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

I haven't noticed any response about switching to a tablet as an option? For most people who use a PC/Laptop they actually use very little computing functions and it a real waste of money and a lot of worry maintaining an IBM. Unless there is a requirement to actually use specific programs which lock you into using a PC, for most would use it for email and surfing the net. The advantage of the tablet is portability, convenience. Fabulous to take on holidays. The brand and type of tablet would best be the same as the owner's smartphone.

I am wondering how thoroughly they checked out the hardware. Intermittent blue screens - in my experience - have been caused by RAM that is bad, weak power supplies, blown motherboard capacitors, etc. You can download Memtest, burn it to a CD, and run it yourself to rule out the RAM. Power supply testers are pretty inexpensive, too. As for checking the motherboard, it is very easy to spot a bad capacitor - the top will be bulged or leaking.

Also, you can download the hard drive manufacturers diagnostic software to test the drive (be sure to back up your important data, just in case you click on the wrong place). If the hard drive is going bad, it is easy enough to purchase an SSD and clone it yourself. Then you only have the cost of the drive and your time (you can get cloning freeware or some SSDs come with a free download of cloning software).

Ultimately it is up to you. If you get a new computer, you will have to transfer all of your data, plus reinstall any software that you use. It comes down to what will make you the most productive. If it were me, I would do some more testing on the machine and see if there is something that they overlooked (or just didn't bother to check), then I would fix it.

Having had time to read through suggestions from other readers, I'd like to elaborate on my original post:

1) I assumed that your technicians had at least checked the hard drive for obvious errors (a relatively easy test, with equally easy fixes if problems are found). Therefore, my focus on RAM or CPU fan being the culprit (not the CPU chip) was based on the assumption that the drive was good. A bad RAM chip will often result in blue screens, and a bad or incorrectly mounted CPU fan will result in blue screens or system shutdowns.

2) While blue screens often contain generic warnings about Drivers being out of date, in my experience, it is rarely the reason - specially if you're not in the habit of installing new software or devices. If there are legitimately out-of-date drivers, the Windows Update procedure can often identify that type of issue and help you to upgrade the drivers.

3) I didn't recommend updating to an SSD. I merely stated that *if* you needed a speed boost, the SSD upgrade is the quickest path to such a boost. The size of the current hard drive (whether 1.5TB for the Core i7 model, or 1TB for the Core i5) is not relevant when deciding what size SSD to buy - only the amount of *USED SPACE* on the drive is relevant. A 1TB drive with only 100GB of used space (after 7 years of use) can easily be replaced by a 240GB SSD.

4) I didn't talk about Linux because you indicated you were not tech savvy. I converted many of my clients who had old Windows XP machines to Ubuntu. But, in all cases, they had no funds for new computers, and did nothing beyond standard email and surfing. Ubuntu comes with Libre Office (a totally free replacement for Microsoft Office) and will usually read/update your existing Office documents, providing they are "basic". Any document that uses Microsoft's clipart or fancy templates won't work well with Libre Office.

5) I agree with all the contributors who indicated you were short-changed by your technicians. Their diagnostic should have either identified the specific source of the problem and a guaranteed solution, or resulted in a firm recommendation to abandon the machine.

Good luck finding a solution to your issue.

I don't know where to start with what these computer tech did, what they said they did, or what you think they said they did.

Your Dell Studio 8100 likely has an i7 processor, which is plenty powerful. And the computers of this era were/are pretty sturdy, though they consume more electricity than newer ones.

Important questions for which I do not see a sufficient answer:
1. What is the capacity of the hard drive? 1.5TB like the CNET specs for the beast?
2. What is the health of the drive, as evidenced by its SMART data, information maintained by the firmware in the drive itself about its use? Any sectors replaced, i.e. defective? Replace the drive if even one! Any unrecoverable sectors? Ditto! Any sectors pending reallocation, i.e. replacement? Ditto! A competent and thorough tech should be able to produce a report for you of this info on request.
3. How much memory? At least 8GB? If not, upgrade the memory.
4. How valuable is your personal data on this computer? Is it worth some money to salvage it.
5. Do you have any software that you have paid for and you want to continue to use. A thorough tech can produce a report of all the product keys for your software, VERY important if you downloaded it and do not have the installation CD or DVD.

The $350 they want to charge for a 500GB SSD and labor is not outrageous, IF it includes copying the data from your hard drive, whose health is not well defined.

