First, what is your Perl version?

If you are usign Perl 5.8.0, disable the signal ALARM:
 $SIG{ALARM} = undef ;
to avoid some wrong signal from the OS. I don't know if you need this for 5.6.0+ too! Well, this problem with alarm is very specific.

I saw that you uses sockets. Don't forget to close a socket after use it, or at least lose the $variable with the socket. Because the system, specially on Win32, has a limit for sockets to be opned.

You have to monitore the memory used by the process too! Maybe it wasn't coleting the garbage of unused variables and objects!

If you don't need the prompt window, run your script using the wperl.exe! This way doesn't open a console (pipe) for the process, and was 1 thing less to create problems!

Good luck! ;-P

Graciliano M. P.
"The creativity is the expression of the liberty".