Hi, new to the forum. I had the same problem that many of you seem to be having since installing SP2 on my system. I found this site. The site offers many suggestions for optimizing the performance of your system including a fix for the connection problems we are all having. Scroll down until you find "SP2 TCP Slowdown Fix"

Down load and install the fix, I went from no connection to consistently Turbocharged without opening any extra ports, or changing any SP2 Firewall settings at all except unblocking Limewire when prompted.

It's sounds good. Actually I'd also found a couple of sites which discussed similar methods by reducing startup files, etc. Thus reducing unnecessary ram usage & from keeping unnecessary files open that could potentially clash with apps that pass thru. Your article is much more comprehensive. Let's see how it goes.