OO.o torrent screams down at around 700k, other torrents crawl at 90k.

[hovis]

Is this simply the sign of an unhealthy torrent?

One of these has 1900 seeds and 3000 leaches, it's really hard to imagine that this torrent should be moving so slowly for me...

[jewelisheaven]

Just because a torrent registers as a # of seeds/peers does not mean it is fast.

How many peers are you connecting to? The OpenOffice torrent proves it's not your line per-se. What kind of speeds are you getting? Is it intermittent, i.e. you see a sine wave?

If you are trying to run too many torrents at once and too many peers per torrent at once on lower-end hardware that would explain some of this... more information please including your Speed Guide (Ctrl-G) settings.

Include also a layout of your network topology: Mine is ISP -> modem -> router -> computers for example.

[Switeck]

You're on ComCast.

(Don't even try to deny it!)

So let me guess...you gave uTorrent bad settings because ComCast's SpeedBoost thoroughly fouls up speed tests, making the line seem MUCH faster than it can sustain.

Given a high enough finished percentage (typically 20+%) and enough connected peers that want your parts, your upload speed should remain very close to uTorrent's upload speed max...or things have likely gone horribly wrong!

ComCast is also disrupting BitTorrent traffic...and no, not just seeding.

Usually it's not as bad while downloading, but if you're seeding AND downloading they will disrupt BOTH. Even when NOT seeding and you're just turning your computer, router, and modem on for the day...they still may do some disrupting, depending on your area. It is very hard to separate ComCast's disruptions from a bad internet connection or the peers and seeds you're (trying to) connect to also having hostile ISPs. (Hostile ISPs seem to be on the rise, even as broadband reaches more places.)

It's not just BitTorrent traffic ComCast has disrupted. There have been totally legit companies trying to use ComCast business lines that have been hit by the disruptions as well that have spent days (to months!) trying to figure out why their networking transfers aren't going well...thanks in part to ComCast's clever disruption schemes being so indistinguishable from typical background failures, line noise, and numerous networking hardware/software problems.

Many public torrents are notorious for hit-and-run downloaders that exit the torrent within minutes of reaching 100%...possibly with upload-to-download ratio below 0.1

A vast number of peers and seeds are firewalled and cannot be connected to...so unless they decide to connect to you AND you're not firewalled in uTorrent, then you'll never connect to them. Somewhere around 60-95% of the peers and seeds on a typical torrent are firewalled. It's a wonder that BitTorrent works at all.