Newbie Mom Downloading at 0.5 kB/s

[dorothyalexander]

My son taught me how to do screenshots so that I could explain my problem better, so here are screenshots:

I am downloading a TV show which has good seeds and peers. I was able to download with a good speed at the first 2-3 hours of downloading then it just stopped, or went to 0.3 kB/s. I went to some of the threads here yet I wasn't able to follow since everything completely sounded new to me. This is how my main uTorrent window looks like:

A month ago the tech guy who fixed my printer did this to my router, told me that it would fix uTorrent. I think he did something with the ports and advised me never to change the port or click on randomizing port in Utorrent. So this is how the router window looks like:

And these are the screenshots of the other utorrent settings

*My connection is 256 kbps ADSL, I have disabled the windows firewall, I don't have any other firewall application program and I'm dying to see that TV show (I can't watch it online since I am not from the US)

**Some thread here in the forums suggested I test the OpenOffice torrent but if you look at the main window screenshot the OpenOffice is not downloading too

***Looking forward to your help, thanks a lot

[osnat]

a very good way to get some understanding. would very much like to read the answer. thanks a lot

[Switeck]

Change net.max_halfopen from your current value of 60 down to 4. Whoever told you to set it that high is nuts.

(At 60, that means to CONSTANTLY attempt to connect to 60 new connections at once! Your ADSL almost certainly cannot sustain that rate. Chances are Windows won't handle that rate smoothly either.)

Your upload speed certainly is not unlimited, as you currently have it set. What's more, it's probably not 256 kilobits/sec like your download speed is either. So, you need to run Speed Guide (CTRL+G) and try first the xx/256k setting and then lower if you see your upload speed is never sustaining the upload max.

Since you don't also have UDP packets forwarded on your router, DHT in µTorrent probably won't work correctly if at all. However it seems you ARE getting DHT connections, "DHT: 271 nodes"...so my guess is UPnP port mapping is working.

You might also want to upgrade to the newer version of µTorrent (currently v1.7.5).

[torrero]

edit: thought it was the queue settings, but i think thats wrong

[Switeck]

Speed Guide (CTRL+G) sets SO many internal settings for µTorrent that it's just not funny.

Even though I don't use the exact values it gives, I still use it as a starting point just to save myself having to change a few obscure things.

It's ok to fudge the numbers it gives a little. But big changes usually don't have big beneficial results...except maybe when reducing max connections from the "recommended" values to much lower. Having 50 or more connections on xx/64k is almost nuts for instance.

Queued settings for the number of active torrents and actively downloading torrents should be changed only after careful consideration. Although it may seem possible to download "lots" of torrents at once, if everyone does that...everyone will fail. On slower torrents, higher download speeds can usually be achieved by uploading more than other peers on the torrent. So running just 1 or 2 slow torrents (and uploading faster on them as a result) can cause them to finish a LOT faster than they probably would otherwise. Fast torrents with lots of seeds need no such help...but it is still good to give back a big fraction of what you were given.