My iphone 3gs keeps going black and to a "thinking" icon

my iphone 3gs keeps going black and to a "thinking" icon and will do this for a long time and won't stop till I do a forced shut down.  It's all sporatic as to when it does this.  Plus it's adding pictures to contacts that don't normally have pictures and taking them away from ones who do have them.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  I have iOS 5.1.1 on it still b/c my iTunes won't download the newest verision of the iOS (yes I have the most recent iTunes on my laptop, yes I've tried multiple different times to download too) but I've heard others say not to put the newest iOS on the 3gs b/c it locks them up. 

Try doing a reset on your iPhone,
Reset your iPhone by pressing the 'Sleep' and 'Home' button at the same time for about 15 seconds or so. Your iPhone will then go through a reset / reboot procedure and will be ready for use within about a minute.
Don't worry about doing this as you will not lose data or settings.
Good luck and do report back.

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