Linux Mint Forums

You can find out what's eating all your resources in two ways:

OLD SCHOOL:
Open Terminal
Type top

GUI WAY:
Menu > Administration > System Monitor > Processes Tab

my 1st reaction was that the swap file is waaay tooo big. = 1024Mb max - with your amount of memory - a quarter of that.
also there must be some very big files on the hdd, to gobble up that much real estate.
& mint is spending too much time accessing them.