BT download speeds permanently dropped from 300k to 20k!

[cannonball13]

Hey guys, I'm hoping that someone may have some words of wisdom that may be able to help me out.

Here's the situation. I have a cable connection that's 1.5Mb/384k during the day, and 3Mb/384k during the night.

For the last year I've been using BT and getting consistent download speeds of about 170k/s during the day, and 350k/s at night, and uploads of up to 40k/s.

However, as of a few days ago, I cant get anything to download on BT at over 20k/s, and thats if I am lucky!

I have tried various torrents, tried running them for hours and even days, nothing helps. Most of them just tick along at about 4-5k/s download, and the same for upload.

If I queue up 3 or 4 torrents, and im lucky, I get a cumulative download speed of about 20k/s, and an upload of 6k/s.

To make things even more complicated, when downloading 3 or 4 torrents, even though the cumulative download speed never exceeds around 20ish k, it maxes out my connection. What I mean is that I can no longer surf the web, and instant messengers sign out!!!

When im not using BT, the connection works fine and speeds on http and ftp downloads are just fine and dandy.

Here is what I have eliminated so far as causes:
1) Viruses, Trojans and possible software conflicts: Reinstalled the OS and duplicated the problem without installing any additional software
2) Netlimiter, Software Firewall or peerguardian issue: have tried a fresh install of windows without any of them installed
3) Am not using a router so thats not an issue
4) Windows XP (SP1) firewall is disabled
5) Had the ISP check my line and modem, they gave both a clean bill of help.
6) Network card: hooked up the cable modem via USB
7) BT client: usually use BitComet but have tried Azureus and uTorrent as well.
8) have tried limiting my upload but that hasnt helped either
9) there have been no hardware changes
10) its not the torrents either, ive tried torrents with 50 seeders and no leechers!


Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

PS: One more thing. Just once yesterday, all of a sudden my download speeds shot up to 300k/s. I had 3 torrents running, one at 200k/s and the other two at 50each. The speed stayed consistent at 300k/s for about 20minutes at which time the internet connection just dropped. Downloads speeds when to zero, instant messengers signed out, absolutely no network activity. A few minutes later the internet started working again, and the download speeds once again went back to under 20k/s.

Oh, and for that short duration that the downloads were going at 300kbps, the uploads went up to about 30kbps as well.

I am extremely perplexed.

Any suggestions?

[isus]

It could be traffic shaping at your ISP.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Seems like you have covered most of the bases there. Have you by chance tried a speed check, I think pc pit stop still has one, to see if your isp has capped you? Sometimes they can be very coy about such things and its hard to get any real help from some providers. Some even try and block BT traffic.

[cannonball13]

Ive run a variety of speed tests, and the results are perfect. Its only BT download speeds that are affected.

I've been thinking along the lines of my ISP capping BT downloads somehow, but that doesnt fit in with two things:

1) The downloads did go up to 300k/s that once
2) if the BT downloads are just capped, why does that max out my connection overall?

Ive been wracking my head and I know this is a stretch, but is there any chance that my IP could have ended up on a peerguardian blocklist or some such thing? Any way to confirm that?

The slow downloads wouldnt be that bad if I could at least leave them running and still use the internet!

[Mels_Smileys45]

Theres no telling what the PG numbnuts will block. I say its just bad luck or something. Just kidding, sorry, I have no clue.

[jona100]

you rarely ever get your full bandwidth speed with BT; only a few files give you that, I have a 2Mbit line and only get the full speed on 'snospmiS' episodes.

[cannonball13]

Yeah I realize you dont always get full speed on BT, but if you read my full post you would know that this problem is quite different.

Slow download speeds I can live with, but slow download speeds and an otherwise unusable connection to go with it when using BT? Obviously something is wrong!

Cheers for the reply though.

[Auggie2k]

Maybe the ISP has blocked the BT ports, that's the only reason I can think of. Who and where is your ISP provider?

[cannonball13]

Im in Poland, the ISP is astercity.
I'm going to try and see if I can get in touch with someone else on the same ISP and see if they can reproduce this problem.

What I dont understand however, is that if the BT ports are blocked or capped:
1) why do the occasional downloads go faster and why does the connection then crash in such a strange manner
2) why would the rest of my connection max out or die when using BT?

As far as I know these things dont fit into the picture of blocked BT ports.

