Electronics

[Writertoo]

I have a PC that's quite a few years old. I can't afford to replace it now, but it's driving me absolutely nuts. It is very slow. By slow, I mean it can take over a minute to open an email. And, in fact, I can't try to open 2 emails at once--they will both come out the same. It takes forever to open a website. Heaven forbid I try to have multiple windows open. It gets freaked out. It's actually impacting my life, as I spend way too much time on-line just trying to do basic things, like open my emails. (I'm embarrassed to say that I have over 1000 unread emails in my inbox. It's because it takes so long to open them, but I don't want to delete them without seeing what's in them first!)

I'm almost positive I don't have a virus, as I have two protection programs running. And it's been this way for a while, even after I've gotten rid of known viruses/worms/etc. From my limited knowledge of computers, I think I may need to add more RAM? Is this correct? If that's the solution, how do I do it? Is it an easy and cheap fix? Please help!

TIA!

P.S., I don't have a lot of fancy programs either--just the basics like Windows / Excel, etc.--or play any games on my PC.