Version 3 slow, slow internet - v 2.2.1 is fast, no slowdown

Dear all,

I wanted to share my experience with uTorrent v3 with you. I didn't get this version to perform as I expected it to. I reverted back to v2.2.1 and everything is back to normal now.

When I installed uTorrent v3 (latest stable build) I noticed immediately that my internet connection responsiveness decreased significantly while downloading. Browsing felt very sluggish and sometimes pages didn't load.

I then lowered the maximum up- and downloadspeed to half of what I measured at speedtest.net. To no avail: browsing remained cumbersome.

uTorrent download speed was very low as well. I reached close to the maximum speed at the beginning of the session, but after 30 seconds the speeds went to half my connection's speed.

I tried changing the settings according to many posts on these forums, but nothing helped.

I then uninstalled uTorrent v3. I found an old v2.2.1 installer on my PC, and installed this version. Everything works like a charm: downloading at 99% of my connection's speed and at the same time I am able to surf without any trouble.

Does anybody have an explanation for these phenomena?

Kind regards,

Bikeman

Is there differences in settings like uTP?

When I installed uT 2.2.1 it remembered which torrents where loaded, as was the listening port and the "Basic BitTorrent Features" are all identical as they were in v3.

In short: settings are identical in both versions.

Thanks for the blistering fast replies!

For now I will continue using v2.2.1 , so I will not continue my search for the 'why' of uTorrent v3 performing this slowly.

For reference purposes please find my configuration below:

- Vista Home Premium SP2 x64

- AVG Free 2011

- Connectable (= green icon in bottom right, connectability confirmed in the speed guide)

- 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up (speed guide: ~7 Mbps down, ~900 kbps up)

- Browings using Chrome

- 5 torrents in uTorrent, 1 downloading, others seeding

I used various settings in v3. The below settings where the ones used during my last trials, and are now in use in v2.2.1:

- UPnP, NAT-PMP enabled

- Firewall exception added

- Global maximum number of connections: 50

- Max number of connected peers per torrent: 50

- No transfer rate limits

- 'Apply rate limit to uTP connections' enabled, other options are not enabled

- uTP enabled, 'ask for scrape' enabled, other options disabled

Kind regards,

Bikeman

What model router?

It's a TP-Link TD-W8960N.

Is there an SPI firewall of some sort in it?

Have you tried with it off?

As far as I can see in the web interface there is no Statefull Package Inspection firewall. The features do state there is one, though.

Since there is no reference in the user interface I cannot test without the SPI firewall.

Anyway, in the mean time v. 2.2.1 is humming happily along, with now 384 torrent loaded and 8 torrents active, taking up 85% of my upload bandwidth. My surfing performance has no significant perceived performance degradation.

I went back to 2.2.1 and it worked really well speed wise.... then the same thing happened as with 3.0. It just slowed to a crawl. When I use 2 "test" torrents that I use to check my download speed and they are still working fine. I'll get approximately 85 - 90% of my actual "real world" bandwidth (BW 8 - 12 Mbits/sec so DL 1 - 1.2 Mbytes/sec). The upload speed is NOT affected. Thus I have eliminated any ISP shaping. It doesn't matter if I've 1 torrent download or several. Ain't life a joy sometimes

Also have problems with download speed in 3.* version. Download speed goes up to 2.5 MB/s (it's limit speed of my provider) after starting of torrent and goes down to 9-10 KB/s quickly after half a minute. After 3 - 10 minutes it goes back to 2.5 MB/s. And then there are no any problems with download speed during entire torrent download.

There is no such problem in 2.2.1 version. Settings are default in both 3.* and 2.2.1.

Yup same for me. Everytime I upgrade to the newer version I experience the slowest downloading speeds. i then reinstall an earlier version (1.8 for me) and it works perfectly

If it's a brand new torrent, it's because it has to allocate the file on disk, during which it can't really download.

it has to allocate the file on disk, during which it can't really download.

So, 2.2.1 does not do this and therefore there is no a few-minute drop in the download speed at the beginning of torrent download, right?

2.2.1 does it too most of the time, but depending on the settings, it might happen at the beginning, later, or not at all (if diskio.no_zero is on and you don't have UAC), same as 3.1.3.

As I can see, 2.2.1 download speed goes up to 2.5 MB/s quickly after a torrent starting and remains the same all the download time. Seems, allocating file on disk does not affect somehow download speed of 2.2.1, unlike 3.* versions. I have not changed any settings of utorrent after installing (except minor settings like download path, visibility of some panes in UI and so on).