Old powerbook running slow

[NotAGolf]

My gf has an old Powerbook G4 (OS X 10.4.11). Recently the internet has been running like an absolute dog. I thought this was because she doesn't get very good wireless reception in my room but I went downstairs and sat next to the router and it was still slow. I'm talking so slow it couldn't play any youtube videos without severe stuttering.

I then tried switching from Firefox to Safari and miraculously everything was a lot quicker. However, after a few minutes Safari crashed - the reason she switched to firefox a few months back.

So I was wondering if there was some kind of clean up you can do on macs that might give it a bit of a kick up the arse and get it back into shape? I only use windows so don't know much about macs, but on a windows machine I'd maybe do the following to sort it out; checkdisk, defrag, virus scan, malware/spyware scan, crap cleaner, registry cleaner etc. (I know mac's are different so might not need a virus scanner or defragger but you get the idea!)

Are there any mac equivalents to the above that might help sort it out?

Thanks

 

[NotAGolf]

Thanks guys. Downloaded Onyx but I have a new problem, which sounds like it could be the cause of the slowness in the first place.

When I run Onyx it gets to the 'verifying startup volume' check, then it gives an error saying the startup volume needs to be repaired.

From the looks of it I need to run the disk repair facility but after reading around it looks like that comes on the mac startup disk which my gf has handily lost . Is there another way I can run it without the startup disk? Can I download it form somewhere or even use a 3rd party app?

Thanks again.

 

[NotAGolf]

Just had a look round and come across a possible solution without the disk;
- On start up, press the command and S keys together
- Then on the command line, type: fsck -fy

Which apparently does the same repair as the startup disk would do. So I've got a couple of questions:

1 - Is this a good idea?
2 - What is the likelihood of losing data doing this? (As backing up is tricky with the current setup)