uTorrent freezing and causing internet to freeze

Greetings

First time I have posted here. I am doing so because a search for answers to my issue has not yielded any relevant results so far. Most problems people have with this issue seem to be a bit different from what I am experiencing.

So here's the problem. When I run uTorrent on my system, it starts up fine, I can add torrents fine, and the torrents all start running without any serious issues... at first. Recently I have been having the problem that after running it for a while when I try to reopen the torrent window, it all goes to crap. uTorrent stops responding, and my internet connection is completely shut down. I have to use taskmanager to shut down uTorrent, which sometimes has trouble doing this, and then must restart my computer to get my internet back.

It seems, however, that while the program has frozen, the torrents have continued downloading. As it was showing some torrents as half downloaded when it crashed, but upon restarting the machine they have fully downloaded. So I'm guessing the program froze while they were downloading and they didn't stop downloading... until I pulled the plug with Task Manager that is.

My modem is connected directly to my computer's ethernet port. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium on an Acer Aspire 7552. Other info about my system can be found on my profile.

Has anyone else run into a similar problem? My machine itself doesn't freeze, just uTorrent, and it manages to take my ability to connect to the internet through any other program with it. My computer continues to show that it is connected to the internet just fine, only no other programs can connect. They open and run fine, just no connections.

Thanks,
ArchbishopShaggy

Make sure you are using an up-to-date version of uTorrent. I'd also scan for malware or viral infections.

There are also many other great alternative torrent clients you can consider using.

I have checked, and am using the most up-to-date version of uTorrent. I have also scanned my computer and no viruses or malware are present.

I use Norton Internet Security on my machine, but it has never had issues with uTorrent.

Often times the Firewall can affect torrents; it's important to configure it properly.