I don't think my iMac has ever worked properly

Since I purchased my iMac over a year ago, it has never been as fast as it should be. I often get a spinning disk as the machine tries to do common tasks like loading iPhoto (I have alibrary of about 5000 images - not as large as many of my friends have on slower machines).
I thought it was a hard drive issue and had the drive replaced a few months ago, but the problems persist. The drive has over 70GB of free space, so that is not the issue. Could it be the logic board?
The computer works, but is just frustratingly slow sometimes with this spinning disk...
Any ideas?
1.8 GHz iMac G5 20-inch Mac OS X (10.4.6) 512 RAM

Hi LorinK - a woefully slow machine can be caused by so many things. Have you considered it could be a virus, spyware or malware, all of these usually lead to 'slower' machines. Are there any programs you normally use that are acting funny, just not right? Are you talking about the spinning disk or the spinning beach ball?
As far as memory goes, 512mb of memory on any quality computer is almost unheard of. If you look around the forum, everyone that is happy with their machine have upgraded the memory by 1 or 2gigs. But adding more memory will not cure an ailing machine, it could possibly make you iMac seem faster when actually your just putting a 'larger intake and out take manifold' to pass information through.
I would have your iMac checked out. If I were a betting person, and with the amount of 'slowness' you seem to be describing, I would bet you have a hardware problem... Good luck, Rick

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This is from the Service Source:
"Screen is dark, fan is running and the hard drive is spinning. You may hear the startup
chime as well.
1. Reset parameter RAM. Press Command-Option-P-R during startup before “Welcome to Macintosh”
appears.
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