Microsoft probably killed my Snapdragon Dev Kit

Summary

Back in October 2024, I got my hands on a Snapdragon Dev Kit. With a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite ARM64 CPU (the fastest model!), 32GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD, it ran Windows 11 for ARM lightning fast. So I made it my daily driver, and it stayed that way until very recently. I even wrote a review of it one year later back in October. Since the first boot, it’s been rock-solid and reliable every single day. And as someone who has used Windows since the beginning of time, I’m always combing through Event Viewer for software or hardware issues (there were none). Yes, the fan is noisy, as Jeff Geerling pointed out, but I don’t notice it because I work with headphones on. Of course, that changed this past week. So, what happened? IIn early December, a Windows 11 security update (KB5068861) failed to install and rolled back during reboot. I tried installing it two more times with the same result. I cleared the package cache, ran the usual sfc /scannow and dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth incantations, and even tried manually installing the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog. No go. So I Googled it, found that many, many people were having the same issue and that Microsoft was going to fix it with a future cumulative update. So I turned off updates for a month and went on my merry way. This past week, I turned updates back on. While I was working, I got the usual Windows notification that a restart was pending from a recently applied update. I hit restart and immediately realized it was the same update, same failure, same rollback. Only this time, the rollback didn’t go as planned. The system rebooted four times before finally loading into Windows. And when it did, it wouldn’t sign me into my Microsoft account. Entering my PIN got me in, but to a brand-new profile complete with the default, soulless Windows background. I had Internet access and most of my apps worked, but I couldn’t open Windows Terminal or most other Microsoft apps… even Event Viewer. I dec...