I hope Im not coming across as being difficult, im just extremely frustrated. If it cant be fixed ill accept that, but only once I figure out whats going on.

I do appreciate you guys taking the time out to try and help!

PS: Im going to run Emule overnight and see how that works. Havent used it in a few weeks and im curious to see if its been affected by this problem as well.

[Auggie2k]

Check out the results with similar ISP users and report back to us. It is strange behavior alright. Has there been any noticable changes with your computer, software or hardware? Maybe are there loose or damaged cables, modems, aerials? Just trying to cover all grounds here.

[cannonball13]

Yeah Im going to try and get results from other users on the same ISP, but it might be a little tricky since im not really a local and dont know many people here.

There have been no hardware or software changes, and I had the guy from the cable company come around earlier today and check the cables etc, and he gave the installation a clean bill of health.

I'll keep you guys posted as I get any new information, though it might not be until after the weekend.
Thanks again!

[Greylin]

Have you tried changing the ports on your BT client? I also think that if you had downloaded at around 200kB/s for a while and then it dropped it could be because of the peers that you are connecting to now have less upload bandwith than the ones you connected to in the past. Just a thought.

[cannonball13]

Ive tried various random ports with no luck.

I'd agree with you on the peers if it wasnt for the other factors. That is 1)the way the connection died, and 2) the fact that even if i let the downloads run slowly it makes the internet connection unusable.

Besides, ive tried so many different torrents and left them running for so long, you'd think at least one of them would go over 20k!

Nah, it seems like more of a 'connection' issue. Im reaching here since Im not too tech savvy when it comes to the inner workings of the BT protocol, but I think either im having trouble connecting to peers, or the connection to them drops when I try to transfer data.

[boogiedan]

cHECK DIS..
Im on NTL BBand in the UK
was on 1meg sevice
then basically they sent over last 2 months 2(i have 2 say ignorned em) 2 Letter..
basically they cut off mi connection for 6 days solid
then they send an Engineer round to my house 2 fit a new modem etc..
Basically they FORCED me on to the 512k Service because of my constant high d/l u/l addiction
anyhows check dis..
i run Bitcomet 0.6 yeah an untill they dropped me i was gettin amazing speed's
right now anyhow's im same cant get above 20 or 30kMAX tried all LAST U GOTTA CHEK THIS>>
no bull every hour or even less my connection just drop's DEAD...
Then i have to turn off pc fully wait 2 mins -unplug modem, wait 30sec's -plug back in THEN..
boot up xp again to even surf a webpage never mind torrenting(ive noticed approx120meg i get then DEAD!
Pls has any1 else had this with NTL uk ..
Also is there anyway around this...
am i right thinking they've Capped me(is that the word or wotever)
cheer's all

[shawners]

Try making your upload speed set for 20kbs even if your getting 6kbs upload, make sure its set correctly and change your ports to above 30000, and set arange of 20ports open for your router. and make sure your client.exe has access to the net.. ANd keep away from public torrent sites, speeds will always be up and down since people drop soon as the file finishes.

[Mels_Smileys45]

I think that the traffic shaping goes beyong just blocking ports but I'm not sure how they do this. I remember a similar problem like this with an isp last year and I never heard of an answer on how the achieved blocking BT traffic. It really sounds like what you have going on though.

P.S. Stay away from private sites, they are very dangerous places to be doing illegal activities.

[cannonball13]

Actually, I do have my uploads capped at 20k, have tried all manners of port and im not using a router as I mentioned earlier.

The BT client has full access to the internet. I only wish it were something that simpler.

Ran Emule all night and that downloads just fine and dandy, so whatever this problem is, its BT specific.

Forgetting the low download speed, does anyone have any ideas to why it 'kills' the connection and even makes surfing impossible when I use BT? (even though there should be plenty of spare bandwidth left!) If I can work around that, i can live with the slow downloads.

[Krell]

I want for someone to send this guy a PM with a link to a torrent in it

I want someone to select a torrent, like that Star Wars \ Babylon 5 film spoof Mels posted

the torrent must have MAX seeders, and be verified by you to KICK ASS

I mean 600 fucking K kickass

Then I want this user to clean up his PC, his temp files, defrag etc etc and reboot AFTER the defrag!

