Hi Grandpa...thanks for your reply. I tried to give all relevant details in my original post, but forgot about what else is running! Actually, not much! I had already taken several apps out of the start-up menu...including Office! Basically, apart from the essential Windows stuff, there's only RAMIdle, anti-virus, Any DVD, everything else I start up as needed. To be more exact about the drop in available RAM, before I open Limewire, it's about 320-380 available. After Limewire has been running for a while...even in the task-bar with no ...or not much...obvious activity, available RAM could be as low as 50-80. When I shut down, reboot, it's back to 350 or so. But today, suddenly things seem to be changing. I had a Limewire dialogue box telling me there was an "internal problem", but Limewire was able to keep functioning. A report had been prepared, which I sent. After that...maybe purely coincidentally, but perhaps not...things are much better. I've not lost contact with the internet, and available RAM has not dropped much below 190-220. A big improvement.
We'll see what happens. In the meantime I seem to be running as "turbo-charged" for just about all the time. Thanks again for your help.