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[DON'T USE] Mini-guide to help all of you with your speed problems...


1c3d0g

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Settings suggestions based on 1c3d0g's guide are not recommended for use -- they give you settings that can and likely will overload your connection. Make use of the Speed Guide (Ctrl+G) in µTorrent instead. "In the interest of making better torrent swarms," (Switeck) this thread is hereby locked.

If anyone disagrees with this decision, swing by the IRC channel and give us reason to change this stance.

OK, there's been a lot of "ppl hlp me with my up/down speed plz!!!" threads lately, so I'm going to give y'all a hand here and help you the best I can. This mini-guide certainly isn't a definitive "end all speed problems", but it should help you get better speeds if your struggling to achieve a high throughput on your machine. I'm going to assume you have a Windows XP machine since that's the OS (Operating System) I'm basing my recommendations on. Sorry, I don't have access to older M$ OS...besides, it's about time you upgraded to something newer, no? :P

Now that that's out of the way...let me say a few words in advance. First of all, there is no "rule-of-thumb" when it comes to BitTorrenting. I'm certainly no expert on BitTorrent, so the settings I present here have worked best for me. Your particular situation will be different than mine, so experiment with these values until you achieve the speeds you're looking for.

Secondly, I'm going to assume you have a green light/ball (Network OK) message in your status bar, because if you don't, you'll never get reasonable speeds and you'll need to refer to my stickied post on how to properly ask for help about this. :)

Thirdly, and I'll keep stressing this point: more connections != more speed. For those that still don't understand this, it means more connections does not equal greater speeds, unless you have the bandwidth to back it up (in other words, a really fast upload speed). Don't bother setting extreme values like 1,000,000,000 because it is not going to help you at all, in fact it's going to use up so much bandwidth (if there are many seeds/peers in a swarm to connect to) that there won't much bandwidth left to actually download/upload anything, hurting the swarm even more. Just don't do it! :/

In the same breath, I must also say that BitTorrent in general is a very dynamic creature. It is not Kazaa, Gnucleus, or eMule. Your upload speeds may be constant, but your download speeds will not be constant. Maybe in a LAN (Local Area Network) environment, but certainly not on the Internet. This is just the way it is....get used to it. :| Your up and (especially) down speeds will rise and fall continuously as seeds and peers come and go.

Another thing I'll have to mention is:

● kB/s = kilobytes per second

Don't confuse this with:

● kb/s = kilobits per second

There's an enormous difference in speed between these two measurements (think eight-fold, in other words: 8x !), so make absolutely sure that you're using the correct format to describe your connection throughput.

Also, be realistic! If your upload is only 128 kb/s (= 16 kB/s effective), and your download is 4x faster (or even greater than that), let's say 640 kb/s (= 80 kB/s effective), do not expect your download to be maxed out every time! In fact, a realistic expectation for a well-seeded torrent (a swarm with many seeds and few peers - ratio 10:1 or higher) would be around twice (2x) your upload speeds...in this case it would be about 18~22kB/s. Remember that this speed would be reached in an ideal, well-seeded torrent, but unfortunately for you and I, this is usually not the case with public trackers (where leechers far outnumber the few poor seeds trying to keep a torrent going). :(

So, in light of this, in a "normal", poorly seeded torrent, you should expect your download to be equal to or slightly less than your upload...in this case 9~11 kB/s, possibly lower. You see, the problem with BitTorrent in general is that almost everyone has a huge download capacity, but on the other hand most have a very poor upload speed. This is certainly not good for the health of a torrent, and it's this disproportionate ratio that really is the bottleneck of most torrents, and the primary reason of why you and I cannot reach our maximum download speeds most of the time. :|

BitTorrent rewards people who upload very fast with a great download speed, which is why I'm going to concentrate heavily on getting your upload tweaked just right. In fact, once your upload speed is optimized, your download speed should come automagically (let's ignore swarm problems for a minute). There are many, many factors factors that can contribute to a poor download/upload speed, but we'll see how many of those we can eliminate. The advice I give here is completely free, so I'm not responsible if your PC goes up in smoke or suddenly turns into a Terminator and decides to slap you. You've been warned...

