GDI resources dropping too much

i know this has been probably been asked ad nauseaum but still..

somebody please tell me if this is normal ..

right now, i am running flash mx2004 with one document open only, msn messenger, and this browser (firefox 2 tabs on it), winamp agent and thats it ..

and according to cacheman, my free gdi resources are 32%..
and of course the whole system becomes sluggish, i have to pretty much forget about having photoshop, DW and other programs i usually run...


how can that be ?

thanks