when downloading (no Matter one or multiple files) my system crashes because of what looks like an IRQ conflict. It happens every time, but in a totally unpredictable&erratic way.
Can anyone help?

Im going to ask you the obvious questions first: WHERE did you get Limewire?(meaning what website), what version do you have and what OS are you using? Limewire shouldnt crash unless you are using a fake or bogus Limewire version that you got from somewhere. I have never had any system crash with limewire also, check your settings, firewall etc and scan your system for any viruses/trojans. Limewire is extremely stable & reliable unless you did something to to or picked up a virus while downloading.

I had crashes like this when have high amount of data flowing through my system bus.
I found out that it is caused by bugs in hard disk or netowork card drivers or by too many devices sharing the same IRQ. When device drivers dont handle parallel IRQ requests accordingly the system can crash.
When many devices share the same IRQ the chances are higher that you run into these conflict situations. Try to make sure you have the latest drivers and that you dont have too many devices with high troughput on the same IRQ channel.

thanx for your suggestions, guys. I downloaded version 4.9.37 from www.limewire.com, use a licensed xp home sp 2 on a p4 2,4 ghz, and an asus p4p800 mainboard.
I suspect the glitch is in my connection, i have sky dsl in germany 16.000 mbits/sec satellite download, isdn 56 kb up.
I think there might be something to GregorK s suggestion, allthough have only a scsi pci card in my computer and of course a graphics card.
The scsi card is only used for my scanner, and i don't operate it while downloading, so the data throughput is about 60-80kB's /sec at max, which should'nt cause problems i guess.
I hope there is a solution.
Maybe i could try another download client and see what happens.

Hein