There's nothing wrong with your LW connection (5 green bars is 'excellent'), it sounds like you're seeing fake files. These will sit 'connecting' for ages & then need more sources, but won't ever download.

Stay away from files with huge numbers of sources, these are more likely to be fake. Try a file with 10 sources or less, or those with a modem source. Also vary your search terms & see if the All Types search gives you different results. Check the threads below for more info. The second thread has info which also applies to video files.

Fake files showing up in search results
How to find music

If every single file that you try to download sits connecting (search for an old song as a test), delete LW's preferences folder when LW's properly closed. Points 2 & 3 below have instructions.
Fixes for LimeWire
Deleting this folder will kill all of your settings within options, you'll have to go back through & reset things afterwards.

If you're not seeing the blue globe icon, right click at the very bottom of LW's interface (near the connection bars) & make sure that 'show firewall status' is ticked

Your MN 700 has a firewall, so if you do see the brick wall icon get back to us & we'll try to help with that.

wow, i guess it was an extremely odd coincedince that i tried like 15 different things for like 5 different songs and none worked, i read the articles and probably one of the main tips (besides the top results thing) was not to search for artist and song, try for just one

every thing works...frusterated me to no end i guess im just a newbie

thank you very much...so there was nothing wrong all along, its all about finding the non bloated correctly sized one

also, there is a wall in front of the earth ball but i set norton for full open access by limewire and it has never been an issue

If you're seeing that firewall icon, chances are that most people can't upload from you...do you ever see any uploads?

I guess it comes down to whether you want to share or not

theres no uploads going i looked for like 5 minutes, what should i do to allow sharing?

In LW go tools > options > bug reports > view example. Scroll down to 'recieved incoming this session'. If it's false, you can't recieve incoming connections & so other people can't download from you.

You need to double check that your Norton firewall's allowing LW & make sure that the XP firewall is off.

You could port forward for the MN 700. The instructions are below.
http://www.portforward.com/english/r...0/Limewire.htm

Make sure to set up a static IP address first Remember that LW's listening port, the port in LW's 'manual port forward' box & port forwarded within a router all have to be the same number.