Input method (hardware problem?)

[Thomas Blasejewicz]

Good afternoon
I am not sure, I am allowed to ask this kind of question here, but the
Mint community does not seem to have a mailing list
and their forum is very slow/inactive so that getting answers there may
take 10 years.
Since Mint seems to be based on Ubuntu, I thought, I might be permitted
a little sacrilege.

I installed Mint 17, Cinamon 32-bit (1x) / 64-bit (1x) versions on two
different computers.
Since I had trouble with the 64-bit version, I made a clean installation
of the 32-bit version on that computer too.
All these installations erased everything on the PC and newly installed
Mint 17.


Problem:
System installed -> Updates downloaded + installed
Languages downloaded + installed (Japanese and German in addition to
English)
added a German (querty) KB layout
-> installed Ibus-anthy
-> Logout -> Login
Keyboard Input Method -> add Japanese -> Anthy
-> added a key for switching input methods
-> after initially using a different setting, chose "Use same KB layout
for all windows"
(which seemed to help at first)

Now, initially I DO HAVE and can switch between the language applets for
Japanese / German;
BUT ... when I just touch the applet for switching between Japanese
alphanumeric/character input ...
the language applet for Japanese / German DISAPPEARS
AND
the keyboard layout I set up earlier also is replaced by a generic
layout while its Name is still displayed as "German".
That prevents switching between keyboard layouts and sometimes (always?)
the switching between input methods.

The PC (Mouse computer, CPU 2.4 GH, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, something I got
from my son) also frequently becomes
"unresponsive" while trying to setup things like keyboard, input method
etc., NOT running any other software.
Unresponsive means, it will not react to mouse clicking, while the mouse
pointer still moves around, or keystrokes.
This "recovers" after several minutes.
Whereas the system never "recovers" once it has been "suspended".

My son (who was running Windows 7 64-bit on it) told me, that the
computer sometimes gets very slow (unresponsive)
and thus suspected possible hardware problems.
Before installing Mint I ran an integrity and MEM test. Neither showed
any errors.

If this IS a hardware problem, where should I try looking?
I really appreciate your help.
Thank you in advance.
Thomas