If i'm only using about 200kb/s down and 30kb/s up while using uTorrent (all legal torrents of course!), why is it that my internet is slow as hell. I've checked my speeds and i'm getting an average of 4.5mb/s before using uTorrent. Once i fire it up, i'm only using a fraction of my available bandwidth and its slowed down my browsing to that of a 56k connection.

Is it because its a cluster fuck of incoming data (even though its not at the maximum bandwidth) or is there another reasoning behind this?

5/14/2007 3:47:26 PM

are you using a router?

5/14/2007 3:50:19 PM

who is your isp?

5/14/2007 4:03:18 PM

who is your dad and what does he do?

5/14/2007 4:04:42 PM

^^^yeah, Linksys WRT350N

5/14/2007 4:15:49 PM

Its not your download that is causing the problem, it is your upload.

5/14/2007 4:23:44 PM

set utorrent to only upload at 6kbps...that way, your download isn't crippled and your upload won't cause problems (anything less than 6kbps and utorrent caps your download for being a bitch )

5/14/2007 4:27:58 PM

^ Yea, do that

and also if you have too many open connections, it can fill up your router's <whatever that address translation lookup table thingy is called>, and slow down your Internet.

I have a WRT54G, and if I've been doing a lot of bittorrenting and if I notice that the Internet is a little groggy, a quick reboot of the router seems to clear it up.

5/14/2007 4:47:24 PM

anybody have a oink invite? That place rocks would much appreciate an invite

5/14/2007 6:22:27 PM

if dropping the speeds doesn't help, reduce the number of connections per torrent

5/14/2007 6:24:01 PM

6kb/s?

i dropped mine to 100 kb/s download and 50 kb/s upload (ratio is an issue for me) and neither myself nor my roommate have noticed any slow internet...

5/15/2007 11:33:11 AM

I've set unlimited download and 6 upload because i don't ever get more than 300kb/s down anyway.

5/15/2007 1:39:13 PM

just sign up for giganews if you want to max out your connection =\

5/15/2007 3:13:19 PM

Quote :

"set utorrent to only upload at 6kbps"

is that the minimum to still have full download speeds? i thought it was 7 or 9 or something?

5/15/2007 5:23:42 PM

have you tried plugging the modem straight into your computer and seeing what happens?

5/15/2007 6:23:26 PM

^^ unless they've changed in a later version than i have, it's still 6...my dl isn't limited at all

5/15/2007 6:27:01 PM

In your settings, you'll see max number of connections turn that to 20. That means you will only be talking with 20 or fewer people at a time and generally your program will focus on the 20 BEST connection speeds.

Your router has a limit to how many people it can talk with at a time. Forget bandwidth it doesn't mean much when you time warner cable. You router can't handle too many connections.

My roommate uses bittorrent 24/7/365 and our internet was hosed. I made him do the following

Set max connections to 20
Set max downloads to 3 at a time

I have a very nice router and its worked great since then. He still gets all his stuff in roughly the same time and our internet isn't hosed.

An example given to me that I use to explain internet speeds is the highway model.

You have Bandwidth, Channels, and Packets.

The Bandwidth is the speedlimit of the highway
The Channels are the number of lanes on the highway (1 channel = 1 connection in your case)
The Packets are the cars on the highway.

Lets use I-40 as an example.

Your router, has a max number of Channels it can handle at anytime. This includes 1 for web browsing, downloading, gaming etc. If you interact with the internet you are using a Channel. You cannot exceed the max number of channels so when you have more connections than channels available those packets are forced into the available channels... sharing it with other packets. If you get too many you get a traffic Jam.

On I-40 at rush hour... you get traffic jams because there are too many cars (packets) on the road. By doing what I said... you limit how much of the highway can be taken up by your bittorrent. Making it so you never have traffic jams. You always have a couple lanes open for other things. It's like limiting how many cars can be on the highway.

It's a rough example but the simplest example I can give. If you don't understand just do what I told you and you'll be fine.

5/15/2007 7:18:45 PM

The internet isn't a highway.

It's a series of tubes.

5/15/2007 7:44:07 PM

another thing i've noticed is the actual cable modem is limited, too... not just the router.

i upgraded to business class cable and the same router that fuct up on the cable modem now performs wonderfully hooked up to the biz modem

5/15/2007 8:16:07 PM

right now I had 800 open connections and 25 uploader connections with 10 uploading slots. With these settings I've downloaded over 13gb since yesterday evening. I guess during the day i'll use your recommendation of 3 downloads at a time and 20 connections. and over night i'll bump it up.

thanks for the tips.

5/15/2007 8:43:08 PM