Weird ass problems

[Darklock]

I've spent the last hour to two crunching thru everything I know but I'll throw this down in time order to show whoever can help me where I've gone wrong because I am puzzled and have a bunch of grey hair now.

1. Installed a new HD to give me more space so I reinstalled Windows XP (Pro).

2. Same settings, nothing different, nothing fancy... installed uTorrent with my original settings from my old HD. Ie;

Global Max. Number of Connections: 750

Max. Number of Connections: 100

Number of Upload slots: 4

and Queue Settings I did 4 Active torrents, 3 active downloads.

Past that... all default settings and on some really solid torrents I was pulling 280-300kBps without fail and with some upload on that it would only drop down to 260-270ish. When it was downloading from all Seeding clients with no Upload, even at the 300-ish range, I could still use the Internet without much delay and could go up to 70kBps upload and would have about 1/2 delay on refreshing webpages.

3. Start to download a well-seeded torrent and one I had started on my ORIGINAL HD with the same settings and suddenly dropped down to 160-185ish download, almost no upload and about 1/10th the speed when surfing the web. It's almost impossible to surf the web as everything is delayed a good 4-5 seconds just on a simple webpage.

4. I go thru everything... DSLReports speed test, DR. TCP, TCP Optimizer, even defaulting back to the original with the netsh command, patching for the 50 TCP clients feature for XP SP2 and am now at default with the netsh. I tested it against my fiancee's computer which uses the same router, same system, same Ethernet card and when I do torrents on her system, she can do them like I did on my old system. I run DSLReports speed test and she gets 2780-2890-ish KBPS Download, 580 Up ... on the exact same settings (RWIN, MTU etc.) I get 1950-2100ish kBPS Download but the same Upload.

5. Here's the kicker... I load up PeerGuardian 2 (Had the exact same setup as my original HD), uTorrent 1.7.5. and am now getting 155-168ish kBps download for a torrent that 5 minutes before I was getting 290-300ish kBps on my fiancee's computer. The other kicker, I can download with Firefox from Filefront.com and will get a steady 270-290ish kBps download from a file and can still surf the web without any slowdown on websites.

I'm exhausted and my brain is going to blow up as I have no clue how I can have the exact same settings as my fiancee's computer, same Ethernet, same uTorrent settings, SAME Ethernet, same LAN Connections... everything... yet I get almost 1/2 of what she does.

Please... anyone who can help! I would love you.

[Switeck]

What's your upload speed max set to in µTorrent?

[Darklock]

^^ Originally 70kBps with 84kBps when it's not downloading. I've tried setting it lower down to 32 and still nothing has changed the speed of the Download.

[Switeck]

If you only have 580 kilobits/sec upload bandwidth (according to your test), then you probably CAN'T upload torrents at 80+ KiloBYTES/sec ever.

Even 70 is probably hitting the limit. Is it uploading steadily at 70 all the time while you're downloading?

Have you tried Ultima's Troubleshooting Guide?:

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

...if so, give us the detailed results.

[Darklock]

It used to download around 250-265ish when it was uploading 70 and when I wasn't downloading, I had it hard-locked at 84 and it was solid then and if I took it off it could spike up to 90-95 but would flicker up and down alot.

On my new HD, I've had it as far down as 32 and I still can't get over 180ish. The weird part is that if there is no Upload going on, I can pull down my max. locked at 299 both in uTorrent and Firefox (old HD) but on the new HD I'll be lucky to get 200 in uTorrent but I'll still get 299-310 in Firefox.

It's like something "in" uTorrent is messing it up. I remember there being a uTorrent speed calculator somewhere and not that Azureus one, it was made for uTorrent ... anyone know this one?

Edit: Yeah, I went thru the Guide and did everything and nothing's changed. I've done Speed Tests all over and am still getting a good 300-400 less than my fiancee's computer even with the same settings but my Downloads in Firefox are solid and the same as her's but uTorrrent is about a 1/3 of what hers is.

[Switeck]

I do know that using BOTH Peer Guardian's blocklist and µTorrent's ipfilter.dat is overkill...and probably crippled speeds.

[Darklock]

^^ Never had the problem before and had the same setup. I don't know what I did but something improved this morning although I'm still not getting full download speed while uploading but I guess I'll have to live with this.

Thanks Switeck.

[Switeck]

For what it's worth...

If the settings are exactly identical on both computers for all of µTorrent's settings, then I'm inclined to believe that one computer is severely messed up rather than a µTorrent problem.

Chances are, the problem's cause will resurface again.

Look for hostile software (commercial and otherwise!) on it.

Do note that most commercial software is NOT flagged as hostile by any antivirus/antispyware software, but that doesn't mean it isn't...we have horror stories here about Roxio, Norton, McAfee, and Zone Alarm royally messing up µTorrent.

[cezen]

I have had some of the same problems. I am also running PG2... how do I know if I am running ipfilter.dat? And how do I disable it.

I have been P2Ping for just over 6 months now and have found my only problems ever were due to DHT being enabled and setting my upload too high...I am a novice user

tiffany

[Switeck]

ipfilter.dat is the data file uTorrent uses to determine what ips to block, it is not a separate program. uTorrent can disable ipfilter.dat as well in advanced settings.

It is better for uTorrent to block "bad" ips using ipfilter.dat rather than Peer Guardian 2 because uTorrent won't attempt to connect to "bad" ips in ipfilter.dat. PG2 has to cancel connection attempts (that probably won't even reach your computer's network card)...while uTorrent is left unknowing why the connection failed, so it attempts again and again!