I have a Dell “all in one” type computer, which I bought new a little less than 3 years ago. Intel I5-333os 2.7GH, 6GB, Windows 8.1. It is driving me crazy. It seems like there is always some little shit going wrong with it. Currently:
There is a VERY LOUD fan that starts within a few minutes of starting the machine. I barely do anything with this computer, it’s almost all word processing, a little web browsing. It never turns off after it starts. The computer is not dusty.
If I forget to shut it down for the night completely, it wakes up in the middle of the night and never goes back to sleep, running its fan loudly although no programs are running.
Today, I file I’ve been working on for months and was saved normally decided it was “read only.” Took me an hour to figure out how to fix it, and I have no idea why it suddenly changed. (Yes, I’m backing my work up.)
My Sketchup program slowed to a crawl a few months ago. I suspect this is a driver issue of some kind, but it was fine before that, and I didn’t update anything.
The CD drive stopped working consistently about a year ago.
There are various other eccentricities (sometimes text doesn’t render well, etc.) I don’t know, this thing is just bugging me. I had my old XP machine for about 8 years with fewer problems. It annoys me that I spent quite a bit on this computer expecting it to last at least 5 years, and it’s been driving me crazy almost since I bought it.
I absolutely hate 8.1, but I’m also terrified to try to update this thing because what if I break it further?
Should I give up and buy a new widows 10 machine? Or suffer for a few months until they get the kinks worked out of win10 and then buy one? I never play games, not even solitare, but but I do need it to run Scrivener, so a chromebook won’t work. I am not a fan of Apple’s “walled garden.” I will say that this thing typically runs very fast (well, except for this new Sketchup issue), it just fucks up all the time.
Should I ditch it? Pay someone who knows what they’re doing to fiddle with it and update it? Or is that money better spent on getting a new laptop? (This is a desktop, but I’d get a laptop if I switch, and that’s worth a couple hundred to me.)
Thanks in advance.