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I replaced the computer I use at the office this year. The one I replaced had been used since 2009, and I never shut it down. I did have to replace the power supply on it after about 2 years, but I think it was because the power supply in it was bad from the beginning and just got worse until we could diagnose the problem. That computer was one my son built for me when he was in high school. My new one is just an off the shelf Dell.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I decided to take it over to a computer guy I've used a couple of times before when I needed work on my MacBook Pro. After we talked about the various possibilities, he offered to sell me a refurbished unit he had in his shop. It's a Lenovo Think Center Core i5, 16 GB Ram, 240 GBSSD, graphics card for 3 monitors, and Vipre Life Anti-Virus. He cloned my existing Hard drive over to the new one, plus he upgraded MS Office for me. So after a wait of about 4 hours or so, I brought the setup back to my office, plugged it in, and am back up & running. Total cost was $590. I still have the original Hard Drive and a SATA/IDE self-powered cable, so if it turns out anything is missing I can (hopefully) pull ot off the original HD. Glad to get this done before tax filing season rolls around.

Encrypt the hard drive with bitlocker which if it has Win10 Professional - is on your computer. If you don't have the PRO, a $15 program called Hasleo Bitlocker Anywhere does the exact same thing. (I also used the program to encrypt some USB drives and an SD Card where a store a bunch of stuff.) You'll need to enter a password for Windows to even boot so your entire hard drive is encrypted. If you don't log in remotely to your computer you may want to block remote access. System / Remote Settings / uncheck.

If you aren't playing video games, doing intensive graphic design type work or mining for crypto currency, you probably don't need a high end computer. Client bought a new VERY high end computer - he only uses his computer to log into Aol via Firefox. I tried to explain that it was over kill but he insisted he needed the best.

Wow. That is scary. Makes me think I should at least change the administrator password for logging in.

Hate to be the one who imstills fear in anybody, but I would never biy a refurbished computer and here is why: A few years ago one of my business clients purchased a refurbished computer and after a while had weird things happen then porn started popping up all over the.place. He would close it out and it would come right back up. I did some sluething with my limited experience and it turned out someone had remoted in and was watching porn on this computer. It turns out the owner of the shop had been arrested earlier in the year and charged with child pornography. We called the police who came and took the computer and we have never seen it since. So as tempting it may be I would not recommend it for that reason.

+1 on 512GB or greater SSD drive it's worth the extra money

You will NEVER regret getting the most RAM you can. We have a RAM-intensive business. Tax program, QuickBooks, Excel, browser windows for research, Adobe for pdf's, and more. It's easy to add an external hard drive; harder to add more RAM if you're nervous about opening the case, getting a grounding strap, and mucking about with adding/swapping memory modules. And always get Professional version software. I agree with cbslee; give Dell a call (they always have promotions going on) and see what you can get from them. Direct from Dell you can also get three years of next-day on-site support should something go wrong. Alternatively you can call HP and see what deal they'll give you. Good luck!