Kill Switch Part I: Out With the (Not So) Old

I am not sure how long I've had my desktop computer. Five years? Seven years? Four years? It was a decent machine, nothing too cheap, but over the years it became slow and glitchy, and kept asking for update to Windows 11 (which I kept stubbornly refusing). The kids could no longer access their games (Minecraft and Sims). Finally, I decided to go to Windows 11 after backing up all our photos and videos (but not the rest of the random files I had on the hard drive). And you know what - it started working better, everything was faster, and it no longer took 15 minutes to wake up from it's energy-saving mode. 

After a couple of weeks of decent performance, I noticed that computer clock was showing the wrong time. "Hmm..." - I said to myself - "probably just an odd glitch. Surely, it will fix itself." It did not - but who cares, right? After all, I have plenty of clocks throughout the house. 

I suspect that was The Sign of Things to Come.

The day after we came back from our trip, my computer decided it has had enough.

 

It would not start - letting us know, in no uncertain terms, that the disk was corrupted, and that there wasn't much we could do.

We tried and failed to bring it back.

Two weeks later, my husband's almost-new work laptop did pretty much the same thing after an IT-required upgrade.

This begs the questions - what is the true purpose of upgrades? To optimize the performance of the machine by forcing individuals to buy new machines?

Almost 3 weeks later, we are still computer-less. I am making do using my husband's old laptop (that has not be upgraded for the last 5 years - it works great! but I also can't install anything on it). 

I want a quality computer with decent hardware that would allow my kids (and possibly my husband and me if we ever have time) to play occasional video games. I don't want it to die in 3 years! I want to be able to easily swap out (or add) parts, if we ever need faster performance or more memory...

Any recommendations?

To be continued...