Virus and malware removal in Cochrane
CompuTech removes viruses and malware in Cochrane, at home or at the Calgary bench for cleanups that need an offline scan. A laptop that's suddenly loud and hot while doing nothing is often a miner, and you can hear it before you see it.
- ✓ Free diagnosis with any repair
- ✓ One flat quote before any work
- ✓ No fix, no repair fee
- ✓ Most repairs done same day
Hours, address and more about CompuTech
| Day | Shop | In-home |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
| Tue | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
| Wed | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
| Thu | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
| Fri | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
| Sat | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM |
| Sun | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM | Drop-off only |
- 303 Wentworth Row SW, Calgary, AB. Walk-ins welcome. Get directions →
- In-home visits booked by phone or online. Call before noon for same day.
- 403-333-3114
- Hours
- CompuTech's shop at 303 Wentworth Row SW, Calgary, AB is open Mon–Sun 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM, walk-ins welcome. In-home visits across Calgary run Monday to Saturday, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM; Sunday is drop-off only.
- The shop
- CompuTech's shop is at 303 Wentworth Row SW, Calgary, AB. Walk in to drop a machine off, no appointment needed. Call CompuTech on 403-333-3114.
- Booking
- In-home visits from CompuTech across Calgary are booked by phone or through the site; calling before noon gives the best chance of a same-day slot.
- Pricing
- Every CompuTech repair in Calgary starts with a free diagnosis and one flat quote before any work. If it can't be fixed, there is no repair fee.
- Turnaround
- Most CompuTech repairs in Calgary are finished the same day. Calling before noon gives the best chance of a same-day slot.
- Who turns up
- CompuTech is one technician who answers his own phone and does the work himself, fixing Calgary's laptops, networks and smart homes since 2015, over 5,000 repairs. CompuTech is rated 5.0 out of 5 across 758 reviews.
- Machines
- CompuTech repairs Windows and Mac laptops and desktops in Calgary, and rescues photos and files from phones and tablets that won't start.
- Customers
- CompuTech works with homes and small businesses in Calgary. Business IT is month to month with no lock-in contract.
- Not offered
- CompuTech is not a phone repair shop, and sends a machine still under manufacturer warranty back to Apple, Dell or Microsoft when that is the better deal for the customer.
- Service area
- CompuTech comes to homes and offices across Calgary and Airdrie, Chestermere, Cochrane and Okotoks. Strathmore, High River, Langdon, De Winton, Rocky View County, Crossfield and Diamond Valley are covered by arrangement.
- Facts reviewed
- Reviewed September 2026. Hours change on the day they change; call 403-333-3114 to confirm before a long drive.
If any of this sounds familiar, call us
Out the 1A, into your house
CompuTech treats Cochrane as a standard in-home booking, not an out-of-town trip. Cochrane is on the in-home list. You book a window, we drive out, and the diagnosis happens on your desk rather than on a counter three towns away. Most repairs finish in that visit.
The town's layout does make a difference to one job in particular. Cochrane is built on hills and the newer neighbourhoods climb them, so houses here tend to be tall and narrow rather than wide. A router on the bottom floor is fighting two ceilings by the time the signal reaches the top bedroom. That's a placement problem, not a speed problem, and no amount of paying for a faster plan will fix it.
Town and acreage
In town we cover Sunset Ridge, Riversong, Fireside, Heartland, GlenEagles, Bow Ridge, The Willows and Jumping Pound Ridge. Out of town, the acreages toward Highway 22 and along the Bow are a different animal: the internet is often fixed wireless or satellite, latency is high, and half of what looks like a broken computer is actually a connection dropping out. Worth knowing before you replace a laptop that was never the problem.
The shop at 303 Wentworth Row SW is open seven days if a drop-off suits you better. From Cochrane it's a straight run in on the 1A and down Sarcee.
Not all of it is a virus, and that changes the fix
The five things Calgary customers call a virus, as CompuTech sees them. People say virus for anything the computer does that it shouldn't. Fair enough, but the categories behave differently and the right fix depends on which one you've got. Here's what we actually see, roughly in order of how often.
Adware and browser hijacks
By far the most common. Your search engine changed on its own, a new toolbar appeared, every other click opens a tab you didn't ask for. It arrives bundled inside something you installed on purpose, usually a free converter, a driver updater or a video player. It isn't destructive, it's just relentless, and it often writes browser policies that survive a normal uninstall.
Scareware
Software that exists to tell you that your machine is broken. It reports hundreds of critical errors, colours everything red, then asks for payment. The errors are invented. Some of these are ordinary junk software and some are doing something worse in the background.
Miners
Software using your processor to mine cryptocurrency for someone else. The tell is heat and noise while you're doing nothing, and a machine that crawls the moment you ask it to do anything. It's the one infection you can often hear before you see.
Information stealers
The quiet ones, and the ones that matter most. They go after saved browser passwords, session cookies and anything that looks like banking. There may be no symptom at all, which is why we check for them even when you came in about something else.
Ransomware
Files renamed, unreadable, and a note demanding payment. Different problem, different response, and there's a section on it further down this page.
