; besides, you would have to migrate all your data to the new computer, and could quite possibly encounter the exact same problems again. When your precious data is at stake, or you have an urgent job to finish, your best bet is to work with what you have.

We tested five paid support services to see which ones best handled a variety of computer problems. Since nothing beats a human being on the other end of a telephone when you're in a jam, each service had to offer unrestricted toll-free phone support and accept payments by credit card. Given that your problem might include a malfunctioning Internet connection or a PC that won't boot, we disqualified services that either required Web-based preregistration or offered support solely via Internet-based chat (although all do offer it).

We asked each service to solve the same three problems—one software, one hardware, and one malware. (For the details on how we tested, see the PC Magazine Labs performance tests) The results varied dramatically.—Continue Reading