Hi :) As we keep pointing out Win7 and Windows generally is a bit of a resource hog. 1 more stick of 1Gb Ram would probably help. Better to get 2 new sticks as a matched pair so that you can get an additional 10% bump on performance. Better still if you can get sticks that are about as fast as your mbord can handle. A decent power supply might help but don't go crazy with it unless you plan to use it in a future hardware-upgrade. 350 Watt is usually plenty but you might find something that is more energy efficient and doesn't draw so much mains power if it's not using much. A new fan might help especially if you can re-arrange existing ones to push out more at the back or through the top of the case. Alternatively just install Ubuntu or Mageia or something like that as a dual-boot alongside your Win7. They use so much less resources that you will find the machine runs a lot more quietly, less hot, much faster and quiet possibly drawing so much less power that your Usb ports become quiet usable again. The 'new' or acquired hardware route should cost under £100. Trying a different OS is likely to be free. There are plenty of people on this list that could help you install one of the Gnu&Linux OSes although i suspect that each person has their own idea of what might be best for you. Generally i would recommend taking various different ones for a test-drive before committing yourself to installing one. Generally it is better to do this using a Usb-stick but it can be done with a Cd or Dvd drive. Most Gnu&Linux "distros" allow you to run a "LiveCd session" to test drive their OS. When you have tried a few then you might notice you prefer the look&feel of some but others work better with your hardware. It doesn't really matter which one you install first as they all work much the same as each other and it's fairly easy to move from one to another later on, after you have become more accustomed to what your needs are. Some people install a different one each week but that's a bit extreme. Others stay with just one for a decade. Most of us are in the middle somewhere. A LiveCd session leaves no trace on your computer. It should pick-up on all the hardware that you have plugged in at the time and be able to find your internet connection. Sometimes some of them need a little coaxing. Some people use LiveCd sessions regularly for safer internet banking or to repair systems while others use them just to test-drive different systems. Your ISP still logs everything you do in just the same way as they would in Windows so avoid breaking any 'local' laws in the same way as normal. Oddly i find it's the cheapest blank Cds you can buy that are better for this. I think more expensive CDs are more highly tuned for data-storage rather than for running an OS. I've even had really expensive Cds fail and then 1 from a cheap pack of 20 (the packs that cost less than a small(ish) lump of bad cheese) worked fine. On 1 machine the Cd-drive appeared to be almost completely dead in Windows but i managed to get a tiny Gnu&Linux distro called SLiTaz (30Mb) onto the Cd. Then i booted the "LiveCd" of that. It's so tiny that you can even take the Cd out while still running the "LiveCd session" (it's really running entirely inside Ram without even touching your hard-drive or Cd-drive). With SLiTaz the Cd-drive was rock-solid so i was able to make a Cd of Ubuntu. Then because Ubuntu had been made using the same Cd-drive i was finally able to boot-up a "LiveCD session" of Ubuntu. The LiveCd session usually allows you to install the OS and if so then it usually allows you to play simple games while you are waiting for the installer to do the next thing. On more advanced hardware you could be doing emailing, watching a movie, playing a game and surfing the internet all while doing the installing but that's a bit extreme. The 1st thing is to try a few different LiveCd sessions so you can find out what you prefer the look of, and which works better and which you are happier using as your first. Regards from Tom :)
________________________________ From: Andrew Brown <andrewbr@icon.co.za> To: Demétrio Soares <demetrio.soares@gmail.com> Cc: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk>; Gabriel Risterucci <cleyfaye@gmail.com>; "users@global.libreoffice.org" <Users@global.libreoffice.org> Sent: Monday, 22 July 2013, 8:44 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] opening powerpoint files restart the computer Hi Demétrio As I suspected, I've been in IT since 1976, so a lot of experience helps with a good gut feel. Yes an old system, but as you say it suffices for your current needs. I would suspect you system is using DDR2 memory applicable for hardware at the time. What you could do, as a cheap and helpful upgrade is see if you can get your hands on another stick of 1GB RAM, it should not break the bank, as DDR2 RAM is still available. As you indicated, you have 1.5MB of RAM, so I can deduce from that that you have a 1GB stick, and a 500GB stick, the latter is all you need to replace, to use your motherboards maximum capability of 2GB RAM. The other issue I can see and I am sure I will be right, now that you have furnished more info, is that using too many USB ports are causing a problem too. This indicates that you current power supply unit (PSU) in the chassis, is at it's limits (i.e. could be a 200watt or 250watt unit, or aged (2003!!!) so the components (mainly those called capacitors), are burnt and leaking), thus causing