Strange predicament\weird problem

[Omringo]

Hello, I'm new here and I figure this is an apropriate way to introduce myself.

I just got myself a new PC - good news? probably. The bad news is that ever since I got this lil' baby my download speed has been in the dumps (3-10KBps) as opposed to my 7 years old heap o' junk that could get all the way up to 150KBps.

A few elaborations:

1) My download speed is otherwise almost perfectly normal. it's p2p that's gettin' me down man.

2) When checking for port openness (i'm not behind a router and allowing my utorrent to pass freely through the firewall) it tends to change results from time to time. I could get the same port as open and five seconds later as closed.

3) My roomate is also connected throught cable, could this have any effect whatsoever?

4) A strange phenomena just recently encountered - my upload speeds sometimes jump all the way up to 20somthing KBps even though I limit them to 10.

Are these the symptoms of ISP throttling? should I be worried? Are tiny space gorillas nesting in my new PC, feeding on my bandwidth?

Thanks, in advance that is.

Omri, Israel.

[Switeck]

Does your 7 years old heap o' junk still get decent speeds -- or is it gone for good so you can't test with it?

Can you test µTorrent on your roomate's computer?

Also, is your roomate regularly using alot of bandwidth too -- such as for file-sharing as well?

What software firewall are you using?

What's your half-open connection max for windows AND the max half-open limit you allowed in µTorrent? (µTorrent needs to be considerably less than absolute windows max.)

Tell us more about your connection rated speeds up and down.

And please tell us all the settings currently used as displayed by the Speed Guide (CTRL+G) window -- as often bad/contradictory settings there can seriously foul up results.

[Omringo]

My heap o' junk is now literally a heap o' junk, sadly. can't really test it.

as for my roomate I'm pretty sure he's got emule on 24\7, should that be a problem? still I'm fairly positive that the change came with the new computer.

I'm using Comodo firewall, downloaded it today, I was firewalless up until, and yes, I had bad speed before the firewall came into my life.

one big difference that I can point out is that i used to work with Win2K and now it's WinPro.

Sorry, I'm not sure how to define max half open connections for windows OR µTorrent

One more thing before I post my config - I had a long happy relationship with µTorrent before this new computer. Everything was working fine, and when it wasn't I just played around with the configuration until I got satisfactory results, that's why I tend to believe that the problem lies in my computer (either windows' configuration or something else like hardware)/

here goes:

Upload limit: 7KB/s

Upload slots: 3

Connections per torrent: 100

Global: 600

Max active (both): 20

My ports are still fluctuating, sometimes I get a steady green light and still speeds don't change.

the average download speed is 3-5 KB/s max I got so far was 12ish. again, other downloads work fine.

OH! one very important point that I completly forgot: I downloaded well seeded files from a private tracker and got awesome speeds.

my upload speed stays approximetly 7 KB/s most of the time.

hope this sheds any light at all.

[Switeck]

You are allowing way too many torrents at once and way too many connections at once, especially since you're only uploading back at 7 KB/sec. Try Speed Guide (CTRL+G) and see what the xx/96k setting does...that's about balanced stats for uploading around 7 KB/sec.

You need to verify with your roomate how the shared connection's bandwidth is being split up. That way, there's less likely to be overloads for anyone.

[Omringo]

Oh, I'm sorry, I don't share the connection with my roomate, wer'e both connected on cable but seperatly. I thought maybe because we're under the same roof, using the same cable infrastructure then it might matter, does it?

[Switeck]

If you're not connected via the same cablemodem, probably not...unless congestion on that cable trunk line is a serious problem. But then your roomate would be having similar problems.

It's still worth testing µTorrent on your roomate's computer if you're allowed to. Minor differences between setup of the connection can make or break something as complex as a file-sharing program.

Is your roomate knowledgeable on this subject?