EDITED 7 MAY.......Suggestions wanted for new desktop PC

[Chas. Steinmetz Jr.]

Edit: Research has caused me to decide a laptop may be the solution, so starting this thread in the laptop forum.
My HP Envy 700-210 desktop computer is presently dead. It is about 10 years old, so much of it is obsolete. I accepted the free WIN 10 download and lived to regret it. WIN10 deleted the drivers for my built in card reader at every update, so I kept the drivers stored for reinstallation, but that no longer works. Must bring the game cam to the house and plug camera into USB to get pics. Now I have had a failure of the HDD. Computer won't start. It clicks regularly about every 3 seconds for a minute or so before going quiet. Error msg says "Hard Drive Error, please run the hard drive test is system diagnostics, Hard Drive 1 (3F1)". The drive passes both the quick test and the long test. I have 2 hard drives, a 1TB that I think is the bad one, and a 320 GB that may contain backup files. I realize that my data may all be lost, that is a separate problem to deal with when I have a working computer (currently on Mrs' notebook). I could probably replace the bad drive and continue to use this computer but I figure all new would get me out of the obsolescence loop.
Questions: Do I want a SSD? I never really needed the huge 1TB capacity of my old drive, my criterion is durability. Which will run longer before failure, HDD or SSD?
I DO want: multi card reader, dual hard drives, CDRW (I guess I'll still be burning some CDs), maybe internal wifi router.
Not a gamer, just a surfer who likes good video quality on my wide screen monitor. How much RAM is adequate these days?
What OS? I was happy with WIN7 (or was I running WIN Vista?) but some of my software was already noncompatible. Fell down the WIN10 rabbit hole but sure not married to it.
I have good useable wifi keyboard & mouse, monitor, sound bar, external wifi router for in-house Internet. Do I want to keep this stuff, or why not? I want to get a good machine, but don't want to pay top $$ for things I don't need.
As a guy who built his own 1st computer thru about the fifth one, I am embarrassed to say I am no longer knowledgeable enough to build my own box, so am trying to pick from the infinite variety the internet has to offer. So I ask forum members to tell me what they think I should be looking for.
Thanks for all replies!

 

[johnb35]

What I would do is just get an external USB card reader. Not sure if many prebuilt desktops come with them anymore. So what are you looking for you ask?

1. Get something with at least a 4 core cpu Ryzen or Intel and preferrably something around 2ghz or higher base frequency.
2. At least 8gb of ram but at this point get 12-16 gb.
3. Yes you want an SSD, at least 512gb if you say you never used the full capacity of your 1tb drive. Once you go SSD you'll never go back to HDD. Since you want dual storage then get the 512gb ssd with a 1tb mechanical drive.
4. Windows 10 support ends October 2025 so most machines these days will already come with Windows 11. So you are kinda stuck with what OS you are gonna get.
5. Most pc's these days will not have a DVDRW drive anymore. You could get an external usb DVDRW drive though.

I have good useable wifi keyboard & mouse

You mean via usb dongle? If so then you can reuse those on the new pc.

And most prebuilts now come with internal wifi card.

So I would go to your local computer stores and see what they offer. Not sure if I would recommend looking on Amazon or not.

But to be honest, you'll get better bang for your buck if you have someone build it to your specs and quality. I build pc's on the side and save people a ton of money.

 

[Chas. Steinmetz Jr.]

What I would do is just get an external USB card reader. Not sure if many prebuilt desktops come with them anymore. So what are you looking for you ask?

1. Get something with at least a 4 core cpu Ryzen or Intel and preferrably something around 2ghz or higher base frequency.
2. At least 8gb of ram but at this point get 12-16 gb.
3. Yes you want an SSD, at least 512gb if you say you never used the full capacity of your 1tb drive. Once you go SSD you'll never go back to HDD. Since you want dual storage then get the 512gb ssd with a 1tb mechanical drive.
4. Windows 10 support ends October 2025 so most machines these days will already come with Windows 11. So you are kinda stuck with what OS you are gonna get.
5. Most pc's these days will not have a DVDRW drive anymore. You could get an external usb DVDRW drive though.

You mean via usb dongle? If so then you can reuse those on the new pc.

And most prebuilts now come with internal wifi card.

So I would go to your local computer stores and see what they offer. Not sure if I would recommend looking on Amazon or not.

But to be honest, you'll get better bang for your buck if you have someone build it to your specs and quality. I build pc's on the side and save people a ton of money.

Thx, good advice. Why a mechanical drive? Seems like SSD would be less failure prone, but I am not familiar with them so maybe there are down sides? I use my computer much for storing digital photos and videos, and editing video. I want the most "permanent" storage. And really IDK if I do CDs anymore, just always have had the capability so put it in my specs. Miss my desktop, I am using Mrs.' notebook and feel like I'm peeking thru a keyhole at the screen.

 

[johnb35]

Why a mechanical drive? Seems like SSD would be less failure prone, but I am not familiar with them so maybe there are down sides?

Price is the only down side, but if you are looking to save money then 1 tb Western Digital mechanical is less than 50 bucks compared to about 80 for nvme. I just built myself a new pc with a 1tb GEN 4 NVME boot drive and a 2tb NVME data storage drive. But if want to spend the money then yeah go for a 2tb SSD and partition the drive into 2 or buy 2 separate drives providing the system supports 2 drives.