If the blue screen is not caused by a defective hard drive, it could also be caused by a failing video card (not completely failed, but erratic due to decay of its electronics). It could also be caused by 7 years of clutter of useless files that build up in a computer. To remove clutter from your system, download, install and run CCleaner. Go carefully through its checklist of files and data to remove. As a rule, you want to keep cookies and history.

I don't know what to advise you to do, because there is not quite enough information for me to recommend a course of action. Suffice it to say that if you buy a new computer, no matter where you buy, pay very close attention to the specs of the computers. Too often these days, big box stores and other retail sell computers that run poorly, because they are made poorly with the cheapest parts and not enough memory to compete on price. Better to update a good quality older computer than to buy something worse. I see this sort of thing regularly when people bring me their awful computers and I bite my tongue instead of telling them they got a rotten deal from wherever.

My recommendation find why the computer crashes. Download "WhoCrashed" at http://download.cnet.com/WhoCrashed/3000-2094_4-75205821.html WhoCrashed - Free download and software reviews - CNET. You may have a driver or hardware failing, it will give you a better idea of what is wrong. Then decide.
If it is only a driver just download it and install. If it is hardware, then you have to decide if financial it pays.

Consider buying a computer used. There are plenty plenty plenty of them available, eBay been just one such place. The federal government Lisa new computers and when the lease is over people buy them wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall the factory defaults and sell them for cheap. I've bought many computers that way through the years and have never regretted it once.

Greetings Carmen:

I do tech support for a living, and have had almost this exact same problem on my own very low priced Windows 7 laptop. I put in a new solid state drive and re-installed a fresh copy of Windows 7.

You have a very good machine in the Dell and the hardware should still be viable for a long time to come. I would agree with the diagnosis based on my own experiences. Hard drives on average last about 5 years. Windows 7 and Office will both be viable for another few years. Windows 7 will be supported until January 2020 or possibly later. Windows 10 is still getting major updates and revisions.

If you fix the computer you can get at least 3-4 years out of it running Windows 7 and it would be a very good candidate for upgrade to Windows 10. By then they should have most of the remaining kinks worked out of it. Microsoft will also try to convince you to update to the online subscription of the newest Office version. Again doing the repair gives you time to consider this.

Also if your internet connection has a data cap those updates can consume a lot of data. A recent Windows 10 update was 10 Gb. That could be your entire data allowance for the month on some plans.

Consider buying a computer used. There are plenty plenty plenty of them available, eBay being just one such place. The federal government Lisa new computers and when the lease is over people buy them wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall the factory defaults and sell them for cheap. I've bought several computers that way through the years and have never regretted it once.

I have had many people ask this question in the last few years. I offer a new answer.
Save your money and try Linux. Even older folks (70-85) have accepted a new way of using their PC.
I stopped using ms products over 10 years ago. Life is so much better. Turn the PC on and use it!
No more defrag programs, no more deleting temp files, no more running virus programs and a host of other time consuming programs. Just use the PC. It is a tool to be used. You don't stroke your hammer or waste time on your other tools do you? It's just a dumb PC nothing more!

We buy Dell refurbs all the time at the law firm I work for. The model we need is from 2009. They work fine. We have a few Optiplexes from 2003 that still work fine. When we have problems, it's pretty much always a hard disk. (To avoid having to do massive amounts of customization and updating we clone a master disk to cheap old refurb disks.)

A blue screen every other day is almost definitely a disk getting ready to fail, no matter what they told you.  Do you leave your PC on all the time?

I recently cloned my boss' hard disk to a Kingston 128GB SSD and it worked fine.  Disk access was about 5-8 times faster than the 160GB Western Digital the PC came with.

Do you really need a 500GB SSD? Consider getting a 128GB SSD and a 1TB hard disk, put the operating system on the SSD and the data on the hard disk. Combined, they'll be about $100.

IfI understand correctly, your "computer guys" could not find the cause of your problem after a week of testing and examination, but still recommend you install a new sold-state drive. That's foolish, IMHO. because they have no idea why your computer is crashing. The problem could be any number of things, some of which could be far more serious (and expensive to fix) than your current hard disc drive or SSD.

