Download starts and then fails

[MrWall]

First of all hi, my first post here

Now I have been usinglimewire for years with no major issues, however yesterday something started going wrong. Now everytime i start up limewire it starts up my downloads as normal, hitting regular speeds (between 50 and 80), but then after a minute or so it just starts slowing down and within another minute they are all at zero.

I run off of Windows XP, have broadband I have no other problems downloading off the internet and my emails and webcontent works fine.

I have no idea what firewall I am behind I am afraid (or even if i am behind one) and I am certainly no computer expert!

Any ideas what the issue is? I will try find any other info that might help if you let me know what I need to be looking for

this has me stupmed so any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks

EDIT: it still says i am connected and i can search and get results

EDIT 2: Must have a firewall as I can see that brickwalled planet. i am using the limewire beta thing but only just installed it and was having the same problem earlier this morning with a previous version (not sure what version that was sorry).