What would you do: fix or buy a new computer?

The primary cause of most BSODs are driver issues. If you take the old HDD and move it to a new box, you have the same drivers on the HDD. If whatever device is also moved over, like a camera or some external device, monitor, etc., then you can still get a BSOD. We were getting them at work because they gave out new PCs with old 32-bit printer drivers on a 64-bit OS (Win 7). Worked great until you decided to try duplex printing and then you realize they didn't configure the duplexer. You tried to do that and you got BSOD.
So, it depends. As both you and I said, it won't happen UNLESS you move the device over. What someone really needs to do is a better job of debugging this. Did they add a new component/device? Do they have the wrong drivers? (32 vs 64-bit? Old drivers not match OS?).

But, yes, its possible to move the problem over to the new machine if they bring over hardware and have bad drivers loaded.

We run into malware, failing hard drives and overheating PCs more often than drivers.

My experience has been a bit different though at least for blue screens. Of course, we only had about 2500 PCs. Thanks for the update.

By the way. My computer came with Windows 7. I used to get the BSOD often. It has not happened since I installed Windows 10. Over a year now.

If I hear you correctly, you are talking about moving the OS installed on the HDD to a new CPU & mobo without reinstalling. Well, in that case you actually run an even greater risk that from what the hardware detection finds and what drivers happen to be around you end up with an evel less compatible combination (or shall we rather call it a mess?) that will possibly even give you BSODs you had not seen before.

On the other hand, if you install onto the new environment what it wants from the OS and driver media then you should typically not see any of the old BSODs - maybe new ones if you don't get everything right ... Of course, if you also install external device drivers for external peripherals then you may get an incompatible one as easily in the new setup as you did in the old one, possibly even te same one if you install from teh same disk that came with the peripheral. Maybe I am just charmed, but my BSODs have practically never come from that sort of scenario, but from - let's call it "component rot" - anything from overheating memory to bursting capacitors. My failing hard drives have shown all kinds of symptoms but never a BSOD - except for the specific situation where a generally working drive had lost a particular piece of information, which - once repaired - never showed up again for the many years left of that disk's lifetime.

The "point" being that you really need to have some idea what the issue is before you make these decisions. We don't know what the OP was doing just before the crashes. We don't know if some device (such as a printer from what I;'ve seen in the field) is going to move from one box to the new one. I fixed that issue by loading the latest "64-bit" drivers for the OS and the printer (HP). Someone in the Win 7 roll out thought that 32-bit drivers made for Win 2000 would still work fine for the printers and they were heavily tested in that environment. So, that was an example of where brand NEW computers were getting BSOD because of the printer drivers. (As I may have mentioned elsewhere, the BSOD came when the user would run the auto configure to pick up the duplexer. Also, they assumed that the exact model "looked" like a previous model so they tried to use an old image but the sound card was also not working because it was a whole different chipset with HD TV added. There's just too many causes.

(I was probably one of the first to suggest that before spending any money on putative fixes there shoudl be a good deal more investigation into what broke the system in the first place. Carmen doesn't sound like someone that would have installed a new printer and old drivers without assistance and without mentioning it here, so I tried to focus on the sort of thing that a not too experienced home user might encounter after seven years of use - such as dust, heat, component rot (capacitors, memory modules) and power issues (a bit of hard drive corruption.) There are also some relatively low cost remedies one can try - possibly asking the computer savvy nephew to help: Cleaning, a new fan (or a drop of oil in a crunch,) swapping out memory modules, Windows repair from an installation disk, snd so on. Maybe even swapping out a power supply. Any of these can fix an old system without too much capital outlay. Once we know what the problem is we can still recommend to start saving for a new one ...)

Over the years I've had many a machine BSODing because of one or the other of the above. But the best one still was on a brand new system that had just been rolled out for me - a Lenovo Thinkpad with a 1TB hard drive. I got me another 1TB drive and a caddy (once again a different one was needed from what worked with the old machine.)

I format the new drive over a USB interface and fill it with its data, then I put it into the Thinkpad (with these latest ones the hard drive caddies are no longer hot swappable - duh!) As I am bringing up the machine after this it BSODs about a half second after I access the drive in the caddy. The one moment I can see the directory, the next I see blue with a bit of white! Reproducible. I put some other drive in there that I have lying about (750GB) and it all works. I use the 1TB drive in a caddy in an older Thinkpad. All fine. A few weeks later I order another 1TB drive - and accidentally get another one of the same brand as a replacement for the out of stock item I had ordered. BSOD, just like before. I finally get another drive from somewhere else. In summary: These drives will not work on that Thinkpad, but they work everywhere else that I tried. Anything other than those two drives will work in that Thinkpad. Makes me wonder, but I decided it would be a waste of time to try and work out what caused that ...