Still here? Good. :D The first thing I'm going to address is of course: drivers. Those magical little programs that control your hardware need to be updated to the latest version to make sure they're not the culprit of your poor speeds. Developers regularly squash bugs with most new releases, so it's imperative that you update:

● Your motherboard chipset drivers:

Intel

nVidia

ATI

Via

ULI

SiS

● Your NIC (Network Interface Card) drivers...usually you'll be using the integrated motherboard one, but if you're using a standalone PCI(e) card, please update that one as well. Forgive me, if I've forgotten to mention your motherboard chipset manufacturer...these ones are all that I know of. :/ Of course, with standalone NIC's it's impossible for me to list all the manufacturers here so you'll have to Google them yourself.

Firmwares also play a very critical role in the day-to-day operation of your equipment, and they can also be responsible for miserable speeds. I highly suggest updating your network device's firmware to the latest available. Again, Google is your friend and can help you find out where you can download the latest firmware. If you have a Linksys WRT54G(L)/GS router, please refer to Firon's FAQ section on Linksys routers.

The next thing I'm going to focus on is your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). Yes, I can already hear the outcries of some people. Unfortunately, I've seen some pretty crappy BIOS releases that totally break down an otherwise perfectly working motherboard. If you're having all sorts of problems, sometimes a simple BIOS upgrade automagically fixes all of your problems. It really can save everyone many headaches. So, if you're on a Beta BIOS, or haven't updated your BIOS in a long time, now is the time to flash it to the latest version. Find out the exact make and model number of your motherboard and then Google the manufacturer of your motherboard to get your BIOS file. The usual warning applies here as well: back up all your important data and programs, because a failed BIOS upgrade can render your system inoperable! :o Flashing a BIOS is equal to having an open-heart surgery done on your PC, so be very careful and follow all instructions to the letter (print it out if you can). When the flashing is in progress, don't even touch the keyboard, mouse, or anything else! Just leave them alone (let it do its thing) until you're advised to continue.

I'm also going to recommend setting your insane overclocks back to their default values. Personally I'm not a fan of overclocking, and regardless of what everyone else may have told you, overclocking stuff past their manufacturer's recommended specs will make some things work unstable, cause unexpected behaviour and/or shorten the lifespan of your hardware...believe me. So just set everything back to original factory clock speeds to rule out any (hidden) instabilities. :)

Also, I want to make sure your hard disk is properly tuned to read/write bits & pieces of data as fast as possible too. I won't go into details, as this is not a technical guide, but let's just say that DMA (Direct Memory Access) speeds up your drive quite a bit, so you want to make sure it's set in that mode and not in PIO. Sometimes a drive will revert back to PIO mode if a certain amount of "corruptions" or failures have ocurred, usually around 5. It's important to keep checking the modes the drives are operating in from time to time. Anyway, the instructions are roughly as follows: Right-click My ComputerPropertiesHardwareDevice ManagerIDE ATA/ATAPI controllersPrimary IDE ChannelAdvanced Settings. Click on the drop-down menu and select DMA if available. Click OK. If you have more drives, set them to DMA as well. You may also want to do this for the Secondary IDE Channel. As a last step, defragment your hard disk regularly with Disk Defragmenter, since using BitTorrent generally will cause your hard disk to be fragmented more often.

Firewalls can be very useful in blocking malicious packets and the like. However, because of how some of these firewalls operate, they tend to interfere with your BitTorrent program and cause some (or quite a few) connectivity issues. Your best bet is to completely uninstall them if you suspect they have something to do with your slow speeds. If your speed magically comes back, then you know what the culprit program is. Tip: if you have a router, it may be possible that you have a built-in hardware firewall - and if this is the case - you don't have to use a software firewall (save those CPU cycles and RAM for other things). Anti-Virus software can also be of great help in protecting your very vulnerable Windows-based PC. Some Anti-Virus programs will scan all files as soon as they're written down. Although this is not a bad idea, it can sometimes really cripple your download speeds, particularly if you have a fat pipe. For more information regarding these programs, please refer to Firon's excellent FAQ, particularly section 1. :)

