Just tried on different ports (7000, 8000)...using the manual connect...after half an hour i got the message:

"Limewire is unable to connect to hosts on the Gnutella network. This is most often due to firewalls...."

Unless there happens to be a fluky conflict of software, i'm leaning towards it being an ISP issue since i know that there are no firewalls blocking the ports i'm trying to use. I might put back my basic Drive Image OS backup, just to see if its a software conflict issue. I'll also have a look at the dial-up option...thanks for the help!