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[DonaldsRump]

5. Much to the bane of my family, I never get rid of computers

I still have PCs from the early part of the 2010s, and they work fine. I'm not a gamer, and I pretty much do the same things you do. The point is that if I trash a computer installing updates, I have other devices to go to, and, in a perverse way, I enjoy fixing computers that are "broken", either because of software or hardware failures.

The other posters suggest downloading straight from hp's website, and that is clearly the safest way to do it. I personally find the manufacturer sites to be fairly limited in updates, so using a trustworthy 3rd party like iObit gives me a wider range of updates. However, I've bricked computers before when things go wrong with updates (computer loses power when updating and, on limited occasions, a conflict with an update and "something else".) And many of these updates are so esoteric, you won't notice any difference in performance. It just makes me feel better that I have the latest "stuff" for my decade old equipment!

Unless you're willing to take a chance and also have back up devices, what the other posters suggest is safer.

Since you maintain your own computer, that really helps. PCs develop large amounts of junk that really slow them down. Every month or so, I run Advanced Systemcare and ccleaner, and my devices tend to stay fast that way.