Once you've followed the steps outlined above, I'm going to address your network connection itself. A very handy tool for getting the most out of your connection is TCP/IP Optimizer. It's easy to use and it has worked very well for me personally. Once downloaded, all you need to do is double-click the program and a screen will be presented to you. Just slide the bar to your maximum download speed (in kb/s), click on the little round box next to Optimal settings on the bottom of the program and then click on Apply changes. It'll ask for allowing a back up etc. (you can say yes just in case something goes wrong) and then reboot your PC once the changes have been made.

Note: it's very important to set the slider bar at your connection's exact download speed, otherwise you'll have even more problems. I repeat, do not set it to something higher than your connection can handle! I'm going to try and explain why, so let's look at it this way: imagine you have a straw and a bottle full of juice (I'll leave the content for your imagination :P), and you're trying to suck the most juice out of it. If you suck too slowly, it'll take quite a while before you can finish all the juice (hint: poor bandwidth utilization, slow downloads, etc.). If you suck the juice too quickly, you will choke on it and juice will splatter all over your face and clothes (hint: missing packets, time outs, etc.). So you need to slide the bar at the exact download speed your ISP has given you. Let me remind you: don't get cocky and try to set it to an insane setting as you won't gain anything except a concussion from my baseball bat. Hopefully this clears up any confusion you might have. Restart your rig when you've done making the changes required. :)

Another very important thing you need to do is to patch your TCPIP.sys file. If you don't know what this, don't worry. Just surf over to our German friend LvlLord and download the appropiate patch for your OS. When the download has finished, double-click the program and press C on your keyboard. Then, type in 50. Press Enter. Press Y. Now the program will check to make sure that the patch was applied properly. If you get any annoying Windows messages telling you that critical system files have been modified and need to be replaced with the original versions, just click on Cancel to prevent Windows from undoing what we just did. Reboot your system when the patching is complete. You can use higher values than 50, but generally you shouldn't need to. Sometimes this patch gets reverted by Windows patches, so if you find your connections timing out or getting weird network errors, check to see if your tcpip.sys is still patched!

If for any reason you're having trouble with your modem/router, like unstable connections, frequent disconnects etc., try lowering the settings I recommended first. They may just be too strong for your modem/router to handle. Alternatively, if you're positive that your modem/router is giving you all these speed problems, you could also replace them with a model that doesn't exhibit these issues. Ask in our forums for recommendations and double-check with your ISP to make sure they accept 3rd-party network devices. :)

For the people who continuously get hash fails with lots of wasted data, you may be running a poisoned torrent. This means that the RIAA/MPAA, HBO and all these other unscrupulous organizations have infected your torrent and are sending bogus (false) data to your PC. If there are no other "true" seeds with the original data, then you'll never be able finish your download. If you notice this behaviour, just cut your losses, dump the torrent A.S.A.P. and grab another one. There's a catch, however. If you consistently notice this issue on a lot of torrents (even with legal ones), then your RAM may be to blame, as it could be corrupting your data. I suggest testing them thoroughly (at least 24 hours straight) with MemTest86+ or a similar utility to rule out this possibility.

And lastly, my pal Martin Levac wants to share this piece of friendly advice to all of you:

The single most important aspect of BitTorrent is your (mine and everybody else's for that matter) capacity to upload and to upload effectively and efficiently. It's not how much you can get, it's how much you can give and how well you give it.

You can read the rest of his very detailed post over here. ;)

John123 has some pretty good settings for very high-speed Internet users...you can view his optimized settings over here.

Attention: MaV has created a very cool script that automagically calculates values from this mini-guide, so it's even easier than before to get your optimized settings. If you follow the script route, you can ignore the rest of the text below.