Close ALL apps, antivirus, I mean no none nein nyet nada

Then, open the kick assed torrent with BitComet and observe the performance

Follow the steps exactly and write things down, I want to know in kiloBITS or kiloBYTES

learn the difference and be specific!!

you guy handle this on Sat and I will look at what he posts



.

[Krell]

4226 error

You can check if you're hitting this limit from the Event Viewer, under System - look for TCP/IP Warnings saying: "TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts".

Start > Run > eventvwr.msc /s

Get it, run it, change it


READ - http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=tools


Do you really want to change the limit to 10? (Yes/No/Change) C


Please enter the number of concurrent
half-open connections (10-16777214, ESC=Auto 10/50): (i set mine to 500) [ENTER]


http://www.lvllord.de/download.php?u...tch223d-en.zip



.

[Krell]

Also, I want to CLARIFY

You DO have cable for broadband, and not DSL?

If you have broadband, I want your MTU to be set at 1500, BUT if it is DSL, then lower it to 1492, it causes a sort of buffer over run that will terminate your connection to your ISP, and can even do it PERManently !


Please dont muck up this thread with snake oil till we do what I ask, ok?


.

[boogiedan]

much appreciated all
thx 4 post's
nice thread

[cannonball13]

Connection is cable, MTU is at 1500.

As far as I know the 4226 error is not an issue as Im running Windows Xp Sp1a.
Checked the log anyway, nothing to report.

Cleaning up.... well there's nothing to clean up. Running a clean fresh Windows install. The only additional things I have installed are the BT client (BitComet), Netlimiter and Firefox. Neither Netlimiter nor Firefox are the problem as I have also tried a clean install without either of them!

Left 2 slackware torrents running all night that usually download pretty fast, the average combined download speed was about 8kB/s. Upload averaged at about 4kB/s.

Slow torrent or not, there has to be something wrong!

If someone wants to give me a specific torrent to test, i'd be much obliged.

[cannonball13]

oh, and that was kiloBYTES ;)

[boogiedan]

hoot hoot this thread just keeps on going--
must be we are all torrent lover's

[Krell]

Ok, next, I want you to install the BitSpirit v3.1.0 Final Release (http://fileforum.betanews.com/sendfile/1064929835/1/bsv3.1.0.077.EN.exe) and make it the default handler for your BT.


Save this torrent to your desktop, then right click it, chose Open With > BitSpirit. You may have to browse to the BitSpirit.exe, and check the box that says "Always open with . . "


Right Click this link > Save As > Desktop
star_wreck_itp_subtitled_xvid.torrent (http://www-us.starwreck.com/torrent/star_wreck_itp_subtitled_xvid.torrent)


Right now this is pushing 600 KB on my machine

it always does, I dl 200Mb while posting this


Do these two things

.

[cannonball13]

BitSpirit installed.

Downloading that torrent. Only been about 10 minutes so far and the speed is fluctuating between 10-28 kilobytes/second with an average of about 22.

Haven't been 'disconnected' so far, but sometimes that takes a while.

I'll report back in a few hours as the numbers should be a bit more meaningful then.

[Krell]

10 minutes should be enough, if that speed doesnt pick up in another 10, you got problems.

Notice the number of CONNECTED seeds


.

[cannonball13]

Well its been about 20 minutes now.

Seeds connected: 60
peers: 64

Averaging at about 25k/s. Now thats better than what ive been getting this last week, and my internet connection hasnt died because of it....... but its a far cry from what it was 10 days ago!

Any suggestions?

[Krell]

If you tell me in your next post that the torrent stayed around the 25k range, then I want you to do some bandwidth benchmarks from dslreport and speakeasy

empty your browser cache, and do a few tests with different providors.

When you get to the results page, click FILE > Save As > (drop down).mht > Report 1.mht, Report 2.mht etc etc

Depending on what those tests tell me, the next step would be for you to save your Event Viewer logs and name them, and possibly send me a full Aida32 report (not evergreen)

With the Aida32, I can tell more about your system etc.


.

[flawl3ss]

It is not the ISP, not your cable/dsl modem, not your PC! It is simple the software such as ProtoWall or PeerGuardian. I stopped using software such as these 1-2 years ago for this same exact problem. MY connection too capped out at 20 KB/s. I came to this conclusion after using my bittorrent client after shutting down PeerGuardian and everything was fine. You guys are thinking too hard. It makes sense though, with so many IPs to filter through it would slow down the connection.