Something else to try, close all your LW windows that you're not using at that time (eg: connections & monitor windows.) Have Downloads set to Auto-clear completed downlds. Turn the LW media player off whilst you're doing searches. Delete search results that are several hours old. Don't use the Resume/Find Sources function (xcept perhaps on the odd file.) Go to Tools>Options>Speed & tick Disable UP capabilities & press the Apply button. Don't use other p2p apps at the same time as LW.

To add to that, defragment your hard disk drives, which if you're a heavy user of LW should be done on a reasonably frequent basis. Fragmented HDD's can result in slow responses for apps & unpredictable results.