Terrible performance on my Macbook

Question

I'm running Mac OS X 10.4.11 on my white 13.3" Macbook. It has a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. I had been using the 512 MB of memory that came with it until a few weeks ago I decided to buy 2 GB from Crucial to speed things up...but you could argue it's just as bad if not worse...(and I know I installed it correctly). It also has a SATA 60 GB HD with about 18 GB of free space (is that enough?).
It will idle repeatedly (you know, the spinning beach ball, spinny rainbow ball, whatever you want to call it). At any given time I'm usually only running 2 or 3 programs, but it happens just as much if I'm just running one (especially Safari). It seems to happen randomly no matter what programs I have open. The ball will spin for about 30 seconds or more every time then stop and everything is fine again. But this happens over and over and over at random times. Usually I can't even force quit while this is happening (the box doesn't pop up til after the program returns to a responding state). I could be clicking a link, scrolling, typing in any program, doing literally anything including doing nothing and it still happens. Sometimes this won't happen at all and run real fast for hours at a time, then suck for hours without any drastic change in my usage. I can't seem to figure out what actions I'm taking to cause it. It's completely random.
There has to be some processes running in the background and I just can't pinpoint what they are and I'm out of ideas. If no one can help me I'm just going to do a OS reinstall (again) and hope for the best. Please help...

Answer 1

Sometimes posts get lost in this forum as it is a pretty busy one.
You have also tried the basics, so those reponses never came.
Whenever I have your issue, I do the following;
If Disk Utility can't fix it, you'll need a more robust utility for the repair. I would recommend DiskWarrior. It is the best at directory repairs. It rebuilds then actually replaces your old directory. I feel every Mac owner should have a copy. Make sure you get the disk so you can boot up on it to run repairs. You can also install it on another drive and run it from there to repair this one. DW works faster that way.
I use DW once a month to try and catch errors in my system from getting too far out of hand.
Also, run your Apple Hardware Test to check your new RAM or take it out and see if it works better. Many here say that the free Rember RAM tester is better.
And the last tip, try things in this Spinning Beachball Link.
DALE