It has been sending me signals that its life is about to end. Two weeks ago, it wasn’t powering up after sleep or shut down. I opened it up to check if the power supply got fried or the battery is already bloated. Then like its temperamental original owner, it would choose to power up and function normally when it decides to play nice. So this laptop and I were playing some kind of game and it would choose to not cooperate during an important moment.
Because of this, I never turned off this laptop and have Spotify play sleep music in the background.
But after we came back from Manila yesterday, the laptop wouldn’t power up again even though the indicator light is showing signs of life. I brought it to the PC repair shop to check if it still can be resurrected.
Then it powered up again, like it’s telling the repair guy I am a liar and it’s working fine. I got charged PhP 1,300 for some thing that he replaced that I didn’t really remember. I have a strong feeling I was scammed. When I got home, it wouldn’t work. Brought it back, the guy said the charger is shot. I went to another PC shop to buy a universal charger, but when we tried, it wouldn’t work. The guy said, it’s beyond power supply.
UPDATE: See? The bastard is working smoothly again. What’s his deal?!
I then asked for a quote for a mini PC tower based on the components I chose from another shop. Ryzen 7 5700G, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Gigabyte mobo (should be Wifi 6), etc…and oh, a mini-ITX casing.
This would be around PHP 36,700, without Win 11 yet. It could be 3k cheaper if I changed Ryzen 7 to Ryzen 5. I don’t play pc games that much so Ryzen 5 will do. I just needed something that is fast enough and can support all the progams I am running all at the same time, all the time. I guess it would be 10k more expensive with the OS installed.
My dilemma is this is almost as expensive as a Lenovo E16, which is already powered by Ryzen 5 7530U and I get to have a third screen of about 16″.
UPDATE: The Cool Master mini ITX case has its own 850w power supply, so that will shave 7k from my total cost. And if I go with Ryzen 5, I have 10k worth of savings, which could go to Win 11!
But it hurts my brain right now that I need to fork a huge amount when I’m still not done with my daughter’s illness.
I could use my underpowered but more portable Lenovo in the meantime…but it irritates me because it’s slower and it doesn’t have an ethernet port so video calls aren’t as snappy because I rely on wifi for connectivity. And that is meant only for working on the go, not as a desktop replacement.
I can’t spend for my wants, not until I am sure we won’t be needing chemotherapy/we are cleared by our oncologist.
Meanwhile, I bought additional RAM sticks for my girls and installed them because sometimes their PCs become laggy (Chrome is such a power hog).
I ended up cooking dinner late because I upgraded my girls’ RAM and cleaned the inside for better airflow. What’s the quickest to cook? This 👇
I have to think deeply about this PC issue. If only the Acer would stick around for a bit longer, then I wouldn’t feel guilty about spending on my wants because at the back of my mind I need to reserve my money for Twin A’s medical expenses.