Firstly, there's a test you can do to check whether you can connect to Gnutella.

1. Make sure your internet connection is active.

2. On Windows, go to Start menu>Run. On Mac OSX, start Terminal in Applications>Utilities

3. Type "telnet 64.61.25.171 6346"

4. If a message comes up saying "GNUTELLA OK", you should be able to use Limewire. If not, you can't

Some ISPs and a lot of college networks block Gnutella.

If you got the 'GNUTELLA OK' message, try the following:

1. Go to Tools>Options>Connections in LW and enter all of the addresses below, then restart Limewire.

2. If you still aren't getting a connection, go to the Connections window and enter the addresses manually one by one. Try all of them several times before you give up.

When you're trying to connect, make sure you have a clean connection. Many dialup connections don't maintain a constant transfer rate (mine sometimes goes down to nearly 0k/sec without disconnecting). To check this, try calling up a couple of web pages in your browser to make sure they load smoothly.

router.limewire.com
public.bearshare.net
connect1.bearshare.net
connect2.bearshare.net
connect3.bearshare.net
connect1.gnutellanet.com
connect2.gnutellanet.com
connect3.gnutellanet.com
connect4.gnutellanet.com
gnet2.ath.cx
gnotella.fileflash.com
gnet2.ath.cx
gnutella-again.hostscache.com