Make a note of your settings & then try deleting your LW Preferences folder whilst LW is closed; instructions here: Fixes for Limewire

After opening LW, let it settle a good 10, 20 or 30 mins before using.

Also reduce your shared files, & reduce your upld bandwidth to about 70-80%. Perhaps even reduce your downld bandwidth to about 90%.

Go to LW's prefs>Speed & tick disable Ultrapeer Cap. & press apply button.
Set both uplds & downlds to autoclear.
Close all LW windows you don't need open at that time.

Whilst LW is open, click on top of the Progress bar so all incomplete files are organised by % downlded. Then select 1st at 0% & scroll down to last & select it whilst holding down SHIFT key also all at 0% are selected, then pres the Stop button. Then go to your incomplete folder & view it in list mode & click on size column so all are arranged by size. Now delete all those at 0 KB. This will speed up opening of LW & reduce stress.

Disable the LW media player. So then your default audio player will play instead.

Also don't use the Resume button on all incomplete files. This will also stress LW & your comp. If you use Resume/Find sources then just apply it to a couple or so at one time.