Question PC sooo slow and constant crashing - HELP

[jd1883]

My pc has recently started to run so slowly for no apparent reason. I'm not very tech minded but have run anti virus and a windows scan and all clean. It's not overheating, I've disabled any unnecessary programmes in the start up, defragged, updated cleaned and deleted everything the internet has advised me to and it's still an issue. It's slow on start up , slow opening windows, slow opening a browser and says "a web page is slowing down your browser" on every window.
It's a quad core AMD 3.6ghz with 4gb ram with plenty of space and direct x 12.
Any ideas appreciated.
If you need any info ask away and I'll do my best to tell you.

 

[Brian Boru]

Assuming Windows 10, r-click the Windows Start icon and click on Task Manager. See what %s your CPU, GPU and RAM run at. Sounds like some runaway program or process might be in play, possibly indexing.

Do you have just the one drive? Sounds like a HDD, yeah? Check in File Explorer how much space is free on it.

4GB RAM is on the small side, but should be okay if you're not opening dozens of browser tabs. Are you running Chrome or Firefox browsers? They can be heavy on RAM.

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

In addition to the above:
If you're on HDD I would also check S.M.A.R.T. values - PC getting more and more slow can be a proof of HDD going bad and that would require immediate action.
You can use any app to check this, I personally like https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/DHE-Drive-Info.shtml