Hey there, my computer is failing me harshly.

When running multiple processes, such as Firefox and Windows Media Player, or starting Steam and watching youtube at the same time, both processes will run very, very slowly, taking maybe a minute in bad cases to reconcile. It's generally always a program starting up along with some form of media, and when it's a song or video playing, the sound actively slows down rather than just skipping. Generally programs that are running but not very active, such as having a webpage up, steam active, and playing a video at the same time, do not cause this problem, its when I first start them, or I'm loading a new page or something active like that. It's not like I'm trying to do 5 things at once, it's generally just 2 processes that can't seem to get along. I've got a (admittedly aging) dual core processor which I thought was designed for this sort of thing....

This has been happening pretty recently, I use avast! and the occasional extra spyware/virus check, and I can't think of any specific event around the same time that would make sense as a cause. Maybe my comp's just dying of old age (the oldest parts are like 2 or 3 years old), and I plan to get a new one soon anyway, but I'd like this one to live a little longer.

How much RAM (Memory) do you have installed?

I've got 1 gig. My motherboard won't support any more for some reason which is part of the reason I plan to replace it but its worked well so far.