Computer gotten VERY slow

[Mamacat104]

HP laptop G61-511WM Windows 7 64 bit
cpu: AMD Sempron (tm) M100 2.0ghz
video card: Radeon HD 4200
Ram: 4GB

I used to be able to go on Youtube and play a video with no problem... now, when I try to play a video, it will play for about 2 seconds, stop...start, then stop again...start..then stop...etc etc... It will not play a song through anymore.. It is constantly starting and stopping.
When I use my Photoshop Elements program, it will hesitate at times..It's like something is running and you can't do a thing til it releases ... and when using a certain area of the program, it is very hard to move the pointer on the screen... it jerks, and is very irratic... you can't control it very good... once you click to accept the change you are trying to make, it speeds up
I've run malwarebytes on the computer and have no adware causing the computer to be so slow now. I keep the internet history cleaned up. It is frustrating when you are trying to do something and you can't move..
Is there something I can look for that might be slowing the computer down? I'm not sure what to look for ...if there is something that can be done to get my speed up and working better. don't know if this computer processor is upgradeable to faster speed or not... is it the processor speed that is giving me the problem?

thanks
have a good day
Barbara

[MaDef]

Is the windows disk defrag running? If so either turn it off or set it to not run in the background.

You should also run chkdsk /r on the drive.

Type cmd.exe in the search/run box on the start menu, Then type chkdsk /r, answer yes to both questions and reboot. This will check the disk for errors.

Have you checked Task managerto see if there is a proccess hogging all the resources?
Open Task Manager by right-clicking the taskbar, and then clicking Start Task Manager.

[Mamacat104]

I checked the task manager and the biggest thing that was running was IE and my photoshop elements when it is open and I'm working on photos. Ie is showing one with 73,340K and another with 26, 068k. When I open Photoshop Elements, it uses 83,460K. At the bottom of the task manager it shows 102 processes, cpu usage bounces from 2% up to 67% and than at times it spikes to 100%. Physical memory shows 47%.
I tired to do chkdsk and got the following message
Access denied as you do not have sufficient privileges
You have to invoke this utility running in elevated mode
I've never run chkdsk on this computer but I've run on other computers and never seen this message before.

thanks
Barbara

[MaDef]

That's windows 7 for you.

It's really just the user access control kicking in. there are a couple of ways around it. If you right click the "cmd" icon in the start/all programs/accessories menu there should be an option to run as administrator, or you can create a shortcut to the cmd prompt on the desktop and set the same permission under the shortcut's properties page. You should then be able to run chkdsk.

Since I'm the only one that uses my pc, and I have faith in my security practices, I've actually turned off UAC.

At the bottom of the task manager it shows 102 processes

WOW, and here I thought my system running with 80 processes was bloated. Open msconfig and turn off unneeded startup programs.

Then run disk cleanup (removing cache/temp files etc.) I use CCleaner about once a month.

Don't let windows handle the swap/page file, set it to a custom size (use the recommended number listed). Set min/max sizes to the same number, that keeps the swap file from becoming fragmented and slowing the system down. Once all that's done go ahead and defrag the drive. (this may take awhile especially if you use the built in defrag program)