Hi Lord, thanks for the reply. I followed your recommendations and no difference still. I also updated my java to 1.5 and the latest limewire with no luck still. I just get the feeling there is some kind of compatability issue with the software or something. Connection quality isn't the issue here. I get very fast speeds. sometimes one file can peak over 200kb/s. I limited my upload connections to 8 then to 10 then to 50, then to 20, 15, 30 just all over the place and made no difference and along with my upload and download speeds/connections ect. I looked at every setting in options and changed what seems appropriate. I don't see anything going wrong in limewire itself, it just seems to freeze and freeze the rest of the computer with it. Quite a mystery.