EDIT - as well as my fire wall being turned off I've tried other torrent clients such as vuze and Bittorrent
Why isn't my torrent client connecting to seeds or peers?
Some torrents won't work or maybe the tracker from the torrents is broken.
Why isn't my torrent client connecting to seeds or peers?
Could it be %26quot;the torrent%26quot; you are trying to download. If it doesn't connect usually there isn't enough seeds or peers to give you anything. I use U torrent and if the bar down the bottom section stays red that is the problem