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uTorrent kills wireless connection.


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I'm using utorrent 1.2, and generally quite impressed.

I use Azeurus and BitComent fairly extensively, and am familar with most network and torrent settings.

I am finding that my wireless connection (11g) seems to fall over a lot when running utorrent. The client pc use an Intel 2200BG card, talking to a adsl wireless router. While I'm aware with torrent programs this tends to point towards the wireless NIC drivers not being able to handle the number of connections (or the Router not handling it) I should point out that the same system happily runs Azureus/Bitcomet 24/7 for days at a time with no connection issues.

I've tried running with just 1 torrent loaded - a small torrent on a private tracker, which has 2 seeds and 6-8 peers. I've also reduced the settings in utorrent: max upload speed anywhere from 10-25 kB/sec (I run Bitcomet at 25). I've disabled DHT (not used anyway on a private tracker). I've reduced max no.connections/torrent down to 50 (should not apply in this case as only 8 peers on torrent. I've also tried reducing net.max_halfopen down to 4 (from 8).

In all cases the download/upload rate will periodically drop to 0, and all network activity (web-browsing etc..) on the pc will cease. After a while it will come back up and the same thing will happen. Sometime it happens almost immediately on starting a torrent.

I'm running XP Pro SP2, I do NOT have a patched TCPIP system file.

As mentioned, I realise a lot of this points to non-utorrent issues, but I'm trying to identify why other torrent clients are fine even when run much much harder. Could it be to do with the speed at which connections are attempted?

Thanks for any tips.

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Well there are many, many people who are experiencing what seems to be the same problem you're having. Unfortunately for all of those involved, the solution for this matter is yet unknown. :( We're all really trying to think of something to help y'all, but up to this moment nothing seems to resolve this issue. If you do find a solution, please post it in these forums so others can apply it. :)

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Ok interesting. I've just done a seach for "nforce" on the forums and I only come up with this thread. Could you point me in the direction of other people experiencing this problem?

Also, when you say others are experiencing this, do you expicitly mean failure of a wireless connection or a general network failure? (ie wired also).

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No, I mean a general network failure (disconnects after * minutes of using BitTorrent), though I don't have an AMD setup, so I don't know if it happens with wireless too. :|

The "popular" disconnect thread:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=1714

Some firewall thread:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=2198

Another "network crash" thread:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=1904

"Unstable network" thread:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=1862

Some router disconnecting from the network thread:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=1129

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Hmmm. I've read through all the posts you link to above, done some gooogling and looked over at the HardOCP froums you mention in other thread... and to be honest I've not convinved myself that there is a common theme, or at least anything that singles out the nforce chipset and an AMD system.

And if there was a problem using the nforce ethernet controller, particulary on nforce 2 and 3 with the built in firewall ability, it would be circumvented by using a PCI controller.

If all network connections are suspect, then it would imply an issue between utorrent and core funtionality of the motherboard chipset - PCI-CPU bridge or similar. If this is the case then I would suspect the issue lies with utorrent. I would also suspect the issue to be repeated several torrent programs, not just utorrent.

However, the above is just my thoughts after a lot of skim reading, and you've clearly been around utorrent far longer than me, so you may well have a better grasp on this. I'm just amazed the problem could be with such core sytem components. The fact that all other sofware I know of works fine on AMD/nforce chipsets leads to me to think the issue is with utorrent.

Could anyone with no problems with utorrent using nforce2/AMD post here?

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Yeah...I'd say just reduce your connections to an absolute minimum, like Global Maximum Connections to 25, Upload Slots to Peers 3, Half-Open Connections to 5 etc. Let it run at least 24 hours straight and if no crashes occur, gradually increase the network load...I know that will take some time, but it's the only thing I can think of that could determine at what settings your PC crashes.

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I'll try and do some more playing around with the settings.

Does anyone know how utorrent impliements things differently to other clients? Does it open its connections faster the Bitcomet et al? is there are way to slow this down? Can't see "slow connect" in the Advanced options anywhere....

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While I'm aware with torrent programs this tends to point towards the wireless NIC drivers not being able to handle the number of connections (or the Router not handling it) I should point out that the same system happily runs Azureus/Bitcomet 24/7 for days at a time with no connection issues.

I used to have the exact same thing with Shareaza. Everything else, including file-sharing apps ran without problems, except Shareaza. I never really figured it out. I upgraded the drivers of my LinkSys wifi card to the most recent Broadcom-drivers and the problem just vanished.

But your problems sounds more serious since it almost happens imidiately. The only thing I can think of is using Ethereal to capture the network traffic from µTorrent and another BitTorrent app (for the exact same torrent) and see what the difference between them is. But you'll need to be able to read and understand the TCP/IP protocol.

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But your problems sounds more serious since it almost happens imidiately. The only thing I can think of is using Ethereal to capture the network traffic from µTorrent and another BitTorrent app (for the exact same torrent) and see what the difference between them is. But you'll need to be able to read and understand the TCP/IP protocol.

I've no problem with that - I'm well experienced with Ethereal. Unfortunately, it will not capture traffic over my wireless connection (Intel 2200BG chipset talking to a Draytek 2600G router). I might try and wire it all up and take a look at the packets over a wired connection, but not sure what that will tell me as the problem does not occur wired.

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