Please see screenshot, any help appreciated.

[Antagonistix]

Hi All,

I have been using uTorrent for about a month now, and all seemed ok until last week.

I have a 2meg down, 256K up ADSL service in the UK. Prior to using uTorrent I was using emule for most things until I found out how fast torrents could download.

I download mainly movies and TV serials, and watch them on my PC or laptop or handheld.

Usually I get an average of 60 to 70Kbps download which peaks at anything up to 190K and occasionally they drop to high 20's or low 30's (for good torrents).

Recently however, I have noticed that after 7PM EVERY evening, I get a radical drop and my downloads hardly reach double figures. This continues until past midnight or sometimes until 11PM ish (UK - GMT time).

I attach a screenshot that shows the speed graph tool in utorrent.

http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=utscreen1as5.jpg

My question is - is this my ISP throttling me every evening ?

Or is it that the torrents I get are mainly US based peers and seeds ? I have tried the slackware torrent - same result.

In either case, is there anything I can do ? - becuase I suffer the same fate every evening now and the timing isnt exact - sometimes at 7.30PM sometimes at 6.30 until I go to bed - 1am ish. So i cant download when I am actually on my PC !!!! Unless I am in during the day.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I have run the setup guide step by step and followed ultimas recommendations also.

I have used speedguide to set the connections and the status light is as shown - green and port forward test works fine. I have tried "forced" protocol encryption with no difference.

If it is my ISP - they dont throttle normal http access as the speed tests work at dslguide etc.. during these "blackouts" - just torrents in utorrent are very slow.

Are other torrent software likely to go through the radar? like Bitcomet?

Thanks in advance.

(Windows XP SP2)

[jewelisheaven]

Uhm, looking at that indeed, it either appears 1) the peer(s) are sending at a specified cap 2) you are receiving at a specified cap (due to scheduler settings or manual per-torrent settings) or 3) the ISP is restricting your speeds. Since it is regular, I would double check your settings under Preferences (Ctrl-P) regarding the above AS WELL AS the setting below Queueing (when finished seeding set upload to xx KiBps) a set of 6 KiBps down generally means somewhere your upload is set to 1 KiBps.

I hope this helps

[Antagonistix]

Thanks for your reply Jewlisheaven.

Its 11PM here now and hey presto im seeing 100kbps +/- 10.

Im getting more and more sure this is my ISP. I did use to think that it was due to the peers/seeds being based across the atlantic and them not having turned their pc's on yet this day!

I wasnt quite clear on your last pointer to me. The "when finished seeding set upload rate is disable.

Are you saying I should set his to a high number or is it ok to have it disabled.

I checked the scheduler and nohing is set.

Should I try a different torrent client - as I have seen on this forum a few peolpe are getting past TS with Deluge or BitComet.

I like UT though and its the first client I have stuck with. Nice interface easy to use, good file/download control.

.........And as I type its going up past 176K !

[Hairy Lemon]

Antagonistix, I would assume your speed would drop during that time because of other users arriving home from work and hopping on the internet.

If your ISP is like a motorway. Your driving along and theres several cars on the road - You can do massive speeds. But during rush hour, everyones arrived home and wants to go for a drive. the motorway is only so big and will become clogged with people.

Thats how it works for my country anyway so I would assume the same for you?

But thats some pretty radical drop.

[Switeck]

Tiscali throttles BitTorrent really hard...even blocks it as best as they can in certain venues.

[Antagonistix]

Happy New Year everyone !!!

Yep - Im on Tiscali. How did you guess ?

So I suppose they move me to a subnet along with other "offenders" during peak hours. Something they threatened me with a long time ago when my emule usage was "excessive". But they didnt ever follow through until I started using utorrent and then only last week.

The strange thing is that it isnt an exact time every evening - it varies by an hour or so. If it was an automated procedure or firewall rule etc..surely it would be the same time every evening ?

That makes me think this is a combination of the extra traffic by US folks and Tiscali's throttling.

Any other client worth trying in this case?

Any other way around their trap ?

Any tricks I can do with trackers ? (still new to this torrent malarky!)

By the way what is DHT exactly ? The trackers fail to authenticate with DHT for that partiular torrent. But its the same result with the slackware torrent anyway.

Radical drop indeed, so even some tips on tweaking would be appreciated.

Cheers mates.

[Switeck]

I thought you mentioned ISP somewhere...or something.

Do a search for Tiscali here, you'll find numerous reports of SEVERE problems with them.

Try these "CONSERVATIVE SETTINGS CHANGES":

Turn off DHT (both kinds).

Disable Resolve IPs under the Peers Window. (That's expensive window-dressing considering it doesn't help download+upload speeds any.)

Reduce half open connection max to maybe 1-4. (You're not firewalled in µTorrent, right? ...so it shouldn't hurt as much as you might think!)

Disable resolve country flags in advanced.

Disable "Enable Local Peer Discovery".

If you've manually port forwarded your router, or don't have a router, Disable UPnP in µTorrent.

Lastly, reduce total connections to 100 or less.

...maybe even as low as 20 per torrent, though 40 is probably better.

It may not increase your upload/download speeds any...but it should mean more of the allowed bandwidth your ISP is allowing for BitTorrent is spent uploading and downloading torrents instead of just making+breaking lots of BitTorrent connections.

Another thing to do is use Scheduler so you're not stuck with the 'bad' speed settings all the time. ...Such as use Seed ONLY during most crippled hours.

[Antagonistix]

Switek,

I have applied your suggestions apart from 1 - the port mapping.

--> "If you've manually port forwarded your router, or don't have a router, Disable UPnP in µTorrent."

I use UPNP port mapping and also for NAT-PMP.

Do I disable both ?

I was fairly sure I needed port mapping ?

I have a direct USB cable modem, no router.

What advantage is it to disable them ?

Anyway I thought youde be please to to know that during peak hours as defined by the ISP - I can now downlaod at 24 to 32Kb/sec ( was getting 15K max before). Unless the weekend has less of an effect in rush hours.

Will these changes affect my download speeds during normal hours when I am getting well past 160kb/sec ?

Many thanks for your help.

PS what is DHT exactly ?

[jewelisheaven]

It is very likely your ISP puts different hard-caps in place for the weekend, weekdays, as well as peak, off-peak, and overnight hours. It's up to you or investigations of others' findings to see what speeds you can actually obtain. (Results may vary by region, population congestion, and broadband usage)

http://utorrent.com/faq.php#What_is_DHT.3F

[Switeck]

"I use UPNP port mapping and also for NAT-PMP.

Do I disable both ?"

Try disabling both and see if you still get the green light.

If not, try enabling just UPnP.

If that solves it...well you can stick with that or manually configure your firewall/s to not need UPnP.

If not, try NAT-PMP...maybe it'll help, but probably not.

It'd be a condition BEYOND simply weird for someone to need both UPnP and NAT-PMP.