uTorrent drastically slows my computer

[toekneebullard]

OK, I have a 3GHz Dual Core Pentium 4, 2 Gigs of RAM, Win XP MCE.

When using uTorrent, my computer nearly freezes. I'm talking the mouse moving across the screen at like, 1 frame every 4 or 5 seconds. The difference is night and day, as soon as I pause the running torrent, the computer is fine again. but once I start it back up, bam, system slows to a screeching hault.

I'm writing the files onto a USB2.0 External drive, could that have an effect? Any help?

Thanks,

Tony

[silverfire]

Telling us what software you're running helps a lot more than your computer's specs. Specs are nothing as µTorrent could probably run without issues on a 386.

[Invy]

I don't know if external drives support PIO mode or not but you should check to make sure it is running in DMA mode.

[Switeck]

The settings you're using can drastically affect how poorly/well your computer runs with µTorrent active.

Please tell us more about your settings, such as all the Speed Guide (CTRL+G) ones.

Also, are you firewalled/behind a router, using UPnP and/or DHT, and what are your half-open connection limits?

We may be able to spot a "slowdown" joker.

[toekneebullard]

Upload Limit: 20k (My ISP caps me at 40, and if I let it go at max I can't do anything else on the net)

Upload slots: 4

Connections per torrent:1000

Connections Global: 200 (well that seems wacky)

Mac active torrents: 8

Max active downloads: 5

[DreadWingKnight]

Connections per torrent:1000

This one seems more wacky.

Are you trying to kill your computer, your router (if you have one) or your modem?

You still haven't listed your internet-related software.

[Switeck]

They all seem wacky to me.

...or tacky, and I'm not just saying that to be a bad pun.

With 8 max active torrents with 4 upload slots each, that means your upload is getting split into potentially 32 different parts. 20 KB/sec divided by 32...makes dial-up seems positively fast.

My upload is limited to about 40-42 KB/sec max -- and while downloading I can still upload at 30 KB/sec without slowdowns. I usually seed at 40-42 KB/sec, because the "lag" it causes me while surfing the net is usually quite minor. But I only alow fewer than 100 connections total and seldom run more than 3 torrents at a time. You get most of your download speed from the first 10-20 connections per torrent -- the extra ones usually are waiting for you to upload to them before they'll give you anything. So why waste bandwidth for little to no extra download speed?

[toekneebullard]

OK, as far as software I'm running McAffee VirusScan, and I've got the port forwarded. Um, other than that I don't think there's anything else.

Mind you, I'm not a uTorrent pro or anything. I set those settings a long time ago, and I guess they made sense at the time (well, if 5 connections are good, then 1000 would be great...right?) perhaps I was over zealous. I don't know the ins and outs of it all. Just enough to be dangerous you know?

[DreadWingKnight]

5 is good

50 is reasonable

100 is a bit much for most residential connections

1000 will kill your computer.

[toekneebullard]

I've reset it now to some more reasonable numbers. I guess I'll have to wait and see if that'll fix things.

Thanks for your help guys.