First thing I'd try: run CHKDSK /f to determine if the current drive has any bad sectors that could be causing the problem. Better still, run Gibson Research's excellent SpinRite utility; it isn't free, but your "computer guys" may already have it. If the drive is damaged or failing, reformat it (which should lock out any bad sectors) and reinstall Windows, then use the computer for a few days. If you don't see the dreaded Blue Screen Of Death again, then go ahead and replace the hard drive with a new SSD to give your computer a new lease on life.

If the BSODs continue, your problem is most likely elsewhere in the computer. Because of improvements in technology, you can get a new, better-performing computer today for less than you paid originally for your current computer -- and it will come with a warranty.

So Carmen, it sounds like your computer sometimes works. That will give you or somebody knowledgeable a chance to look at the Windows logs. I didn't read through all of the replies, but I didn't see that mentioned once! Wow! Off the top of my head, I would say something is overheating. The following requires someone to take the case off your tower computer. Not a big deal. Check to see if the fans/vents are clean. Likely they are covered in dust. Computers generate a lot of heat that needs to be removed. Look at the motherboard for electric components (esp. capacitors) that have misshapen/mushroomed tops. A replacement warrantied motherboard, if needed, might cost about $30 on the Internet. Good luck.

I have always been the DIY type if at all possible. I look at it like this; if your car needs an alternator an/or battery you don't trade it in on another car, you have it fixed. Even if it takes a new engine (an you really like the car) I'd replace the motor.
As far as PC's goes I started out barely knowing how to turn one on. Now I can do a bare-bones complete build. All because I applied myself to learning all I could about the thing. Finding out what is wrong to start with is a big step in repair. Every part in a PC is replaceable. The OS (operating system) is not hard to reformat an reinstall. YouTube is one of the best learning tools out there you can find step by step repair videos that are priceless and SAVE lots of $$$!! When something goes wrong and you're able to go online....google the problem and 9 out of 10 times you'll find the answer to what is causing it and how to fix it.
Sometimes the problem is malware and there are all sorts of remedies to rid oneself of those. I've had malware cause umpteen problems and thought the PC was broken when all it was was malware. BleepingComputer is one of your best bets solving malware issues, they will completely go over things to do an how to do it absolutely free....ya can't beat that.

By all means learn how to fix things yourself! You'll save big time.

Well if it where me i'd buy a new computer. You have a seven year old computer, a lot has changed in seven years, ya you could patch up the old one but in a year or two the technology of that machine will be so out dated I think you will be better off buying a newer model. The cost of computers has come down so much its pretty much the only way to go especially if you don't know about fixing problems yourself and just want to turn it on and use it. Anyway that's my two cents, thanks for reading and good luck.

Do whatever you wish. Just make sure that your back-up is up to date. God doesn't answer prayers of the "If you let me recover my data, I promise that I will faithfully do my back-ups in the future." type.

I highly recommend you buy a new computer and not fix this one. There is a significant chance the mother board or ram memory is going bad. You would be putting a lot of money in an old computer that is outdated. You have so many choices at very reasonable prices on obtaining a new computer. I would look for a pc with a Intel i3 at a minimum. A i5 or i7 would be faster. Solid State Drives are faster than rotating drives but let me tell you the reliability of those old rotating drives are fantastic. What no one is going to tell you is those Solid State Drives slow down. I have a SSD drive that went from a 20 second boot time to over one minute. I ended up putting a 1 TB WD drive back in that pc. Here is what I recommend. If you purchase a desktop pc, a Intel i3 with a 1TB rotating drive will be fine. If your purchasing a laptop, a Intel i3 with a 256GB ssd drive will be just fine. The rotating 2.5 inch, 5400 rpm hard drives in laptops are way slower than the 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drives in desktops.

Good Luck.

The motherboard / processor / ram combo already in the machine is old. Installing windows 10 will probably fix the issue of BSOD but because of the age of the components other issues may crop up. Placing the SSD in the system will definitely help for boot times of the system which is probably really slow with the existing hard drive. I suspect that is why they recommended a solid state drive in the repair but that is not explicitly stated.

For $350, you can go on ebay and almost buy a used 5th generation core i5 system with a solid state drive.

BLUE SCREEN? A log (dumpfiles) is maintained (internally) that provides the error code that causes every failure on a PC.

If your tech people are not watching this log, you are throwing darts in the sky hoping to hit the moon.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/how-to-read-dumpfiles-after-a-blue-screen-of-death/0d7522e3-4ed1-448e-bda6-66441f042c0c