SO slow

[iskazheniya]

Yesterday morning, I woke my computer up from its 8-hour slumber and found that it was running much more slowly than usual. Miffed (but not as frustrated as I am right now), I opened up Software Update, which froze crashed 5 times in succession. Upon restarting the computer, it asked me if I'd like to install the updates before logging in. I did this (it was like iTunes, Quicktime, and some other stuff that I don't remember) , and to my horror, it was running much slower than it had been already. Even moving the mouse a large distance across the screen caused the beach ball thing to come up. I opened up Camino, and the internet (which is actually quite fast) took ELEVEN minutes to show up because the browser kept freezing. I closed Camino upon discovering that I could make it freeze by simply trying to scroll down my home page (Google News - but that's irrelevant). I went to a simple application (Mail) and after appearing on the screen, I watched the fabled beach ball for 5-7 minutes. Even after waking the computer from sleep now, I have to wait several minutes for it to completely "wake up."
Even typing this, it has frozen 8 (8!) times and I have had to wait for it to work again. This is getting ridiculous. I can hardly even use the computer now. I've even found myself screaming and cursing at the thing. I went to YouTube earlier and the computer just became unresponsive. I haven't made any major changes since about 2 months ago, when I installed Leopard. I feel like I'm on my old eMachines from 1998 (though that was faster!). I'm worried that my computer is becoming senile and geriatric.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. My computer and I need help. I'm a Mac n00b, so please dumb down your speech as much as possible.

Note: The closest store is hundreds of miles away, so please don't suggest that or I'll windmill kick you (nah, not really)

And sorry for any mistakes, I am not a native English speaker.

Another Note: I had no problems with my Macbook prior to this li'l incident.

 

[dukebound85]

try to repair permissions

if that doesnt work you can always resort to backing stuff up and reinstall the os


however i would treat that as a last resort due to the time it takes

 

[clevin]

1. how much memory does "about this mac" show?

2. Does reset PRAM work for you?

3. is CPU 100% used and fan kept running?

4. what version of OSX are you running?

 

[iskazheniya]

1. how much memory does "about this mac" show?

2. Does reset PRAM work for you?

3. is CPU 100% used and fan kept running?

4. what version of OSX are you running?

1. 512 MB
2. I'm gonna try it in a second. (Update: Yes, it worked.)
3. Yes.
4. Leopard.

 

[clevin]

ok, im glad it worked, still, try get more memory, 512Mb for leopard is just not enough

 

[iskazheniya]

ok, im glad it worked, still, try get more memory, 512Mb for leopard is just not enough

But it was just fine before; surely there's SOMETHING I can do to correct whatever has happened before opening up my wallet. Eleven minutes to open up an application? My WATCH could do that.

 

[clevin]

But it was just fine before; surely there's SOMETHING I can do to correct whatever has happened before opening up my wallet. Eleven minutes to open up an application? My WATCH could do that.

lol, if the machine running for too long, with such small memory, there is bigger chance that some process will eat up memory to a degree that the whole machine slow down to a unacceptable speed.

if there is something I would suggest if you don't want to add memory. Try reboot machine everyday.