Web browsing slows down to a halt

[reking]

Whenever uTorrent is running, web browsing is painfully slow. Everything else seems to work fine, I tried transferring some files over MSN Messenger and it was as fast as ever.

And it's just web browsing. My browser, Opera, just kind of hangs at "Sending request to www.google.com" (for example) for a long, long time. Games work fine, I get great pings to online servers. I can ping google.com and get reasonable response times, but actually going to "www.google.com" in any web browser takes several minutes.

This happens a few seconds after uTorrent is started, and stops happening when uTorrent has been closed for a minute.

My broadband speed is something like 6mbit down/1mbit up, and this stuff happens no matter how fast I'm uploading or downloading in uTorrent.

I noticed that if I look at the uTorrent logger with "Log Peer Traffic" checked, something's happening all the time. It's like I can't even read it because every second I get several lines of "timing out" and "connecting" etc. Is this normal?

Windows Firewall is off, and I have tried with the following settings on and off, nothing helps: uPnP, DHT, local peer discovery, peer exchange, NAT-PMP. I've tried changing the global maximum of connections (it's at 60) and the net.max_halfopen (it's at 4 now), and while lowering number of global max connections to 60 seemed to help a bit for a while the problem is back now.

The checkmark thingy at the bottom of uTorrents main window is green.

I'm using Vista Ultimate x64.

[Ultima]

Hm. Perhaps your ISP is throttling HTTP when it detects BitTorrent traffic? I'm not really seeing any other reason it would do this, considering all that you've already tried.

[condor299]

Hi there

This is so very true. I have the same problem with browsing as you do. I have the µTorrent version 1.7.5 (Build 4602) and this problem and another one came with this version.

A. As you say all browsing moves down to a very slow speed like it all came to a stop. After exiting µTorrent and waited maybe up to a minute (in the taskmanager you can see when it quits, say after 15-30 seconds?) everythign works fine again.

B. When turning on µTorrent then I lose somewhere around 200 - 300 mb of memory just like that. Taskmanager says that its using maybe somewhere around 50 mb but 200 - 300 mb just magicly disappears. I read in the FAQ that this is a Norton issue. But I do not use Norton, I use Nod32 Internet Security (3.0).

This needs some serious thinking or we are going to change Torrent program. It wasnt like this before 1.7.5 for me.

[Ultima]

A. Interrupted connections has always happened for users with a misconfiguration. Otherwise, I would not have written a checklist just for it well over a year ago.

B. ESET Smart Security has never been officially tested with µTorrent, and few people report using it around here. That the FAQ doesn't list it doesn't automatically rule it out as a troublemaker. Check the first link in my signature and provide the requested information.

[Cappelle]

I have this problem too but i have been using utorrent for like 5months and all of a sudden it's eatting all of my bandwidth and the download speeds are crap now too. So i am confused because before i would be download somthing at like 350k and using the web with no problem, now i and downloading at like 10-15k and the nothing else on the internet works. my ports and stuff are good i tryed your sticky and i think i have done every thing on it, i mean it was worken for like 5 months

Any help would be great i am really confused with this.

[jewelisheaven]

What steps from the How-To have you previously tried? Also a cursory glance at the Speed Problems forum will show steps other users have gone through to fix their problems.

[reking]

Even when I try to access my router (10.0.0.1) it's very slow. This means it's not an ISP issue, it's something local.

I'm trying the 1.8 beta now and it's the same. The utorrent log is really getting flooded with connects and disconnects. Can someone tell me if this is normal?

I've read the how-to guide and done the steps that apply to me. Upload/Download speeds do not affect my problem.

[jewelisheaven]

If it is doing more than normal, can I ask you to post a screenshot of your Speed Guide Settings? (Ctrl-G)... I don't see a speedtest picture or results you've obtained as such. Are you sure you're not overloading your connection with too many concurrent connections?

[reking]

How can I be sure I am or am not overloading my connection?

Here's my speedguide:

I've done a speedtest from a site here in Norway and my connection speed is satisfactory, I don't know why you want that, I am sure it has nothing to do with that. Even if uTorrents upload and download speeds are very low like below 10 kbps (i am at least capable of downloading @ 1 Mbps and uploading @ 100 kbps) web browsing is incredibly slow!

It may be something to do with the amount of connections. How can I be sure?

[jewelisheaven]

OK, first there's a possibility for miscommunication. uT and all other programs I know of (including windows) utilize KiBps, and your speedtest is using Kbps :/. Though the difference may seem slight (b vs the meaning is a difference in 8x. I gather you didn't first change your Speed Guide values to xx/96 after testing. If you infact were able to upload near your currently set 50 KiBps max you'd need a .5Mbit upload line.

I would first try changing your speed guide settings to xx/96, and letting it run. That should help with other slowness. Note that some of your current downloads will go to Queued if you are really trying to run > 4 torrents.

[Switeck]

Have you also tried disabling Resolve IPs?

(right-click in PEERS window to get the menu for it)

Is Local Peer Discovery disabled but limit local peer bandwidth is enabled?

(This is to prevent trying to upload/download at unlimited speeds with supposedly 'local' connections...that are often not!)

Peer Exchange is best left enabled.

[voyager_663rd]

I can almost guarantee it's because of shaping. Same thing happens with my dsl con just in the last 2-3 weeks. Open up ut and browsing slows to a crawl. Close it, browsing (after about 10 sec) is back to lightning fast.

sympatico (or is it sym-pathetic ) dsl rated at 5 mb down.

[jewelisheaven]

Yea, but as Ultima's guides mention you may therefore need to limit your uT settings to something DRASTICALLY different than what you are used to, maybe 10 connections max per torrent, and reduce half-open limits, all-the-while keeping those extra features turned off during the times you notice this shaping being done. I guess forcing encryption and disallowing unencrypted connections is becoming less and less effective :/

Thanks for your experience voyager.

[zebulon303]

I confirm that since the recent version 1.7.6 (at least), without changing anything in the parameters, the connection with my browser is almost stopped. Even when I try to access my router, which means it has nothing to do with shaping.

Any serious help, before I change my bittorrent client ?

ps:

1)I forgot to mention I am using Vista64. And that everything was fine until about one week ago ...

2) I have noticed the problem appears when I share a file which has (700 seeds, 11 peers) like the iwouldntsteal.net.divx file ...

3) I tried the same with version 1.7.5, the problem is already there, so it seems like the problem comes from the extreme ratio (seeds , peers)

[jewelisheaven]

Choosing to run away from the problem instead of attempting to understand why it is happening and or solve it won't serve you especially with the intensive networking subsystem access filesharing programs create. Have you tried to make it go away?

[adamf11]

I have this exact same problem, and I know it is not traffic shaping because I have Verizon Fios. The problem started with the upgrade to 1.7.6, it was fine with 1.6.1. I also use ESET Smart Security.

[Firon]

Make sure you lower your net.max_halfopen to 8 or less.

[adamf11]

I have it at 4.

edit:

I believe the problem was caused by a conflict between Smart Security and uTorrent. I uninstalled ss and switched to kaspersky, and my slow browsing speeds have gone away.

[Switeck]

Do something crazy. Set half open to 0, do not allow incoming legacy connections.

Close uTorrent, wait a minute, then reopen uTorrent.

If you're not firewalled, all your connections should be encrypted and maybe just maybe skip by the ISP's throttling.

...Just remember to set half open back to 4-8 later.

[Ultima]

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=34527

[zebulon303]

Thanks, problem solved with advices of previous thread (http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=34527)

I call that a SERIOUS answer!