a question about the red and yellow signs

[karen.g]

i have been having problems with my speeds for a few weeks. and haven't been able to correct it after doing all the research, following the suggestions and posting here in the forums. the best guess i have is that it is a problem with my isp blocking my connections.

the whole time i had the red cirlce (!) at the bottom of utorrent saying "not conectable, a firewall/router is limiting your network traffic. you need to open a port..." and i would still get ok download speeds (ave 60) and upload speeds (ave 20).

then in the past day i had the yellow triangle /!\ saying "no incoming connections. if this doesn't turn green you may have a NAT problem". when this sign is up i had basically no download or upload speed. (over 12 hours i had downloaded 1% of the 350mb file). i had an hour spurt where i got better download speed and 80% of the file downloaded but no uploading. then it flattened out at 0.0 down and 0.0 up and i still haven't finished downloading that file. i gave up actually.

i am wondering if anyone can tell me the difference between these two situations. and if i can't upload will my downloading automatically stop (is there some kind of problem because of the poor share ratio?).

thanks for your help

[DiNS]

Have you forwarded a port? If so - does http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=[port number] say its OK? It sounds like you ended up with no incoming connections (therefore no connection to seeders), which would explain the very low speeds. As it got better again, it was probably your internet connection - did you update a router or change firewall settings?

It is possible to have high download speeds without high upload speeds, but it depends on which trackers or which site you downloaded from - private trackers require a set ratio (or above) or you lose your membership (and the download stops).

- DiNS

[karen.g]

i have forwarded the ports in norton and my linksys router and have tried turning off all of the firewalls entirely but i still get a blocked port message when i test the port.

when it all of a sudden started downloading more quickly i didn't do a thing, i just noticed that it was better. then about 45 minutes later i lost my internet connection for some reason and had to re-sign on to my wireless connection.

that is interesting about the trackers - i did not know that. so thanks!

[Switeck]

Even Speed Guide (CTRL+G) default settings are often too much for wireless connections, not in speed but in the amount of connections it allows at once.

You must also know exactly how much upload speed you can sustain...as even a temporary overload with wireless may have a worse snowball-rolling-downhill effect than with a wired connection.

[karen.g]

hmmmm... that is good to know too. although i did all this with wireless, with no problems for a year, so not sure why all of a sudden i would have problems.... who knows.

shall i lower settings then? any reccomendations?

[Switeck]

I as-of-yet know nearly nothing about how strong your connection is.

What's the packetloss rate? (10% packetloss is horrible for wired connections but not uncommon for wireless)

Have you tested the breaking point for the connection in terms of making too many ip-to-ip connections at once?

What's the peak speeds down and up?

What's the SUSTAINABLE speeds down and up? (Often a tiny fraction of peak speeds!)

It is the sustainable speeds that matter in µTorrent.

Without knowing more about the connection, I can only guess badly about what the "perfect" settings are for it.