One fourteen-year-old teen -- who asked that we not use his name -- has been fixing computers for his family and neighbours for years.
"It's kind of annoying," said the teen. "Every single time anyone has a problem, they won't even try it by themselves. They'll just automatically go to you for help."
But most of us don't have a tech whiz in our families. That means that when our computers break down we need to find some tech support.
Consumer Reports surveyed owners of 10,000 computers about their experience with tech support, and looked at various ways to get it.
"Our survey found the worst ways to get tech support were from their manufacturers' websites and e-mail support,' said Rosalind Tordesillas of Consumer Reports.
And even then, the manufacturer's tech support solved the problem only about 60 per cent of the time.
Compaq and HP's tech support was generally worse. The best, by far, was from Apple, although it was only free for 90 days.
Apple authorized dealers also get high marks for in-store tech support.
"We hire people that are Apple purists to begin with so they have a high level of information already," said David Malboeuf.
"With those training seminars we also have weekly meetings of our own just to keep up," Malboeuf said.
Apple solved the problems 90 per cent of the time.
For laptops, Lenovo's tech support was also quite good, the survey found.
As for reliability, Apple desktops are the most reliable computers, according to Consumer Reports surveys over the last five years.
For laptops and notebooks, all the brands are fairly similar, with about a 20 per cent repair rate.
The Consumer Reports survey found that paying extra for premium plans that extend both tech support and the repair warranty wasn't worth it.
There was one exception -- with Dell and Gateway, the premium priority service was a lot better than regular tech support.
That said, requests for help won't slow down anytime soon for the tech-savvy teen.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen