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Now that we're done with the basic tweaking of your PC, it's time to open up µTorrent and go into its Preferences. I'm going straight to the point: get a calculator (Windows has one built-in, or get M$ Power Calculator) if you can't do basic math like me, because we're going to be calculating the most optimized values for your connection by hand. I'm going to use 640 kb/s down and 128 kb/s up as an example...make sure to replace these values and use your own download and upload speeds when doing the math. Ready? OK. :)

Go to Options -> Preferences... -> Network Options. Once there (and I assume you've forwarded your port and all that), we're going to look at your Global maximum upload rate. How you calculate this value is very simple. Take your maximum upload speed (in this instance I'll take 128 kb/s) and divide it by 10. Note: if you're a high-bandwidth user (> 1 mb/s), feel free to substitute 10 with 8. So:

128 / 10 = 12.8

Then, we're going to use about 75%~85% of this value. If you have a really slow upload speed, 75% is a bit more forgiving, but if you're on a really fast connection, feel free to use a higher percentage, like 85%. I do not recommend going higher than 90%, because this will be too close to your maximum upload speed and will probably choke your bandwidth at some point. So:

12.8 x .80 = 10.24

µTorrent only allows you to use whole rounded numbers, so on this ocassion we'll use 10. If you still experience some websites that are timing out, or you're having other types of problems (like difficulty sending e-mails for instance), feel free to lower this to 9. However, if you're primarily seeding and are barely using the PC for Web browsing, you can safely use 11. In this case, I'll just leave it at 10.

Global maximum upload rate (kB/s) = 10

I'm going to leave Alternate upload rate when not downloading alone as only you are the one who can decide if this applies to you or not. :| Whatever you're going to do, don't set it higher than 90% of your maximum upload speed.

Protocol Encryption can help you use BitTorrent again if you're being unfairly throttled by your ISP. If this is the case, just set it to the example below:

Outgoing: Enabled Allow incoming legacy connections

Now we're going to click on Torrent Options. I'll jump right in. Let's look at Global maximum number of connections. This value is very, very easy to guess. Just take your upload bandwidth in kb/s and put it in there. In my case it's 128 kb/s, so we'll put 128 as the number.

Global maximum number of connections = 128

The next thing we'll tackle is Maximum number of connected peers per torrent. You should generally use the speed guide's recommendation as far as connection counts per torrent goes. Values higher than 100 should not be used unless you have 10Mbit, and even then, you shouldn't go beyond 125 connections per torrent.

Now you can put that number in the box next to it.

Maximum number of connected peers per torrent = 16

Then we'll continue on to Number of upload slots per torrent. This number should obviously never fall below 1...keep that in mind. In case you have a really low upload speed, like 33.6 kb/s (standard dial-up), keep it at 1. You could try 2, but that's already pushing it. :/ Anyway, how you calculate this value is a bit tricky. First, look at what number you put at your Global maximum upload rate (in Network Options). In my example it was set to 10 and I divided it with 4. So:

10 / 4 = 2.5

I'll take the side of caution and use 2 upload slots per torrent. However, I'm going to advise you to tick (check) Use additional upload slots if upload speed <90%. Just in case someone needs those extra few bits. :)

Number of upload slots per torrent = 2

Use additional upload slots if upload speed < 90%

I'm going to leave Queue Settings alone as only you are the one who can decide what's best for you. Saying that, I still recommend using some common sense and try to download one torrent at a time. Yes, I know we're all in a hurry to get everything quickly (like McDonald's fast food), but please, think of the swarm! :o By uploading pathetic little bits here and there, it's only going to hurt the BitTorrent community even more. So be cautious when downloading (don't try running everything at once) and once you're finished don't forget to seed back to others who also want to enjoy what you've downloaded. ;)

In Other Settings, I enable all of them, and you should tick (check) them all as well.

Really, this one needs no explanation. DHT (Distributed Hash Table) can really be a life saver when a tracker goes down. No reason to have it off, as it's automagically turned off if you're downloading a private torrent. However, if you experience time-outs, frequent disconnects etc., it might be worth a try to turn it off and see if it makes any difference:

Enable DHT Network

Same here with the last option. No reason to turn it off:

Enable DHT for new torrents

Peer Exchange is just another way to get info about more peers...a very helpful mechanism:

Enable Peer Exchange

Scraping regularly checks the health of a torrent (how many seeds/peers there are etc.), so I suggest enabling it:

Enable scraping

Unless you're having severe disk space problems, it's better to pre-allocate the space to the torrent. I've found it also reduces constant writing significantly:

Pre-allocate all files

OK, now it's time for us dive into µTorrent's Advanced Options. I'm going to address only those settings which I believe are going to give you a boost...the rest are better left alone unless you know what you're doing. Remember how I told you to patch your TCPIP.sys file a while ago?

You should patch this to 80% of the value you specified in tcpip.sys (40, if you followed my recommendations). MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE THIS VALUE IS LOWER THAN THE VALUE YOU SET IN TCPIP.SYS!

Aggressive surfing won't be affected this way. :) Note: if your modem/router seems to time-out, frequently disconnect etc., you may have to lower the values for the sake of stability.

net.max_halfopen = *40.

If you can't maintain your upload speeds/can't seed properly, or you know that your ISP is shaping BitTorrent traffic (slowing down your network connection), try setting peer.lazy_bitfield to *true. It could help you with your problems. Also, it appears port 1720 (a VoIP [Voice over IP] port) is being unthrottled by some ISP's, so you may have to check that out as well. Alternatively, if all else fails, you could try port 443, 80, 21, 110 and as a last resort, 25. But it's better if you could try to find out what ports your ISP uses for NetMeeting/VoIP/Xbox Live etc. This is a legitimate question and they should be able to answer you what ports they use for these services without any problem/suspicion. It could very well be possible that you can bypass their BitTorrent restrictions using these types of ports. Here's a handy list of ports and their common uses. Also, switching ISP's to one that is known not to mess with BitTorrent traffic can also help tremendously, if it's an option for you. And switching to Geico can save you 15% or more on car insurance... :P

peer.lazy_bitfield = *true

Another setting I've encountered that gives me a somewhat more stable connection is to set the disconnect interval to a higher value. Some people recommend turning it off completely, however I find that it can still be useful in some cases. Experiment and see what's best for your situation. On my system, I've set it to disconnect after 10 minutes instead of the default 5.

peer.disconnect_inactive_interval = *600

And lastly, if you're having problems with your hard disk that can't keep up with your download speeds (or you get a Disk Overloaded message in your status bar), you may have to modify µTorrent's cache to something higher. You can set it to 4x ~ 8x your maximum download speed. Remember to never set it below 2048 (2 MB). Higher than 32768 (32 MB) is not recommended, however if you still get the Disk Overloaded message it wouldn't hurt to try. ;)

640 x 4 = 2560

diskio.write_queue_size = *2560

It's recommended to do the same with the Read Cache, as it can help ease the constant disk access considerably.

640 x 4 = 2560

diskio.read_cache_size = *2560

Now we're ready to see if we can get better speeds by downloading an OpenOffice.org torrent (keep in mind that OOo is a very well-seeded torrent, thus it represents a best-case scenario). This particular torrent should easily max out your download bandwidth. :)

So, to recap: there are many things that could be slowing down your BitTorrent downloads/uploads. Also, do not expect to always max out your download speed as this is totally unrealistic. It's more of a lucky one-time occurance than the norm. And if there are too few seeds and many peers in a swarm, your downloads will be slow, there's no way around it. Other than that, I hope you've found this mini-guide useful. Always remember: be a seeder, not a leecher! Have fun using µTorrent and Good Luck! :cool:

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Thanks, I'll edit those points. :) Some clarification though: while I know 1 kB/s = 8 kb/s, in practice, I've never reached those claimed speeds. So if for instance, you have a 128 kb/s upload:

128 / 8 = 16

...I've seen some bursts to 13~14 kB/s, but then they'll always fall back to 8~9 kB/s before climbing back to ~12 kB/s. Maybe it's overhead, maybe it's something else, but in either case that's why I use 10 to account for the minor discrepancy.

128/10 = 12.8

This is IMHO a better approximation of real-life speeds. Of course, you can divide it with whatever value you please, 'cause my guide is not a "rule-of-thumb". :P

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Heh I guess I can see what you mean, but as the speed increases, so will the discrepancy between the true conversion and estimated conversion. For example, my maximum download is rated at 5mbps. If I were to divide that by 10, it'd get "500KB/s", but if I divided by 8, I get about 625KB/s =]

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I'm not sure why this guide wouldn't be kept up to date... it's not hard to edit a forum post. Also, this is a guide, which isn't the same as a FAQ. Some people ask how to set up µTorrent for usage, but the FAQ can't possibly cover that -- only bits and pieces of the question, like why this or that might be happening.

I've seen several threads where people have asked how to set µTorrent up for the first time, and this guide is perfect for them.

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Eum...

It has nothing to do with high bandwith.

8 Bits ARE one byte, no exception.

If you dont get to that speed thats your problem, common causes would be protocoll overhead. And most dsl isps etc NEVER reaches maximum speed stated, it varies with distance.

Have to agree, this aint no mini guide. Its a HUGE tutorial :P

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Miffo: yeah, I know 8 bits = 1 byte, got that. But since overhead and God knows what else screws up most people's maximum speed (I'm on an ADSL ISP for instance), I've divided it to 10, as this is more realistic for people with low bandwidth. But I understand your message, don't get me wrong. :)

Nah, this just a mini-guide, a full-blown tutorial would comprise several forum pages :P...this only took me about two 8-hour days to write.

Edit: nevermind, I see where I was wrong. I edited the wrong pieces. :)

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Should probably move the last paragraphs of the guide more towards the beginning, as they cover the same subject. Also it is not necessarily good idea to recommend changing the advanced settings as users tend to forget any changes they did and then come complaining about obscure issues later on.

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Tumu: done. I've also thought long and hard about including the Advanced Options in the mini-guide, but at the end of the day, people are going to be messing with them anyway, so I said to myself: why not give them good values to play with? And in some cases, fiddling with things like peer.lazy_bitfield really do make a huge difference for some users, so I guess it's better if they're educated about these settings. :)

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I agree. Also, if they come to the forums looking for help, they're very likely going to end up getting instructions to change something in the Advanced Options page. Besides that, it's easy to identify which options deviate from the default -- they (mostly) have an asterisk (*) next to their values if they were changed. Undoing is just as easy (Reset button ;P).

Some might say that newbies shouldn't be changing it (hence the warning "Do not modify!"), but the way I see it is, they shouldn't touch it if they don't know what it's for. This guide does explain in a fairly detailed manner what each option is for, and why one should/might want to change it, so it should be okay.

Besides that, we can now blame 1c3d0g for any additional problems they have from following this guide xP (just kidding ;P)

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The suggestion to use TCP Optimizer might not speed up torrents as the setting changed (TCP Receive Window) applies per connection basis only and most peers do not upload fast enough for the default setting to be an issue. Increasing RWIN unnecessarily leads only to additional memory use by the TCP stack (example: 500k RWIN x 100 peer connections = 50 MB ram used for RWIN buffers). Thus it is important to use conservative peer connection limits when using large RWIN.

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TCP Optimizer = MaxMTU tester only(for me), it's optimized settings(MaxMTU=1492) on XP DSL PPPoE no good imho, XP PPPoE MaxMTU=1488, RAS PPPoE MaxMTU=1492. i'll stay with Windows default settings or Dr.TCP for my dialup DSL connection.

Nice guide, but most lazy ppl who didn't read/search would like to have a simple lookup table.

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Skateoholic: I'm glad to hear it improved your speeds! :D

abbad0n: TCP Optimizer has a built-in tool to calculate that (on the Largest MTU tab). Off the top of my head I think it was 1500 for Cable and 1492 for DSL. Obviously your router should have the same value as on your PC, otherwise you could create a (small) bottleneck between your router and your system. :)

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Skateoholic: I'm glad to hear it improved your speeds! :D

abbad0n: TCP Optimizer has a built-in tool to calculate that (on the Largest MTU tab). Off the top of my head I think it was 1500 for Cable and 1492 for DSL. Obviously your router should have the same value as on your PC, otherwise you could create a (small) bottleneck between your router and your system. :)

I dont understand whut this means? Should i change something with my router? I have a Dlink Dl-604.

