XP SP3 fix (Green tick back now)

[13thHouR]

As with SP2, SP3 has limited the half open connections, the TCP IP patch is here,

hxxp://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads#4226patch

Also importantly you must set your routers MTU to lower than your usual requirements for your ISP.

IE. Mine was 1492, as soon as I set it to 1458 the green tick came back again.

Hope this is some use for other peeps who had this problem with SP3

[Firon]

It's better if you just don't raise net.max_halfopen at all.

[13thHouR]

In some circumstances, I will agree, leaving it at the default is ok, however most peeps do raise this limit as they like to be able to still browse web pages with uTorrent running.

Despite what M$ claim, this limit had more to do with Worm/Virus Communication and their inability to do anything about it. 99% of modern PC's can happily cope with 50 to 100 half open connections. (Just run a good anti virus)

Even without it being raised. uTorrent cannot communicate properly with SP3 installed unless you set your MTU to less than recommended by your ISP.

As is being reported elsewhere in the forums. In SP3, Without the MTU being reduced, any attempt to use uTorrent will cripple the system. This also applies to Vista SP1, Reduce the MTU to around 1458 on the router and uTorrent will be able to correctly identify incoming connections.

[GTHK]

Please define system crippling, do you have partial network connectivity that degrades slowly in to nothing?

[13thHouR]

Within seconds XP SP3 comes to standstill, when running uTorrent 1.7.7 or the latest 1.8 Beta. Which is a normal by product of the MTU being too high and trying to use multiple connections.

Just to be helpful.

Athlon 64 Bit 3200+

Mobo MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R (MS-6702)

Corsair 2GB DDR 400 Ram.

Nvidia PNY 7600 GS (2x17 TFT) latest 169

4xIDE PATA 133 HDD.. 2.5TB.

Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet

Netgear DG834PN Router loaded with (UberGT Firmware V1.03.25 - DGTeam Rev. 0743) and ALG profile for uTorrent.

Twinhan DVB Satellite TV card. (Satellite network functions disabled)

ADSL2+ connection @ 24Mbit DL, 1Mbit UL

Several people have tried the simple MTU change on the router and it has cured their problem. In both XP SP3 and Vista SP1.

The increase on the TCP/IP is an optional thing, which a large number of Bittorrent/P2P user do decide to change. I added that as reminder that SP3 sets it back again to the default like SP2.

Obviously if you have increase the net.max_halfopen in the advanced section you would want to reflect this more permanently in the TCP/IP SYS.

With Vista and XP SP3 both having the same network security now, it would suggest that this may be the culprit concerning the MTU saturation point being lower than ISP's recommendations.

[DreadWingKnight]

Obviously if you have increase the net.max_halfopen in the advanced section you would want to reflect this more permanently in the TCP/IP SYS.

Actually, if you increase that setting, you most likely have no idea what kind of effect it actually has on speeds.

An increased halfopen limit in uTorrent is completely useless outside of the first 60 seconds of a torrent task starting.

[Switeck]

Even if your connection can handle high half open amounts (>10!) in every way, you will likely see upload speed drops and probably download speed drops as well because of all the repeated (often encrypted!) handshakes that have to be done between innumerable ips and your connection.

However it becomes less significant of an issue if you have greater than 1 megabits/sec upload AND 10 megabits/sec download bandwidth available for uTorrent.

[13thHouR]

>10 half open is very common practice in fact before the implementation of SP2 in XP >10 was the normal amounts. and no my UL's do not decrease. That really has not been an issue since Dial up modem days.

Getting back on topic the issue here is the problems that users had been experiencing with uTorrent since the install of XP SP3.

The where's and why for's of >10 half open connections is really a non starter. For those of us who have the bandwidth, processing power and want to do more than just DL torrent >10 is a must.

If you prefer not to do that, then installing SP3 does not change that for you.

However the MTU issue is an unusual side effect of XP SP3 / Vista SP1 and routers that occurs even if you have not increased half open connections to >10.

[GTHK]

I have had no such issues, though I removed SP3 temporarily due to the issue I mentioned up above (poor network performance at first, 8-9 hours later tried again and couldn't make any connections), no trouble so far. I think I may have had a bad SP3 or something, not sure.

[Switeck]

"and no my UL's do not decrease."

Then you were probably not uploading at or near max speed.

[DreadWingKnight]

The where's and why for's of >10 half open connections is really a non starter. For those of us who have the bandwidth, processing power and want to do more than just DL torrent >10 is a must.

An increased halfopen limit increases the number of connections attempted at the same time. Nothing more.

Increasing the setting has little effect in the first 30 seconds of a torrent getting started, almost no effect in the next 30, and absolutely no effect after that. Processing power and wanting to do more than just download are meaningless. Incoming connections bypass the limit entirely.

Any time increasing the halfopen limit is recommended, we tend to shoot it down as it causes more problems than it solves.

[13thHouR]

No offence but you guys are screaming about torrents and half open limits. However nobody seems to be mentioning that keeping at 8 to 10 half open cripples other internet enabled apps whilst using uTorrent.

No I don't have a bad SP3... well not in the way you mean LOL

Seriously though, peeps have been having this issue on a number of Mobo's with XP SP3, trying to bury it under and argument about the whys and wherefores of increasing the half open connections is just silly as that was just added to the original post as reminder for those who choose to use more that SP3 resets them.

Quite simply if you are experiencing the issue that this thread was started for, just set your MTU on your router to 1458, then see if you get a good connection again.

Not too hard to do is it?

[dannybz]

I might be posting this in the wrong place but hopefully someone can help. I am using the conservative settings for a 224 kbit/sec upload rate because its the closest measure to my 216 kbps test results. This chart is found here: http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=58404

I am using WinXP sp3. utorrent is added to firewall exceptions as well as the incoming port. I haven't patch the tcp/ip and it remains at its default 10. The advance settings in utorrent are unchanged. The only thing i modified is the MTU from 1500 to 1458 as specified by 13thHouR. I have tried several torrents and the max down I get is around 35 KBps with my advertised 512 kpbs connection. Where am I missing something?