Yes, thank you both for the help. I must have missed it but that was the problem. I added a firewall exception and it works now.  I am mining on bst.elfpool.org now.

So far I have found ccminer 1.8.3 by tpruvot@github the quickest on my gtx 960.  Does anyone know of anything faster for Nvidia, or is this as good as it can get for me right now?

I'm mining at about 280 kH/s. I know it is not that great but didn't build this PC with mining in mind and my electricity is flat-rated so anything is profitable.