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Nice of you to take the time to write this, but there is a large chunk of it you should remove, as it has nothing to do with µtorrent or bittorrent or network etc...

"The next thing I'm going to focus on is your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). Yes, I can already hear the outcries of some people. Unfortunately, I've seen some pretty crappy BIOS releases that totally break down an otherwise perfectly working motherboard. If you're having all sorts of problems, sometimes a simple BIOS upgrade automagically fixes all of your problems. It really can save everyone many headaches. So, if you're on a Beta BIOS, or haven't updated your BIOS in a long time, now is the time to flash it to the latest version. Find out the exact make and model number of your motherboard and then Google the manufacturer of your motherboard to get your BIOS file. The usual warning applies here as well: back up all your important data and programs, because a failed BIOS upgrade can render your system inoperable! yikes Flashing a BIOS is equal to having an open-heart surgery done on your PC, so be very careful and follow all instructions to the letter (print it out if you can). When the flashing is in progress, don't even touch the keyboard, mouse, or anything else! Just leave them alone (let it do its thing) until you're advised to continue."

Should not be telling people to upgrade their bios here in this forum as it's not a tech site or guide and jack and jill will be quite mad if they destroy their computer.

"I'm also going to recommend setting your insane overclocks back to their default values. Personally I'm not a fan of overclocking, and regardless of what everyone else may have told you, overclocking stuff past their manufacturer's recommended specs will make some things work unstable, cause unexpected behaviour and/or shorten the lifespan of your hardware...believe me. So just set everything back to original factory clock speeds to rule out any (hidden) instabilities. smile"

Yea it could possibly shorten the life of the component, but again doesn't really have anything to do with µtorrent, and if you are an overclocker and know what your doing you already know the risk and how to test for stability etc... More and more new middle of the road hardware is the same thing as the top of the line model, it's just been crippled. for example my Athlon XP 1700 is a crippled Athlon XP2500, and I've been running it as an Athlon XP 2600 for more then 2 years and in another year I'll replace it. So the fact that I might have shortend it's 20 year lifespan by a year or 2 doesn't matter, it will be old and slow junk long before it wears out. I've been overclocking since before it was called overclocking and I've never wore out (electro-migration) a cpu/videocard/motherboard, but I have had 2 bios flashes fail and I've been doing this professionally for 16 years.

"Also, I want to make sure your hard disk is properly tuned to read/write bits & pieces of data as fast as possible too. I won't go into details, as this is not a technical guide, but let's just say that DMA (Direct Memory Access) speeds up your drive quite a bit, so you want to make sure it's set in that mode and not in PIO. Sometimes a drive will revert back to PIO mode if a certain amount of "corruptions" or failures have ocurred, usually around 5. It's important to keep checking the modes the drives are operating in from time to time. Anyway, the instructions are roughly as follows: Right-click My Computer ▶ Properties ▶ Hardware ▶ Device Manager ▶ IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers ▶ Primary IDE Channel ▶ Advanced Settings. Click on the drop-down menu and select DMA if available. Click OK. If you have more drives, set them to DMA as well. You may also want to do this for the Secondary IDE Channel. As a last step, defragment your hard disk regularly with Disk Defragmenter, since using BitTorrent generally will cause your hard disk to be fragmented more often."

By default windows ME 2000 and XP uses dma and if it not using it there is larger problem and either need to replace the machine 4+ years old running out of date hardware and software (win98/ME), or they have a problem that they will probably need to get a tech to repair. And again this really doesn't have anything to with helping with download speed problems.

As for the 10 bit = a byte I'll leave that alone even though its 8.

I'm not knocking you or flaming or being mean, just pointing out things you might want to remove and the reasons why.

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