My computer has become very slow recently (last 6 months) - not just on the internet, but in general
I often have several programs / web pages open and sometimes when I click between internet pages. bottom of the page it says done (page fully loaded) but when I go to scroll down the web page the screen freezes and at the very top it says www.....webpage (not responding) and it can be a few seconds or a few minutes before the page 'unfreezes' and I can scroll down.
Then sometimes if I click / switch to MS Word or to Windows media player (or whatever else is open) and the 'freezed webpage' is still there - even though I've clicked on a different tab / window - and can take a few seconds / minutes to change to the other page / program I clicked on.

I don't know what to do or what checks I can run to see what the problem is - I've run CC cleaner and Defraggler, but that doesn't really do anything - and I have panda cloud antivirus free

anyone got any suggestions how I can 'speed up' my PC or at least check why it is running so slow

PC is a 6 yr old Compaq

thanks!