Manually setting addittional connections(seeders?)

[Estrang]

Hello, I'm new to utorrent and here is a little background on my connection/understanding of utorrents:

I have recently downloaded a file for a client I previously had on disc, this is a rather rare file as it is about two years old atleast and there are few torrents available for it anywhere on the web. The first one I sucessfully downloaded after 15 hours(3gb). My connection is rated xx/2mb and I followed the guide, read the entire FAQ, and checked through ok on the firewall port. I use comcast as an ISP and I keep all my incoming and outgoing packets encrypted, I have no trouble uploading up to around 30-40kb/s and my connection test showed around a 75 kB/s max upload speed so I dont think ISP is an issue here, just read the thread about Comcast and I still don't think it's the issue.

Last night while downloading this file I was plagued with 20-40kB/s speeds, far below what my computer has delivered on other services or direct downloads. There were roughly 16 seeds available and 22 Peers available on this particular download link. At times my connection would remain steady upward of 100kB/s. And for about 10 minutes I was lucky enough to stay at the more normal speeds of 320kB/s. However it mostly stayed steady between 40kB/s to 90kB/s.(EDIT: Forgot to add, I downloaded an old link that apparently was about 100mb too small, and did not work at all, I am as of writing this, downloading what I believe the proper client to install and run at roughly 80kB/s).

Now that you have a good idea of how my connection is set up, I have a few questions I was unable to find answers to while browsing/searching the forum.

1. While downloading I noticed I was connected to roughly 8(16) seeds and 11(20)[^this also means I'm not suffering from the Windows SP2 issue where only 10 connections can be made I presume?]peers, can anyone translate how this relates to my speed at downloading the file?

2. Also my ratio is somewhat low (.3-.6 WHILE downloading), is upping my ratio going to dramatically increase download speed while completing the file, or is it fine to mostly 'leech' then dedicate to seeding after I finish my download(I will bring my ratio on the file to 1.0 regardless).

3. I've tinkered with alot of settings, but I'd like to know if there is some advantage I can get to connect with more peers and/or seeds to download a file quicker? I see many more available than I am connected to in the download screen, I also have all my settings to recieve many more connections then are available total.

4. I've read but do not fully understand the tracker system, is there a third party tracker I can download and run with my current torrent, or is the only tracker being used in fact the one I get through the link that connected me to the torrent?(in this case I recieved the link from piratebay.org)

If anyone could help me solve through these issues or help me to gain a better understanding of this system I would greatly admire the help.

[jewelisheaven]

Peer connections cannot be forced.

You can tell uT to try to connect to more/different peers you KNOW are on the file by right clicking under Peers tab and "add peer".

If you are connecting to less than the total number of peers do not be alarmed. If they are firewalled you cannot connect to them and therefore they will have to be incoming ("I" flag) to you.

Also note that for you to download others must upload. It is a frequent sight to see overloaded connections and as such that peer which uploads to you at 60 KiBps may not always have a slot open for you. Being a nice sharer as you are helps. If you are uploading above the average upload your downloads probably will not increase definitely. The sporadic spikes prove that you are getting good peers. ALSO please note it is possible the reason they disconnect is due to RST packets being forged between you and your peer. AFAIK this only happens on unencrypted connections (shows as "E" flag).

For your last point, trackers are very nice. There are no guaranteed trackers of a torrent. You may however wish to enable DHT (right-click -> properties) and see if more peers are through that way.

The way peer connections work is you communicate after handshake, and trade data. After a certain timeout barring other complications the connection will be dropped and possibly a new/different peer will try to connect to you.

[Switeck]

In uTorrent's advanced settings...set half open rate to 0 for a short while.

Right-click on the torrent in question, click Advanced, Clear Peer List.

In the torrent's PEERS window, right-click and Add Peer.

Then increase the half open rate above 0 again.

The first ip that µTorrent tries should be the one you just added.