the hard shutdown when you plug a device into the USB ports, or run an intense program with a data file. And yes the power demand does increase, from an idle state, when programs are opened and manage a data file. This power demand is then compounded when you use an external device, especially one that demands power from the USB port, and not from an external PSU. Again a little money spent on a new PSU will probably fix all of your issues and return your USB ports back to full functionality, along with a stable old PC. Regards Andrew Brown On 22/07/2013 01:48 AM, Demétrio Soares wrote:Hi and thanks for the prompt responses, reboot is "hard" (instant black screen) using 2 usb 2.0, yeah Andrew must be right: old machine low resources, after i installed windows 7 i could no longer use my external disc on the 2 front usb ports 1.1, instant hard reboot aswell, struggling and avoiding buying a new pc since i can still do almost everything in this one, not a gamer...normally all usb ports work and system is ok, just isn't a racer. Max ram this Motherboard accepts is 2GB... Asrock K8Upgrade bought 2003 ~ The powerpoint files open fine on an Asus 10" running XP, 32bits, 1GB ram, with Office 2007 portable... On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 5:52 PM, Andrew Brown <andrewbr@icon.co.za <mailto:andrewbr@icon.co.za>> wrote: Hi Gabriel I agree, you make some valid points, but the MS hive (collection of the boot code plus apps running in memory in one big monolith file, unlike the Linux kernel with separate "clients" commucating with the kernel, all separate), is not as robust as we would like to believe, even in Windows 7 and 8. So as you covered in your reply, any bad data files forcing it's host app, as in this case LO with a presentation data file, to exceed it's memory boundaries, will cause the processor and microcode to force a reboot intentionally or accidentally, due to creating instability with the rest of the memory content, the hive. This is the weakness of the MS way of doing things. As to my coverage of malware in the data files, it could cause a system crash and reboot, if the malware code is written badly or incomplete. I also noticed that Demétrio Soares is running Windows 7 32 bit on only 1.5MB of RAM, this in itself could be the problem. Although Windows 7 can run on 1.5GB of RAM, it is recommended to run it on at least 2GB, and even better with 3 or 4GB. The 4GB will be a bit of a waste as a 32bit system can only see a physical max of 3.2GB, so installing 4GB would not see or use the last 800MB (as layman terms as I can explain it). With only 1.5GB of RAM, the O/S is using at least 1GB of this RAM leaving 500MB for apps and data file, so I would also expect a system crash if the data file was a large one. As an example I am using Windows 7 64bit with 6GB of RAM, and I am consuming 35% (2GB) of this RAM right now as I type this email, Thunderbird open, Firefox open, and not much else except some system resources running. Regards Andrew Brown On 21/07/2013 06:25 PM, Gabriel Risterucci wrote:While it's totally true that malicious code might be embedded in anything (especially ms formats... but we won't talk about this :)), I doubt it would trigger a reaction as bad as a reboot, especially under recent OS. Crashing a user program is very unlikely to cause a system reboot, except if it call some regular reboot code, that would trigger a "clean" reboot, windows closing and stuff. Most likely output is simply the program crashing/getting in an unstable state. As I said, it's not completely ruling out the possibility of a catastrophic crash caused by some code issue, but it's fearly reasonnable to suppose that loading this file make LO expand to use more memory than usual, touching a faulty area. If the computer usually work without issue, maybe the ppt file is very large, or very complex, or the LO loading routine doesn't handle it nicely and cause the memory cost to increase. It would be interesting to know wether the reboot is "hard" (instant black screen) or soft (windows closing down normally). Also, if the ppt file isn't sensitive, it would be useful to put it on some kind of file sharing site for people to try loading it. -- Cley Faye http://cleyfaye.net 2013/7/21 Andrew Brown <andrewbr@icon.co.za <mailto:andrewbr@icon.co.za>> Hello My two cents worth would rather be to focus on the actual Powerpoint data file that is the source of the problem, when attempted to being opened. If it has any corruption in it, or possibly a piece of malware made to disguise and represent itself as a Powerpoint presentation, then I would accept it crashing and forcing a reboot of the PC, especially if there is no malware protection in place, on a Windows system especially. Virus writers can easily embed bad and malicious code into documents, presentations and spreadsheets. Try another known working presentation data file, and see if this also causes the crash with LO and the PC, if not, then you know where your source of your problem is. Cheers Andrew Brown On 21/07/2013 05:20 PM, Gabriel Risterucci wrote: There is not much stuff (if any) in LO that could cause a reboot of a computer. Although it's not possible to completely rule out a LO issue, I'd suggest you run some memory testing program (like memtest86+), as it's much more likely that your issue is related to faulty memory/hardware.-- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
-- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted