I am using Fedora 13 64bit on Dell Vostro full 4GB RAM system with default Gnome GUI.

This is very annoying problem that I don't how to fix except by rebooting the whole PC.

When I have too many applications running ( like browser windows), the system start acting sluggish. The fist symptoms appear in Eclipse IDE which becomes so terrible it just becomes frozen for sometime one whole minute after I try to edit something in the editor. Then Firefox seems like it has crashed. Google Chrome becomes very unresponsive as well. All GUI applications including File manager becomes unresponsive. When I check System Monitor, the CPU is still around 20% and memory is at 80% but the system seems getting fried up. This progressively becomes worse until I soft reboot it or if I dont do it evetually the whole system is fried, no response to any keyboard key or mouse and I have to hit the hardware turn off button.

I regularly yum update the system but this makes no difference.

Please don't tell not to run too many applications because I need those for my work. I thought Linux is well designed Operating System but I am very disappointed so far.

Can some one here help ?