What a proper cleanup actually involves
What a CompuTech cleanup involves beyond running a scanner. Running a scanner and clicking remove is the part everyone can do themselves, and it's maybe a third of the job. The reason infections come back a week later is that the scan removed the payload and left the thing that reinstalls it.
- Back up first, before anything is removed, so nothing is riding on the cleanup going perfectly
- Scan from outside Windows where it matters, because software that's running can hide from software that's running
- Go through what starts with the machine: startup entries, scheduled tasks, services, and anything set to reinstall itself
- Check the browsers properly, including extensions, search settings and the policies an installer can write to lock them in place
- Look at what the infection touched, not just the infection, since a changed proxy or DNS setting will keep working long after the file is gone
- Verify by using the machine afterwards rather than by trusting a green tick on a scan result
Then the boring but useful part: updates applied, the built-in protection actually switched on and configured, and the browser tidied. That's what stops the same thing arriving again a fortnight later.
The first ten minutes, and what not to do
CompuTech's first-ten-minutes advice for ransomware. If your files have been renamed and there's a note demanding payment, what you do in the next few minutes genuinely affects the outcome.
Do this
- Take the machine off the network, Wi-Fi and cable both, so it can't reach anything else
- Leave it switched on, because some variants keep useful traces in memory that a shutdown throws away
- Photograph the ransom note with your phone, since the wording identifies the variant
- Unplug any backup drive that's still attached, before it gets encrypted too
- Check whether other machines on the same network are affected
Don't do this
- Don't pay. It funds the next one, marks you as someone who pays, and buys no obligation on their side
- Don't rename or delete the encrypted files, because a decryption tool may need them exactly as they are
- Don't keep restarting the machine hoping it clears
- Don't plug a fresh backup drive in to save what's left while the machine is still infected
Then the honest part. Whether your files come back depends on which variant it is and whether you have a backup that wasn't plugged in at the time. Some variants have known flaws and free decryption tools exist. Many don't, and no amount of money changes that. We'll tell you which situation you're in rather than take the job and find out later.
The pop-up that tells you to call a number
One of the most common calls CompuTech gets in Calgary usually isn't an infection at all. This is one of the most common calls we get, and it usually isn't an infection at all. A page opens claiming the computer is infected, fills the screen, plays an alarm, and gives a phone number to call. Sometimes it won't close.
That page is the scam. It's a website, nothing more. No real security warning has ever asked anyone to phone a number. Close the browser, and if the browser won't close, hold the power button until the machine turns off and start it again. Nothing has been damaged.
If you already called
Then treat it seriously, and don't be embarrassed about it. These people are convincing and they do this all day. If you let someone connect to your machine, assume what they installed is still on it and that they saw whatever was on screen.
- Disconnect the machine from the internet
- From a different device, change the passwords on your email and banking
- Call your bank if you gave any payment details, and say what happened
- Bring the machine in before you use it again
The same goes for a phone call out of the blue from someone saying they're with Microsoft, your internet provider or your bank's security team. None of them phone people about their computers. Hang up. You don't owe a stranger politeness.
When cleaning isn't the right answer
When CompuTech recommends a rebuild instead of a cleanup. Most infections are removable and your setup survives. We'd rather clean than rebuild, because a rebuild costs you your programs, your settings and an afternoon.
There are cases where cleaning isn't honest, though, and we'll say so. If someone had hands-on control of the machine, if the infection had administrator access and time to settle in, or if it's the kind that installs several unrelated things at once, the question stops being whether we can remove what we found and becomes whether you could trust the machine afterwards. On a computer you bank on, that matters.
When that's the situation, a clean rebuild with your files carried across is the better answer and we'll explain exactly why rather than defaulting to it because it's faster for us. And if the machine was already old and struggling before any of this, we'll tell you that too, because spending on a cleanup for a computer that needs replacing anyway helps nobody.
What actually keeps it out
What CompuTech sets up before leaving, so it doesn't come back. Nobody wants a lecture, so this is short and it's the part that does the work. None of it costs anything and we set it up before we leave.
- Use the protection that's already built into Windows, kept switched on and up to date. It's genuinely good and you already own it
- Keep the browser current, and delete every extension you don't recognise or don't use
- Two-step sign-in on your email account above all else, because your email is what everything else resets through
- Run day to day as a standard user rather than an administrator, so software can't install itself without you saying yes
- A backup that runs on its own, to a drive and to the cloud, which turns ransomware from a disaster into an afternoon
- Be suspicious of free download sites for anything, especially converters, driver updaters and video players
The single highest-value item on that list is the backup, and it's the one people put off. If you have one already, ask us to check it actually restores. A backup nobody has ever tested is a hope, not a backup.
How quickly we can get out there
Timing for a CompuTech visit to Cochrane, honestly stated. Usually the same day if you call in the morning, and most jobs are done in that one visit. In-home runs Monday to Saturday. Sunday the shop is open but there are no road visits, so a Sunday emergency is a drop-off.