But I am afraid there is not much of a message in this story for Carmen.

I have no ide if Carmen tried installing a device such as a printer herself or not. It sounds like she has some sort of IT staff around her but, if they can't trace the cause of the BSODs, I wouldn't know how useful they would be. Most people, even people who are not "computer-savy" can and do install their own printers following the directions.
As you said, not much here for Carmen other than she needs to consider a better group to look after her IT needs. It's like an experience I had with my cat. Cat was sick so I took her to the vet. The vet said, "I have no idea whats wrong with her so we'll try all of these expensive drugs". $800 and a month later, sick again. If her staff can't fix it, maybe she needs a new staff or, at least THEY need to take her computer to someone who can debug this. Otherwise, it's like the story of my cat: just keep throwing stuff at this and see if its fixed. We both agree that, if she buys a new computer and they connect some old hardware and load old drivers from a floppy disk the new machine could exhibit the same symptoms. From what Carmen said, they ran some sort of diagnostic utilities so there is high probability its not a hardware issue but still could be.
I agree that, swapping hardware sometimes works for debugging, but, when you are swapping out the C: drive, the driver mix could be different. Changing too many things. In the "old days", if you swapped out a hard drive, you had to go into the BIOS setup to make sure the CMOS (today, NVRAM) got changed.
I guess part of it is that I started in 1967 and dealing with a mainframe, you always had dumps (100's of pages of octal/hex ) to look at and OS source code on top of that. I've carried a lot of that over to the PC world. There are mini-dumps but also the BSOD gives you some information you can at least look up with a search. And, true, sometimes it would be a waste of time to go back and analyze further. I save that for my spare time.

I did a reset of the computer. This appears to be a Windows 10 thing. It includes a reinstall of Windows. This fixed my problem. I was dead in the water. It keeps the data but the programs need to be installed again. However,I found that I am using fewer programs then I did a few years ago.

Yes, I saw and used that on Win 10. I was adjusting my administrative rights on my new PC and managed to screw it up. RESET got me fixed up again. so it is a good tool. BUT, as you noticed, it's almost like starting over, in a sense so a lot of programs, drivers, registry goes away.

That link doesn't work. Try this: https://pcpartpicker.com/

Grift, do you use a self-built computer? Can you build your own laptop?

By the way this product has been reviewed by cnet and it has been downloaded over 13 million times

all cleaners out there that are worth anything are for ~$30-$40, and that's ok, but i would go for a product that at least does what it's supposed to do - and nothing else (!)

100% of the products mentioned in these comments here are bundled with stuff you do not want on your pc...

i personally found PC Cleaning Utility (from ShieldApps) to give me the most bang for my buck...
free trial, you see if it can help, and then if you want - you upgrade...
they usually also throw in a privacy protection software for free or on discount (strongly recommended btw)

I downloaded the free version of Smart System Care. After performing the scan a payment screen appears when you click "Repair".

Look at the names that says it all

I downloaded Smart System Care from the link provided by westcoastbc. They want 39.95 to activate it. They throw in McAffee (which I don't want) for free, they say.

It's been a source of troubles rather than what it claims to be. Tell them to keep it off your PC.

I will uninstall it then.

Uninstall that and then check around. There has to be one that will do the check and give results for free. If it asks or worse installs without asking say NO.
I think JEfromCanada has given you the best advice. It could be ram (easy enough for you to replace yourself). Could be Processor (not as easy but still doable yourself). Could be OS (upgrading from 7 to 10 will still leave all, except some old legacy, programs intact.

7 to 10 year old computer does not absolutely need to be replaced. Not a bad idea though. One bad idea is going back to those computer guys. If they can't find the cause of a blue screen they are not worth the money.

look to building your own. With todays technology it is not that hard. Everything is plug and play.
Once built put your current drive in and let Windows 7 find and setup all drivers inserting the motherboard driver disk after or when asked for. Then clone to a new drive, remove old drive and upgrade new drive to Windows 10.

If you buy a new machine with Windows 10 you may not be able to relicense your current programs.

netsiu, I hope you realize that your post is in a side conversation.

But it goes along with the thread here. And I knew you would see and read here and not get lost in the crowd.
Take note of who I referred you back to. Best advice I've read here.

I've found that products given a brand name using the name "Smart" is a marketing ploy to make you think you're "smart" to buy their product. When in fact it's usually NOT a very good deal or product, of course.

Those programs like Advanced System Care are useless. They cause more problems. You will find many computer experts will tell you that as well. CCleaner is all you need.

I seriously doubt that a BIOS update will fix it, especially since the probability of a BIOS update newer than 5 years (on a 7 year old machine) and that is being a bit generous.