Perfect storm.. old 1tb hdd that had backups died recently and it's my wife's comp.
LMDE actually seems snappier.. my wife was saying her videos seemed like they were stuttering a bit and we couldn't figure it out.. which was the reason I tried pushing the update.
Sorta hilarious wonky update somehow fixes the problem by causing problems.
I always wanted her on LMDE so her system and my systems would be the same but she didn't want any changes.. oh well.