Slow to the point of uselessness.

I have a 3 year old PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.4.11. It recently froze up and I had to forcefully reboot it. When I turned it back on it took forever to re-load everything, and once it did, all the programs are running incredibly slow. It takes 5-10 minutes to open simple programs, and even to open folders. Once I finally do have a few programs running, switching between them results in the same problem, and I get the spinning wheel curser and have to wait another 5-10 minutes for it to switch the program I am working on.

I thought maybe it was the RAM, but would the problem arise so suddenly if that was the case? Also It won't let me install any of the software or security updates that are offered for OS X and tells me "There were errors installing the software Please try installing again" each time I try, which makes me wonder about the RAM issue again. Thanks in advance for any help.

This is a Guess. I have a feeling it might be the Hard Drive failing. Do you still have the OSX Install DVD that came with your Powerbook? If so, run the Apple Hardware Test and have it check the Hard Drive.

Also as a quick test, open Disk Utility and click on the hard drive and look at the bottom and see if SMART is Verified or not.

Also please do not post multiple threads on the same subject. Thanks!