Hi nanook!
My routine trick to get WinMX (on WPNP) working smoothly is to start with one or two warm-up searches for popular artists (Madonna is always a safe bet). If these searches don't bring lots of results, simply disconnect and reconnect. When you get lots of results for the easy searches proceed to the stuff you really want to find.
Sometimes it helps to run an additional warm-up search for a more popular artist of the genre you are interested in. That will get you better connected to the people that are likely to have what you are looking for.
- tg
