On Thursday 26 March 2026 08:35:40 Jim via tde-users wrote: <snipping throughout>
Dare I ask what CPU and how much RAM you have?
I don't have my specs ready at hand. However, I attached a jpeg of the manufacturer's description. It's not a super-duper gaming machine, but for a basic laptop, not bad.
I see you have 8 GB (according to the model number in your attachment). This would be enough if software developers were careful about memory usage, but I think there is a lot of evidence they aren't. Never write 5 lines of code yourself when you can link in some 100 MB library function. ;-)
The CPU in that machine isn't bad, but it is 6 years old now, and developers have had a lot of time to write programs requiring more memory and faster CPUs.
However, I ought to say that I have hacked it extensively, although that has nothing to do with LibreOffice, which has never run at all on this machine. At present, my machine has no hard drive at all, as both the original 128 gb SSD, *and* the brand-new 2 tb SSD which I bought, both got fried when my neighbor blew the fuse for everybody in this part of my building.
Blowing a fuse shouldn't have affected your laptop. Perhaps he caused a huge voltage spike? Even then, it is curious that the SSD went kabloouie without your motherboard also being damaged.
Were both SSDs inside the laptop, or was one being used externally when your neighbour zapped you?
When my neighbor "blew the fuse", he also managed to kill the power in this entire wing of the building. At the time, I was transferring files between the two SSDs. I have a gadget (forget the term, now in storage) for connecting an SSD by a USB port. But it's not powered by an external source, just plugs into the USB port.
This happened a couple times with other hard drives and flash drives, too. Anyway, that neighbor died about six months ago. I won't say that I miss him.
(If he is the habit of doing this, you really want to get yourself a surge protector, if you haven't already done so.)
Yeah, I have been looking for a power supply backup; I used to be able to find them in most computer supply shops, but nowadays they seem to have gone out of fashion. I have my trusty Belkin surge protector which otherwise has served me reliably for years. But the problem seems to have been caused by the fact that I was transferring files at the time the power went out.
What I did instead was to get a YUGE 13-port USB hub, which I plug into my Belkin surge protector; this thing can manage all my needs. If the power does go out, it seems to delay the effects of a spikes and surges, so my drives don't get damaged.
Unfortunately, the electricity in this building will continue to be a problem, and my new neighbors also blow fuses all the time, and everything goes out for me, too; but these are minor, compared to the catastrophes that my old neighbor regularly brought upon us.
In the meanwhile, I have whittled down my working external drives to a few flash drives and one external hard drive; then everything is regularly backed up to other hard drives, using that 13-port hub. Otherwise, I have three 3.0 USB ports on my laptop, as well as a slot for an SD card, which I don't use regularly, mostly to copy music files to an SD card to put in my phone.
In the first of those USB port is plugged in the 128 gb flash drive that contains my entire operating system, partitioned into root, swap and home directories.
In the second USB port, I plug in a 1 tb hard drive that holds my music, films, tv shows, etc. ... all the mindless entertainment, since I don't have a television.
In the last USB port I plug in a small Belkin portable 7-port USB hub, which can be powered if I need, but which I generally just use with USB power from the machine. I usually have a 128 gb flash drive plugged in that contains tons of old radio shows, music shows that I like, so that I have radio even when there is no listenable radio. Also, I sometimes plug other flash drives into this portable hub, so that I can backup my personal business files. (This is the one that I take with me if I need to use a public computer, out there in the so-called real world; formatted to be readable on any machine.)
This way, if I have another such disaster, the laptop itself doesn't lose power, as it's got its own battery power, so those few hard drives and flash drives are generally safe, and won't get damaged. Everything is backed up on other hard drives, whenever I feel like pulling out that 13-port hub, and my bunches of external hard drives. And all of this, along with portable keyboard and mouse, Blue-Ray burner, fits into a laptop shoulder bag. I do have other stuff, used mostly with the laptop, that I keep in a separate bag, but I don't use it so much. And in fact, when I took a trip up north, I left it there, and now I need to fetch something back here when I make another trip. But *mostly* everything fits, so that I can pack up everything pretty quickly, get on a train or bus, or throw everything into a car.
