Internet Slows Down to a Crawl While Running uTorrent

[xslive]

hi everyone

I did search alott before posting this.

My internet browsing comes to a crawl while running uTorrent, even when my download / upload speed is well below its max limit.

My internet connection is 7+ Mbits/s download and 1+ Mbits/s upload. If I'm downloading directly from Microsoft / MIT / GA Tech servers, I get steady download speed of 870+ KBytes/s. To check max upload limit, I've tried setting upload to unlimited and I get 120 KBytes/s steady upload speed.

Now even if I'm downloading a single torrent and even if my downloading speed is under 100 KBytes/s ( which is well below 870 KBytes/s) and upload is capped at 35 KBytes/s, still my internet surfing comes to a crawl. Mostly I use Firefox but slow internet surfing applies to both, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I guess NAT / Firewall is not an issue here as uTorrent says " Network OK , Your network connection is working like it should " ( with a Green check mark )

If I'm getting any Linux ISO ( OpenSUSE / Debian etc ) thru a torrent hosted mostly by universities, I do get 870+ KBytes/s download speed.

The only problem I'm having is, no matter how low my download / upload speeds are, my internet surfing comes to a crawl ( even Google takes 20+ seconds to load up ). If I exit out the uTorrent, the surfing gets lightning fast.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks a million in advance.

Edit: I was using uTorrent 1.7.6 for a while, updated to uTorrent 1.8 Beta last week but the internet slowing down applies to both 'em. PC is fully updated Win XP, hard wired to the Modem.

[DreadWingKnight]

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