BitTorrent speeds - Finally out of ideas

[Cynic66]

Hello people, my last hope.

Let me fill you in.
Right now using ABC, I am trying to download 2 popular torrents (lots of seeds). Both of them will go a MAXIMUM of 6-10K, and I have a fairly decent cable connection. They have been going for almost 24 hours now, with no improvement in speed. I am generally uploading twice to thee times as fast as I download, excepting for later config changes.
Downloads are all GREEN, A-OK.

Now.. I have tried:
- 2 different clients so far, ABC and Azureus
- I have an alternate range of ports forwarded in my Linksys router, the ports are not in use by anything else
- I have tried limiting my upload speed to different levels: unlimited, ~80%, ~50%, ~20~, and no real change
- I have only one firewall which is configured properly, and I have tested with it OFF
- I have screamed at it and flipped it the bird, to no avail

If it's of any use, I'm running on a AthXP 2500+ with a GB of RAM.

If you need any more info, just ask. If anybody can help me figure this out, I would be extremely grateful.

[thongsai]

screenshot of network card settings and router port forwarding page would help

[Cynic66]

Done and done.

[moneoa]

Done and done.

I use linksys too and looking at your pictures I dont know what might be wrong.
I also use shaw broadband too and everything with exception of port numbers opened
are the same.

Everything should work fine

Ever tried any other clients aside from the two mentioned?

[maartendc]

I've got the same prob with azureus. But I think its just the bittorrent network which is getting fucked up.

[Poullos]

I experience the same thing if the torrent is very very popular. Let's say 3000-4000 leechers and 300-500 seeds. My download drops dramatically. Maybe its because of the trackers used and can't take to much load.
You have a nice pc, why don't you increase the connections per torrent from 100(default in azureus) to 300 and see.
It works for me from time to time

[olddude]

does this happen on absoloutely every torrent you connect to? do you get a speed higher than that using other protocols (FTP, DC++, HTTP, etc...)?

have you upgraded the firmware on your linksys yet?

try another client like bittornado.

[meyou123]

Hello people, my last hope.

Let me fill you in.
Right now using ABC, I am trying to download 2 popular torrents (lots of seeds). Both of them will go a MAXIMUM of 6-10K, and I have a fairly decent cable connection. They have been going for almost 24 hours now, with no improvement in speed. I am generally uploading twice to thee times as fast as I download, excepting for later config changes.
Downloads are all GREEN, A-OK.

Now.. I have tried:
- 2 different clients so far, ABC and Azureus
- I have an alternate range of ports forwarded in my Linksys router, the ports are not in use by anything else
- I have tried limiting my upload speed to different levels: unlimited, ~80%, ~50%, ~20~, and no real change
- I have only one firewall which is configured properly, and I have tested with it OFF
- I have screamed at it and flipped it the bird, to no avail

If it's of any use, I'm running on a AthXP 2500+ with a GB of RAM.

If you need any more info, just ask. If anybody can help me figure this out, I would be extremely grateful.

Well I have ABC also and have a athlon xp 2600 with a gig of ram on a decent cable connection also....but that is where the similarities end. I am getting 50 to 60k download speeds on most things I download! I can get a large file (one to one and a half gig) in about a day. So I am having no problems whatsoever! I only have one computer connected directly to the motorola cable modem (SB 5100) and I don't have a router or any other computer on my connection. Mabye that is the problem? Could the router be slowing it down? Have you tried it directly?

[napho]

This is a longshot but some modems seem to perform better with BT than others. People buying their own modems in Canada have noticed that Toshiba is the best, followed by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta which is the worst by far.

[Cynic66]

Thank you for all your comments, I will try to address them all accordingly

Ever tried any other clients aside from the two mentioned?

Not recently no. I used the origional BT client a LONG time ago, and it worked ok.. but I seem to remember Azureus working ok not TOO long ago (couple months).

I experience the same thing if the torrent is very very popular. Let's say 3000-4000 leechers and 300-500 seeds. My download drops dramatically. Maybe its because of the trackers used and can't take to much load.

Maybe, I dont' know much about trackers. With that many users, I imagine nowaday the majority of people are trying to download much faster than upload. If 100 seeders are upping at an average of 10K each or less, and 3000 leechers are all trying do download at 100K.. well.. the numbers just dont work out do they? Maybe I have things mixed up, but maybe the problem is a shortfalling of the BT network. But, that still doesn't explain how a lot of people regularly get 100K+ down.

does this happen on absoloutely every torrent you connect to? do you get a speed higher than that using other protocols (FTP, DC++, HTTP, etc...)?

Yes, it seems to so far. I've had 3 different popular torrents going and one less-popular (but still enough seeders), and they all go slow. My speed is just fine for everything else however. HTTP and FTP transfers go nice and quick, 50KiB to 200KiB depending.

I only have one computer connected directly to the motorola cable modem (SB 5100) and I don't have a router or any other computer on my connection. Mabye that is the problem? Could the router be slowing it down? Have you tried it directly?

Maybe.. but if it's forwarded properly, it shouldn't be causing a problem. Other things work fine. I could try pulling the router tonight and try it, but my roommates will be pissed, lol.

This is a longshot but some modems seem to perform better with BT than others. People buying their own modems in Canada have noticed that Toshiba is the best, followed by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta which is the worst by far.

I think this is entirely possible. Where I am, I'm stuck with the Teryion (sp?) modem from SHAW. It's a freaking HORRIBLE modem, and I've had problems with them before. I have no way of testing another modem tho.

Again, thanks for all your help.
I do have one thing to contribute, which may help others.

You have a nice pc, why don't you increase the connections per torrent from 100(default in azureus) to 300 and see.

With the BT clients going on default (100 connections) EVERYTHING else internet-related would go SLOW-ASS. Like, 5 minutes to load a web-page slow. When I decreased the max # of connections to 60, and reduced my max upload rate a little, the problem almost completely went away. Firefox/IE was nice and fast again.

[charlesmelissa]

It doesn't matter if zone alarm is off, it still slows down your downloads. Remove it and replace it with another. Also, make sure the XXP firewall is off if you are using another. I had the same problem and it was ZAP.

[olddude]

My speed is just fine for everything else however. HTTP and FTP transfers go nice and quick, 50KiB to 200KiB depending.

then your connection is fine. the issue lies with the torrents that you're downloading. there can be 100 seeds, but if they're all uploading at 3KB, the torrent is going to drag. it's not just the seeds, but also the leeches upload speed limiting things. speeds change with every torrent.

t doesn't matter if zone alarm is off, it still slows down your downloads. Remove it and replace it with another. Also, make sure the XXP firewall is off if you are using another. I had the same problem and it was ZAP.

this is only with ZoneAlarm 5. you can download the older version of 4.5 and it doesn't cause any problems, I'm using it now:

http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/information/znalm/zaReleaseHistory.html