Of course it is getting old. Aren't we all.

This is a long in the tooth laptop with a small amount of RAM, small HD and a relatively slow processor.
OS 10.3.9 is probably as high as I would attempt with this machine.

First thing I would try is to run the Disk Utility and Repair Permissions. This fixes a bunch of problems and may solve all of yours at once.
If it doesn't, it may be time to do an Archive and Install of the OS. You do have your OS X installations disks?

If the permissions thing does not help, post back here with more info, OS version for instance, for further assistance.

P