I have a green tick and still nothing downloads :)

[xster]

Ok first post, so excuse my ignorance

I have been using Utorrent for a year or so now, most of it has been good apart from when i was using a dodgy router when nothing worked anyway !!

Ok I am using a BT2110 router. I have followed all instructions for port forwarding and I am getting the green tick sign. I have tested my upload speed and set that. I have tried downloading some torrents with lots of seeds etc and utorrent says it is downloading... but nothing happens. At best I occassionally get a flicker of up to 3 or 4 kb/s then it goes dead again.

I assumed i had screwed up somewhere with my port forwarding or my router set up. Again i tried following instructions. I even turned off my windowsxp pro firewall and virus checker still nothing.

Remembering the problems i had with my old router, i reverted back to plugging in my old thompson speedtouch broadband modem (whish used to work fine as no complexity to set up). I am getting nothing with that either now? I have tried downloading the slackware torrent as a test to check if the torrents i was choosing were dodgy, but it hasnt moved in an hour (green tick is still showing). I also checked the enable encryption box. Oh by the way i use pipex as my isp with up to 8mbs supposedly.

Im pulling my hair out here guys.. I'll take any help that is given, you can even laugh at my expense if it helps at all.

Cheers chaps

Oh edit!! the slackware torrent is now speeding along at 20kbs and uploading at a similar speed... not quick but that the most its downloaded in weeks !! I still cant get it to do much with any others tho

[jewelisheaven]

Did you have the router when the ISP set you up? They may "link" your account with the MAC of your computer the technician came to install your service... If you have a router, the modem the ISP sees may not match and negatively affect your service. I would also ask how many peers you are connecting to and their various Flags column under the Peers tab. Could you show a picture of your uT with that showing for the Slackware torrent?

[xster]

thanks for the reply jewel.

No i didnt have the router when i set up with the isp, but then that was a different computer too.

They provided the speedtouch modem and I have since installed the BT router. Both have worked fine in the past.... then seemingly stopped working.

Sorry but how do i upload the screenshot you asked for. Do I have to upload it to a photo storage site then link to the url? or can i upload a file?

Thanks again

[Ultima]

http://imageshack.us

[jewelisheaven]

Short of calling your ISP and asking if they indeed register your account based on the MAC you don't know for sure... You can first say that you have a new computer, and you'll want to give them the MAC Address listed on your router (the one you plan to use) configuration page. I made a post about the uploading bit @ http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=297020#p297020 .

[xster]

Ok thanks again jewel and ultima.

Now that was a little odd. The slackware download started wizzing along at almost 400kbs, so i paused it and downloaded a couple of other torrents with no problem at all. The average download speed was over 100 kbs at all times and utorrent was showing that my network connections were ok and i had a nice green tick. wooohooo. Strangely tho if i ran the test to see if the port was forwarded properly , it sometimes said it was and sometimes said it wasnt so its not consistent, even tho it showed the green tick at all times.

I went to bed happy, at least I could download again!

Now next morning I have had another look. No green tick... and Utorrent is telling me that the port is not forwarded correctly. I clicked on slackware again and oddly this downloads quite happily anyway at good speeds of 300 + kbs (does the slackware file not require incoming connections the same as others).

Jewel I will have to do a little research on what you say about MAC addresses before I speak to my ISP as I am a bit clueless on the subject. Thanks for your help I will ask them if this could be the case. Does this still sound possible with the current symptoms?

Thanks again.

[jewelisheaven]

No it sounds more like your router can't make up its mind

The fact slackware downloads in excess of 3 Mbit per second tells you that generally speaking your ISP does not shape torrent traffic (during those times you tried) and as such you CAN obtain speeds like that on other torrents. What may be limiting you is the swarms themselves. Generally speaking running fewer concurrent torrents with more upload slots allows you faster completion time due to persistent upload to the swarm. While I recommend 5-10 KiBps others will say you can get by with 2-5 KiBps per peer (upload slots * active torrents should be <= TOTAL UPLOAD). If it is working now, you may want to look through your router and manual to see what kinds of limits you can put on it to keep it from barfing on you with too many connections (personally I turn off PING support on my router) and see if there are settings to keep it from storing persistent connections in its table (a Linksys problem iirc)... but your average download will depend upon the time-of-day it appears.