IMac freezes in mid application and then can't shut down or reboot

I have a iMac which is about 6 years old with 1 GB RAM, 60 GB hard drive and operating on OS 10.4.8 (Tiger). It has about 16 GB memory free as well.
It was running quite nicely until about 2 months ago and then had probems with it running slower and slower while completing applications, and finally it started freezing in mid application with the spinning beachball of death. The computer has to be shut down by pulling the power. Sometimes I can restart it with the power button and . But this latest time, it did not even start from the C drive with the OS X disc in place.
I tried the simple things like fixing permissions, and then I had tried re-loading Tiger both with archived files and also a clean install. Both times the machine worked beautifully for about a week and then would go through the same sequence, with slower processing time, and then the eventual terminal freeze up.
Any suggestions to salvage this machine? I did take it in to an Apple authorized dealer, where they backed up my files and did the clean install. But I don't have a diagnosis. Is the hard drive corrupted? Anything short of replacing the hard drive (which I am not capable of doing myself) or buying a new computer? I loved this iMac, it has an amazing screen, and despite its age was still a very neat machine. It would be great if there is a solution out there.
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
There is no such thing as a Mac OS X clean install as my FAQ explains:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607614
However, your machine is right at the age, or a little beyond where the clock battery may begin to die. This can cause slowdowns and other issues.
The hard drive could also be problematic, as some of these can die in less than a year, while others can last as long as a decade.
The more you install Dashboard widgets, the slower your machine will get, and that can cause problems too. See my FAQ on other slowdowns if neither of these seems to help:
http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html

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IMac freezes in mid application and then can't shut down or reboot

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