Lord of the Rings thanks for your response I sat up most of the night and cleared out most of the Limewire old stuff that was on the mac, and asjusted some of my preferences and got rid of a lot of junk dont know if this is what helped, but when I switched it on today after a few hours sleep, it seemed to reinstall itself and configure the mac settings which it didn't do the last time I installed it just to let you know I have plenty of ram on the mac and plenty of hard disc space, so it now seems to be ok, but I have printed out your response in case I have any more problems, thanks for coming back to me, its guys like you who are a great help as sometimes you feel stupid asking questions, as I am an experienced mac user and like most I try to sort out stuff myself but am never afraid to ask for help. Thanks again
UFO man