Is this normal?

[Rekrul]

I'm connected to 30 seeds, 28 peers and I'm getting a whopping 56K/s download speed. Here's a screenshot;

Notice that of the 24 seeds/peers shown, only three are sending me any data. The upper portion of the list looks much the same.

Since taking that screenshot, the number of seeds/peers has gone up as high as 65 at times, and the speed got up to 144K/s at one point, but then it dropped down again. Right now I'm connected to 60 seeds/peers and getting an average of 65K/s a second.

There are 9 trackers listed. One is offline, one tells me that leeching is forbidden, and the other 7 are working.

The Open Office torrent is able to max out my connection, but virtually everything I download from other sources tops out at 120K/s if I'm lucky, and most hover around 50K/s.

Is this normal for most torrents?

[Switeck]

You didn't mention what ISP you're on (SBC Global?), nor have you said if you've done any searches on these forums or on the internet in general (using google or something similar) for evidence that your ISP blocks/throttles/cripples/impairs BitTorrent traffic.

We know nothing of the settings you're trying to use in µTorrent.

(Though with only 1 torrent running according to the picture that does rule some stuff out.)

What's the measured speed of your connection, both Down AND UP?

(Your ISP may not be giving you what it claims!)

What settings are you using, as shown by Speed Guide (CTRL+G)?

(Speed Guide wants to know your max UPLOAD speed, not download! Plus, there are a lot more settings than just speed shown by that window!)

Have you changed any of µTorrent's advanced settings?

(Some settings changes can crash µTorrent and possibly even your computer as well!)

Have you tried Ultima's Troubleshooting Guide?:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=15992

(LOTS of things to try that may completely fix your problems!)

[Rekrul]

You didn't mention what ISP you're on (SBC Global?), nor have you said if you've done any searches on these forums or on the internet in general (using google or something similar) for evidence that your ISP blocks/throttles/cripples/impairs BitTorrent traffic.

Yes, I use SBC Global/AT&T. In all the searches I've done, I only found a couple mentions of people having trouble with them. One claimed that he immediately gets disconnected as soon as he starts downloading a torrent (I don't) and the other said that his 6Mb line would to go 3Mb when downloading torrents. My DSL is only 3Mb to start with, so that doesn't apply to me.

What's the measured speed of your connection, both Down AND UP?

(Your ISP may not be giving you what it claims!)

Average of 2500kbs up and 400kbs down. My local bandwidth monitor (NetStat Live from www.analogx.com) claims my max download rate is about 312K/s when downloading from other sources (web sites, newsgroups, etc).

What settings are you using, as shown by Speed Guide (CTRL+G)?

Connection type: xx/384k

Upload Limit: 35kB/s

Upload slots: 4

Connections: 80

Connections Global: 230

Max active torrents: 3

Max active downloads: 2

Also, my DSL modem is an AT&T modified one that apparently passes all ports through automatically, so no manual port forwarding is needed. The Speed Guide test verifies that the port is open and working properly.

Have you changed any of µTorrent's advanced settings?

No.

Have you tried Ultima's Troubleshooting Guide?:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=15992

(LOTS of things to try that may completely fix your problems!)

Yes, nothing made any difference.

As a test, I just tried the Open Office torrent again using the same settings and within 70 seconds of starting it, the speed was up to 280K/s. To me, this proves that my ISP isn't throttling downloads, and that uTorrent is setup correctly.

It just seems strange that almost none of the torrents I download "in the wild" ever seem to go above 100K, even when I'm connected to 40-60 seeds/peers. I look at the Peers tab and half of them aren't sending anything. As seen in my screenshot, most of them aren't downloading from me either, they're just sitting idle most of the time.

[Switeck]

If you're only downloading 1 torrent at a time, try increasing upload slots to 6 or even as high as 12.

That should find more peers to upload to...and hopefully they'll upload back to you in return.

It won't work nearly as well if you're running multiple torrents at once because your upload speed to each of them would be so low that they'd ignore you.

Presumably, on "busy" torrents like the one in your screenshot, you should be able to reach and sustain max upload speed with no problem. That's actually more important as a sign that everything is working correctly than how fast you're downloading.

Seeds may only have a handful of upload slots and may already be connected to 50+ other peers...so MOST of the time they won't be uploading to you. That's why it doesn't always do any good to connect to a particular seed...or even LOTS of seeds.