Torrent Speed Paranoia

Calleja · May 10, 2010

Ok.. so I have a sort of iffy notion that uTorrent has been slower since the latest update to it. I just don't think torrents are downloading as fast as they used to, and it's been days since I've seen my top download speed in any torrent.

Now, granted, uTorrent probably isn't the problem here, but I still need to make sure. Does anyone know of a torrent that's FAST as fuck, just to see if I can get a top speed download from it? Content is irrelevant.

Ravenpoe · May 10, 2010

Amorous Eyes said:
I always use the latest builds and I can tell you right now that uTorrent isn't the problem.
Something else might be hogging your bandwidth.

I can't give you links.

Why not? There's nothing inherently shady or against the rules in the act of torrenting. He could be using it for sponsered, copyright free and perfectly legal material.

I mean, he isn't, but he could be.

Calleja · May 11, 2010

Hey, I am!!

For..uh.. SOME of the stuff.

aranoid:

PatrThom · May 11, 2010

Try downloading the newest release of FreeBSD or Debian or something. Plenty of people in those swarms have that torrent up and running.

--Patrick

figmentPez · May 11, 2010

Try downloading Open Office via torrent, it should have a whole lot of seeds out there. Either that or one of the Linux distros.

DarkAudit · May 13, 2010

Make sure your internal IP hasn't changed while you weren't looking. Many routers only allow one machine at a time to use a port set with port forwarding. Once I accounted for that and changed router settings accordingly, I was back up to proper speeds.

GasBandit · May 13, 2010

All I can tell you is every torrent I get off demonoid still uses every drop of my bandwidth if I let it.

Calleja · May 13, 2010

Alright.. that last post made me realize a new issue-ish. I can't access demonoid.com, it just won't load. After checking it was just me on downforeveryoneorjustme.com I fired up hotspot shield and... yup, instant loading of demonoid.com

Wtf? Have they blocked Mexico or something?

Calleja · May 13, 2010

I think NOD32 may be the problem with my torrent speed issues... even though I've tried to add it to the exclusion list (version 4 is a bit confusing on what it's excluding or not). Argh, this is driving me effing nuts.

Calleja · May 13, 2010

Alright.. it seems like I've located the problem. It came from where I least expected it to.

Since time immemorial (when I started torrenting about 6 years ago) I've set my utorrent upload limit to the xx/96kbps automatic setting, which limited my upload speed to 7.0 kB/s and gave me my top download speed on good torrents without fail.

But now my ISP's speed is much much faster and it seems like limiting my upload speed now also limits my download speed. I let utorrent reconfigure itself by running it's now included speed test... and my download speeds instantly shot up. Problem is that I now find my normal web browsing much slower... so I do need to limit my upload speed a bit, I just need to find the sweet spot.

How do you guys configure this?

Calleja · May 13, 2010

But do you manually configure it in the preferences dialog, or do you let utorrent configure itself?

PatrThom · May 13, 2010

uTorrent likes to see plenty of upload before it'll feed you better download. It's not that the client throttles you, it's that if you don't have enough unused upload bandwidth to handle the outgoing TCP/IP confirmation traffic, your connections will die off. It's like trying to drink a lot really fast without stopping to breathe.

--Patrick