Need help - getting worse and worse

[wiggumfloss3]

My MacBook is 3 years old. For awhile it's been crashing where it randomly goes to black, but I've been able to restart it. However, recently things have gotten much worse. When I restart the computer, it stays on the blue screen even as I can hear programs booting. I have to close the screen and open it back up and click to get to my desktop. I am unable to click on anything or control the sound or brightness for several minutes before all those things become active. All processes are slower than ever. This is incredibly frustrating. I've run numerous cleanup processes but they haven't done much. What can I do to make my computer faster and not crash?

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Have you done a SMC reset if not I would do this first, for instructions look here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Once done post back results.