T-Bird Problem with Newsgroup Downloads

I tried Thunderbird 1.0 after some mixed experiences with 0.9.
Mail was OK, but the newsreader was flakey.  OK, now it is less so, BUT...

My problem now is that downloading fairly large newsgroups causes the 
download to halt after a few thousand articles.  The program freezes, 
starts multiple processes (as viewed in Program Manager) and, of course,
max's out the CPU.  Killing the program or attempting to kill the 
individual processes is the only way out.  

I've tried this on 2 ISP's, no change.  I'm running XP on 2GHz laptop,
500MB, etc.  No other problems to report (all other apps work fine).
X-News, OE, Agent all fine.
Can someone grab a large group 50,000+ and verify this, if possible?

TIA

-- 
jpac


"The TCP/IP connection was unexpectedly terminated by the server."
- News Servers, the New Batch

"If you are having difficulty accessing your newsgroups, check this page
for information related to potential outages, maintenance or upgrades, 
which may affect your newsgroup access."  -  Verizon Resource Center