If a part has to be ordered, you'll hear that on the phone, not after we're standing in your kitchen. Screens, batteries, drives and memory are the common ones, and availability depends on the exact model, which is why we ask for it up front.
Anything needing the bench comes back to Calgary with us. You get a call with what we found and a flat price before any of it starts, and the machine comes back out to Cochrane when it's finished.
No surprises. Ever.
You get a clear, flat-rate quote before any work begins. If we can't fix it, you don't pay the repair fee. Simple as that.
Every job is different, so we look first and quote you directly. No surprises, and nothing happens until you've said go.
Three steps to a clean machine
“Mohammed provided fast, and professional service. The price was very reasonable. Would recommend to anyone with any type of computer issues.”
“I had an excellent experience with Mohammed at Computech. He was able to diagnose the issue quickly and efficiently. He was highly professional, knowledgeable, and explained everything clearly. On top of that, he was very friendly and easy to work with.”
“Mohammed provided excellent computer services—professional, efficient, and very knowledgeable. He quickly diagnosed the issue, explained the solution clearly, and delivered exactly what he promised. Highly recommended for anyone looking for reliable and competent IT support. The cookies and coffee he provided were great too.”
Questions, answered
We come out. Cochrane is on the in-home list and gets booked the same way a Calgary visit does.
No. One flat quote for the job, agreed before we start, with nothing added afterwards for travel.
Yes, including out toward Highway 22 and along the river. Give us the address when you book so the window is realistic.
Often same day if you ring in the morning. Calling before noon gives you the best chance of a slot.
Sometimes a lot, sometimes very little, and you deserve to know which before you spend money. We test what the line is delivering, then what your Wi-Fi is doing with it. If the line is the limit we'll tell you that plainly instead of selling you a mesh kit that can't help.
No. We remove malware without touching your personal files, and we back up first whenever there's any risk.
Most cleanups are done the same day. Drop the machine at the shop or we'll come to you, and you get a clear price before any work starts.
Usually not a virus in the strict sense. It's more often a hijacked extension, a changed search setting, or a policy the installer quietly wrote into the browser. It's still unwanted software and the cleanup still covers it, but it's a different job from a real infection and worth knowing apart.
Age is gradual and consistent. Malware tends to be sudden and situational: fast last month, slow this month, or fine until you open a browser. If the fans are running hard while nothing is open, something is using the machine that you didn't ask for.
For most people, no. The protection built into Windows is genuinely good now and it's already on your machine. What catches people out isn't a missing product, it's an out-of-date browser, an extension nobody remembers installing, and clicking something in a hurry. We'd rather set those straight than sell you a subscription.
Yes. Less of the destructive kind and far more of the adware and browser-hijack kind, usually arriving inside something that looked like a video player or a document converter. The symptoms are the same: new search engine, pop-ups, a browser that won't stay put.
Almost never. Tools that report a huge number of scary-sounding issues and then ask for payment to fix them are selling alarm rather than a cleanup. Some are outright unwanted software themselves. If one is on your machine, tell us and we'll remove it along with everything else.
The machine gets hot and the fans run flat out while you're doing nothing, and it slows dramatically the moment you try to use it. A miner wants your processor, so it competes with you for it. It's one of the more obvious infections once you know the pattern.
Take the machine off Wi-Fi and leave it on. Don't pay, don't rename or delete the encrypted files, and don't keep restarting it. Photograph the note with your phone. Then call us. Recovery depends entirely on which variant it is and whether you have a backup that wasn't attached at the time.
No, and we'll say that plainly. Paying funds the next one, marks you as someone who pays, and there is no obligation on their side to send anything back. Some variants have no working decryption tool even if you do pay, because the software was written badly.
No. That page is the scam. A real security warning never asks you to phone anyone. Close the browser, and if it won't close, hold the power button until the machine shuts off. Nothing is broken. If you already called and let someone connect to the machine, unplug it from the network and get it to us.
Bring it in and treat it as urgent. Microsoft does not phone people about their computers. Assume whatever they installed is still there, change the passwords on your email and banking from a different device, and let us go through the machine properly before you use it again.
Usually not. Most infections are removable and your setup survives. We recommend a rebuild when the machine is genuinely compromised at a level where you couldn't trust it afterwards, and we'll explain why rather than defaulting to it because it's quicker for us.
It depends what got in. Adware wants your attention; information stealers want saved passwords and browser sessions. Once the machine is clean we'll tell you honestly which category yours was, and if there's any doubt, change the important passwords from a different device.
Some cleanups finish in an in-home visit. Anything needing an offline scan runs the machine outside Windows for a while, so those come back to the bench. You'll be told which on the phone.
Yes, and the priority order is different: contain it first, work out what it reached, then clean. If several machines share a network we look at all of them, because cleaning one and leaving its neighbour infected achieves nothing.
You get a flat quote after a free look, before any work starts. If we can't clean it, you don't pay the repair fee.
We set up proper protection and walk you through safe habits before we leave. That part costs nothing extra.
Related pages
Think you've got a virus?
Book a visit to Cochrane, or call.