Is Limewire doing weird things?

[notsobrite]

Hi folks...my first time here. I loaded Limewire a few weeks ago...so impressed was I, purchased PRO 4.8.1. Initially I was really pleased...download times greatly improved,etc...then I realised something strange was happening. After a few hours of running LimewirePRO, my available RAM was dropping considerably, even if I wasn't actually up- or downloading at the time. Eventually I get a box telling me Limewire cannot connect to the internet, and the whole computer really slows down. (Move the mouse and the cursor gradually moves across the screen in fits and starts, etc...long delays in opening pages, etc).At this stage, it's not only Limewire that's been "thrown out" of the internet...it's my whole system both IE and OE cannot get on line. I tried having Windows fix the prob...it advises it cannot. I shut down, reboot, and all is OK again again hour after hour until I start-up Limewire, and the whole scene is repeated over and over. I've looked in the forums to try find this problem, but cannot. Am I the odd one out? I"ll mention a bit about my system...it may help. Windows XP Pro, 512 RAM(is this enough?), 1.6 P4 (will be upgrading to at least 2.8 P4 later in the year) 120G hard drive...about 80% available, DSL connection 512/128 (even when my computer starts acting "funny", but before the ISP disconnect, I still get a dowload speed of 40 to 50 KB/s. I have RAMidle showing on the taskbar, that's how I know the available RAM is dropping off really fast. It also tells me the CPU usage is at or about 100% when this strange stuff is going on, even though I'm not actually up- or downloading at the time. I scan every downloaded file before opening and do a complete system scan every 2 days at least. Any thoughts? Or should I contact the Limewire PRO helpdesk. Thought I'd try here first. Thanks.