I have noticed that if you cover the limewire window with any other window it continuously updates the window, grinding my system to a halt.

This can be seen using 'Quartz Debug' from the apple developer tools.

Is this a java thing or just limewire?

The only way I find it usable is by using codetek virtualdesktop which allows me to run limewire on its own 'desktop' so it is never covered.

Is this a known issue? is it just me??

Cheers,
Doug

Oh yeah, limewire 2.8.5 (2.7 did it too) and 10.2.3 (10.2.x did it too)