Early 2011 Macbook Pro RAM Issue

[Uberguberman]

Hi guys!
My early 2011 MacBook pro has grown incredibly slow over the years (understandably-- it's old), but I have friends with older MacBook pros that work great, so I'd love to get mine in working condition again.
I have CleanMyMac 3, which I use to monitor some things. Without any programs open, my computer lets me know that nearly all of my 4gb of RAM are being used, no matter what I'm doing. Early today, I even got a notification that told me to close out of programs because my computer didn't have the memory to run them (the only option it gave was Finder because I didn't even have anything open yet). Later, I ran a full virus scan and nada. I also did the whole thorough Apple Diagnostics thing on restart and it didn't find anything wrong.
I did a factory reset about an hour ago, wondering if starting anew would fix it. NOPE. Same problem. There's essentially nothing on my computer and it's still saying I don't have any available RAM to do things.

Any theories? Would simply replacing the RAM fix it?
Thanks!!

 

[pigoo3]

Here are some ideas:

- Get rid of Clean my Mac.
- Get rid of the virus scanning apps.
- Check how full hard drive is. If very full this could be an issue.
- Hard drive could be failing on an older computer.
- More RAM can help...but only after exploring the suggestions above.

* Nick