HELP: rpm uses vasts amounts of memory and dies

I have posted this problem before, but I didn't get any answers. Problem: when I try to install some la(but not all) rpm -packages almost all of the RAM (160 Mb) and the SWAP (2 * 200M) gets eaten up and the rpm-proces is killed by the kernel. The syslog gives no clues. Tried solutions: Change rpm from 3.05 to 3.04, build rpm.rpm from source and install, increase swap by adding a swap-file of 1 Gb. Any pointer to what could posibly cause this is most welcome! Thankx in advance! Anders