TehDwonz

Alternatively you could just not buy it and move on with your life.

This post makes no sense when you think about it for more than a minute. 
OP I get that you want to uncover some big conspiracy theory but this is bollocks. 

Are you an 8 year old playing COD? You used 'your mom' more than every thread I've ever seen on this forum combined.

Sorry but this is a case of user error - or misunderstanding. If you are signed in to a service (ie, a token is kept locally), and you suddenly change IP address by connecting to a VPN, then that token is not valid for the new IP/location. Windows update works because it doesn't require you to be signed in to anything.

If we are limiting ourselves to current understanding and knowledge only, then this entire discussion is pointless 😉 

Best ban PC gaming then. That truly has no output that is useful.

There is one, it's called Stellar Lumens, or XLM. It's on the rise atm. 

I use a solid metal one. Nice in summer, but on a winter morning, it's a sharp wake up that rivals a triple espresso.

Can you show us your pagefile settings?

Press [Windows key] and R, and type in SystemPropertiesAdvanced with no spaces and hit enter.
Click on Settings under the "Performance" header.
Click the Advanced tab
Under Virtual Memory, click on "Change..."
Give us a screenshot of the resulting page
Just close all the windows from above when you're done.
 

Basically, yeah: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=65719,65732
But it's a Xeon, so better silicon binning.

Oh wow, that is outstanding for that price - I'd probably buy that even if I didn't need it...You were going to buy an SSD anyway, so no HDD is fine.

As long as you de-clutter Windows 10, and remove all the bloatware, it should be fine. I still use an old Xeon X3360 (Q45 chipset) system for my admin/financial stuff with Win10 and Office 2016. Only an HD6450 for graphics, but even the on board Intel GMA graphics are fine.

Seems a decent deal. i7 is obv nicer if you can fit it into your budget, but do NOT get an AMD FX era CPU, they are awful.
 
If you're just doing office work and browsing, the built-in Intel GPU will be fine. You can always add a bigger GPU later, like the cheap 1030 option if you feel the i5/i7 GPU isn't cutting it. I don't see you have issues at 1080p though. SSD is a good idea - 240GB are around £30/$40 at the moment. I reckon one of those nice metal Kingston A400 ones will be great.
PSU should be fine for adding a low power GPU - if you get a fanless 1030, it won't be drawing much power.

I use a solid metal one. Nice in summer, but on a winter morning, it's a sharp wake up that rivals a triple espresso.

Only trouble there is that the 1060 was a popular mining card. I'd be wary of used GPUs of that era tbh. A non-K CPU upgrade from i3 to i7 is a safer option, and will give noticeable overall improvement.

I could tell you but my fee happens to be $100  

More seriously, I'd probably get a CPU upgrade - plenty available second hand - get a non-K one, so you know it hasn't been abused.

LTT Staff Potatoshop Mashup is going to happen now... only bad things can come of this.

Im going to go with the obvious choice here. Everyone is thinking it.
 
Get this techquickie clickbait thumbnail face printed out on a 100ftx160ft canvas and annoy my neighbors with it:
 

I could tell you but my fee happens to be $100  

More seriously, I'd probably get a CPU upgrade - plenty available second hand - get a non-K one, so you know it hasn't been abused.

You can choose your genitalia.  Thus, your argument is invalid.  

The xeon server can be multipurpose NAS & smarthome server.
 

Not a "she" but ok
(My profile picture is just a musician called "SCARLET")
 
Sadly i can't say anything that might point OP in the right direction for mobo repairs (even though we live around 100km apart lol).

[1] This seems like the best option, or at least the one that will make me feel safest about doing it.
 
[2] I specifically tried exactly that once before. Plex was originally on my gaming pc but it only took a month or two before I realized how bad on an idea that was, so I copied the metadata folder, installed plex on the system I'm using now, and dropped the folder back in. Don't know why but it didn't work so I don't want to try that again. wasn't a big deal at the time though because there wasn't much there. Now it would be a nightmare.
 
[3] I refer again to [2]
 
[4] Yes of course!  I use it to keep a close eye on all my drives, let's me know they're doing ok: 
 

for that new gpu the stock thermalpaste shoudl be fine. when it is 4- 6 years old you should change it.

Some PCI/PCIe cards still use the floppy style connector for additional power - though thankfully most have moved to SATA. Even a new PSU can still come with the old connector.