Whenever I get settled somewhere, in a larger place, then I will be able to have a more permanent setup. I have been in the process of moving now for more than six months, and at present I live like I am camping out, getting everything pared down to the minimum.
So my entire operating system dwells on a flash drive, which is partitioned with root, swap and home directories. I got rid of (or at least, bypassed) UEFI and boot using grub.
I am thinking this is your problem. By flash drive, do you mean -> USB "thumb drive" / USB "memory stick" -> a compact flash or SD memory card with a USB adapter? -> a NVM flash memory card in an enclosure with a USB adapter
No, this is not the problem with my machine. I do not have a problem with my machine; at least, not at present.
You are conflating three different series of events. This is partly due to my own fault, not making it clear that these things happened over some years on different machines.
The earliest series of events -- my suffering through tthe horrors of trying to use LibreOffice -- occurred on other machines, both desktops and laptops. I tried many times over about five years or more to get LibreOffice to work, until at last I discovered Apache's fork of OpenOffice.
In the middle series of events: My neighbor fried hard drives and flash drives when he blew out the power in an entire wing of this building. I was also transferring files from one to another when this happened. This was not just once, but maybe three or four times. However, these were not the SSDs that I mentioned. This happened on my desktop computer. I was using my Belkin surge protector, but did not have a backup power supply. So when the desktop lost power, everything stopped.
This is one of the reasons that I went out and bought a laptop a few years ago; because when the power goes out, I still have the internal battery power of the laptop.
In that third and last series of events -- my fried SSDs -- this happened when I was transferring files from the original 128 gb SSD connected by USB adaptor to an internal 1 tb SSD. Even though they were connected to the laptop, they both got damaged, and within a week or so both stopped working. However, I did manage to save everything from them before they died completely.
In any case, I am beginning to understand some of the issues on your system.
No, you are not understanding. The issues that I described all occurred on other machines, sometimes five years ago. Only my fried SSDs (the third series described above) occurred with this machine, the laptop.
After I had spent a good chunk of money for the best SSD I could find, only to have it go to waste. That's when I installed my operating system to a flash drive, and I have been using it ever since (about two years now?) with practically no issues that have to do with my own machine.
My only problems here are beyond my control: that is, the electricity in this building, and the network, which also comes with the building.
Having a backup on external drives (or on other computers you own) is an excellent idea.
But you are decimating the performance of your laptop using only external drives over USB, at least if they are "thumb drives". I have a couple of Raspberry Pis which have all their files on external SSDs. The disk performance there is quite acceptable (400 - 500 MB/sec?).
I know it is easy to spend other people's money, but if you want some of your frustrations with your laptop grinding to a halt to go away, you should really put a new SSD inside, or, at the minimum, use an SSD with a quality USB interface.
Once I get out of here, and have reliable electricity like other people, and have my own network (or at least a better network), then I might spend money on another SSD, or maybe a new laptop. But for now, I want to keep everything as simple and portable as I can.
Also I am thinking of getting a Jackery power station, solar panels, etc. Not just for my machines, but for other projects (such as music) that I have going. The Jackery that I saw was about the size of a small suitcase, and could power an entire house ... at least, in theory. I hear that they are not quite so good as they promise, but I still think that something like this would be best for me. I don't know about brands, but so far the Jackery sounds like the top of the line.
Unfortunately, the price of SSDs (e.g., Samsung 870 EVO 1TB) has gone way up in the last while. At least where I looked. Maybe there is some place local to you with better deals.>
Right now, the price in everything is going up. I am glad that I got all my stuff moved before fuel prices went up. All that I have left here is about a carload, and I can manage that.
Otherwise, I just have to finish up my remaining business here, tie up some loose ends, then I may travel for a bit before I return to settle down. I need to make some trips to visit people that I have not seen in a very long time.
Bill