Computer question - hung up downloading or uploading

We have a 3+ old HP computer that runs Windows Vista (it's lasted over twice as long as the iMac we had before it...so, no "get a mac" comments)

However, over the past few days, I first tried to upload pictures to Facebook and it seemed to go 95% of the way there (the status bar) and then just stayed there & never progressed any further. I even left the machine on while going out for a while. When I came back, it was still hung up. When I closed the browser, it looked like the upload did work, but I never got the message.

Now, this morning, I'm downloading a software update for a gaming program and it has done the same thing. It seemed to be progressing fine and the status bar went to 90-95% done, but it just seems to be standing there and not progressing. I went & took a shower and came back and it's still in the same place.

I ran an extra virus scan & it turned up nothing.

Any ideas?

Is the machine just getting old? Did a recent windows update screw something up?

emptied the cache or temp folder lately?

thanks for the suggestion.

We too have a 3+ year olf HP. Stillw orks great, fast and efficient.
I use Advanced Ssytem Care, the free version and run it once a week along with cleaning the cache and temp files
Doing this and defrag seems to get everything back inline.
Not sure if this will help you, but I have rarely had any serious issues by doing this reguarly. The most recent though was iTunes not laoding for my wife's new Itouch, I unintalled and cleaned the registry and reinstalled, and it works like a dream.
I'm sure other, more thecy people may have some even better ideas/suggestions, but this is my 2 cents for what it's worth.

http://www.iobit.com/advancedsystemcareper.html#none

as far as I can tell.