New vs. Old

So here's the deal...I have had my little Macbook for 3 years or so. Its starting to die on me. It runs painfully slow, I can't run any program for more than ten minutes without it freezing, and my battery, after being fully charged, will die within twenty minutes. My question is whether or not I should suck it up and buy a new one or try and salvage this one. If you think it is able to salvaged please let me know how much will it cost, what I need to do etc. If you think I should buy a new one I'd appreciate some suggestions on what to purchase. I'm not looking to break the bank or achieve world domination... Thank you!

Have you reinstalled the OS? That might make it a little faster. You could always get a new battery and get more ram which might make it a little better but nowhere near a new macbook. I would just buy a new one as yours seems to be on its last leg unless you don't have the money to get a new one.

3 years is a pretty good run. MB or 13" MBP if you want something new.

I had my second generation Macbook for about 3 years as well though near the end of my ownership it was still running like a champ after a couple of upgrades. It's now living on in the hands of a former neighbor. My wife's Blackbook purchased a week after I got mine is still going strong and she is perfectly happy with it still. Anyway upgrading to the latest Macbook pro is absolutely worth it. You'd avoid a lot of headaches with re-installing, trying different stuff and even then what would it get you? What I'd do (and did) is buy a new Macbook Pro, transfer all of your data to it with Migration Assistant, reformat the old one's drive, re-install Mac OS X from the original disks, let Software Update do it's thing to bring it up to current of whatever OS you have on it (those came with Tiger didn't they?) then sell it on ebay or something. That way you defray the cost of the new one (you could probably get at least half the cost of a new one; check ebay), that will probably fix whatever ills it's having now so you won't be selling a crapbook (did I just inadvertently make up a word?) and you'll have a new shiny and sexy computer.