If you do get fast speeds with a speed test or other torrent, but...

[neji]

you get considerably slower speeds with many other torrents, does it necessarily mean that the slow speed comes from the swarm and not issues that you yourself could fix (firewall, utorrent settings, etc.?)

What I mean (I have read the Speed Guide) is that I do know my connection/setup is capable of pulling down 300kb/s --I achieved it on Slackware and a few other torrents-- I seem to get much slower speeds on many other torrents. And on these same torrents, I can see using the Peers tab at the bottom that others are getting much faster speeds.

So even though I can get fast speeds on _some_ torrents, could it still be that there problems with my setup that are giving me these comparatively lower speeds on other torrents? Or does being able to get much faster speeds on some torrents mean that it's just issues with the swarm that are giving me lower speeds?

Cheers and thanks. =D

[kurahashi]

I achieved it on Slackware and a few other torrents

Such torrents as Slackware or Openoffice are not representative enough. Mostly because those are usually very well seeded (overseeded). That means downloading these torrents doesn't require proper and large upload settings, because you are given the download mostly for free from seeders. Similar thing goes with private torrents. But public torrents are usually not so well seeded and if you want to achieve better speeds -> you have to get more from peers -> so you have to give more -> so your upload have to be good and properly configured.