Installing Snow Leopard on MacBook with OS 10.5.2

I'm inquiring for my son who has the MacBook. When we purchased SL at the mac Store, the clerk indicated we could install it over the old OS....and not have to back anything up. My son installed SL and now reports that it is sluggish and not running well. Any advice? thank you

Hey MacBookDad,
The top culprits for a slow machine are:
1) Lack of RAM
2) Too full hard drive
3) Failing hard drive
4) Directory corruption
Ask him to back up his data right away, just in case the hard drive is failing. Then let me know the answers to the questions below:
1) How much RAM is in his computer?
2) How large is the hard drive & how much space is free?
~Lyssa

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