Speeds are super slow, and no seeds.

[jasopan]

Ive done everything fine, read and followed all guides, ports are fine, everything is working.

But when i download i get very little seeds, 0 mostly, on popular torrents, the WHOLE night i download around 20mb's worth.

But when i start it the speeds are at 3 or so.

then in the morning its at 0 and pratically nothing downloaded.

im using peer guardian 2 as well.

But the thing is on some torrents (that slackware thingo) i get like instantly 60kbps.

Arrows are blue which eventually turn red.

thanks!

[Switeck]

"im using peer guardian 2 as well."

uTorrent has its own blocklist file, ipfilter.dat.

Using Peer Guardian 2 instead of that means uTorrent doesn't know WHY it cannot connect and will continue trying blocked ips.

Try the 1st and 2nd link in my signature and post back with the information those threads request.

[brattynat]

My question has to do with seeds.

I'm having what appears to be a similar issue. I'm using highly popular torrents that are showing 0(0) for seeds. (though at the time of download one had upwards of 1000) I had no problems downloading up until yesterday.

My numbers from the speed test read:

Download:

4658Kbps

Upload:

476Kbps

And I confirmed my settings according to the guide (which hadn't changed)

I even downloaded the recommended Open Office torrent with the same result.

Any advice is appreciated

-----------

WTF? It just started going again. After waiting on the phone for 10 minutes (and not getting through) to my service provider to check on any restrictions I might have. So wierd, any insight is still appreciated for when this happens again?

[Switeck]

"I even downloaded the recommended Open Office torrent with the same result."

So you mean you didn't see any seeds on it either?!?!

Seeds are not shown once the download is complete, but it is unusual to see 0(0) for seeds even while seeding. Those torrents could be fake torrents with lots of fake seeds on them?

...It may just be a bad tracker.

Please tell us what settings you are using as shown by Speed Guide (CTRL+G) and any advanced settings you changed. Not everything is obvious, and some settings are contradictory and shouldn't be used together.

[kerouac]

Most of what I read here is Greek to me. There must be someplace I can go to learn what these terms mean literally. Explanations here assume the reader was born with implicit knowledge, lol, and answer questions with code words which require what seems like unending research. Tuff to wade thru when the answer is more cryptic than the problem. No time for a degree in Computer Sci. Don't think I'll live that long.

My problem(s). I've been trying to seed torrents I downloaded, but I seem to be blocked from seeding. For example, 6 Seeders & 15 peers, and I only connect to one peer @ 6kB/sec upload rate. Other peers appear for a split sec and then disappear. Their flags are I and IE. I take it I'm being snubbed/banned, boohoo, but flags don't indicate this. utorrent's set to upload @120kB/sec. I tried disabling and enabling DHT & PEX, whatever they are or do, to no avail. (D/L 1100 kB/sec, U/L 150 kB/sec DSL connection tested, no router hangups or ISP throttling).

Now I've noticed when I'm downloading, again I'm only connected to seeders. No peers are sharing. I'm over a 1 to 1 ratio on one site and probably o.7 to 1 on another (May have screwed the pooch on this one. Didn't realize seeding was critical for interaction with other clients. Assumed if a torrent had 100 seeders they didn't need me.) Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Switeck]

We assume you've read some or all of the Guides:

http://www.utorrent.com/guides.php

Or FAQ:

http://www.utorrent.com/faq.php

...especially "A beginner's guide to BitTorrent":

http://www.utorrent.com/beginners-guide.php

I assume you're on Time Warner cable/Road Runner ISP?

I've heard they throttle/cripple BitTorrent in some ways...could just be a misreport/bad rumor though.

[kerouac]

Yes, I've read the majority. Some are simple, some skip around and are a bit too technical to make sense of, for me anyway. Obviously they work for the group. Will just have to perservere and wait for the lightbulb to come on.

Also yes to Time Warner. They assure me they DO NOT throttle. For high speed connections (they call 1100 kB/sec high speed) they do limit uploads to 150 kB/sec max. One can pay for faster UL rates. How generous, lol! Many thanks for the reply.

[Switeck]

Have you tried my recommended speed settings (2nd link in my signature)?

You'll want either the 1 megabit/second one or an average of the 1 and 1.5 megabit/second.

[kerouac]

I'm running 1100 megaBytes D/L, not bits. My typical D/Ls run around 100 to 400 mB mostly I think because uploaders are slow. I have experienced a few @ over 1,000mB/s when connected with seeders with no speed limitations. Nice when it happens, D/Ling 700 megs in 15 minutes. Have read about some who claimed 5x that regularly. Guessing they're part of a private scene exchanging data on company T1 connections instead of working? Tsk, tsk.

I'm at a loss as to why the utorrent client connects to 1/10th of prospective downloaders. Thought maybe it had something to do with port forwarding since I have multiple computers running on a Netgear wireless network, but port forwarding works fine on wireless too. I tried LAN hard-wired directly into the modem and there was no noteworthy change.

I did use your guide to setting up the number and type of connections. Thank you. I hope others appreciate how much you've invested in helping people here. I know I do.

[DreadWingKnight]

Post a result from the speedtest site.

[kerouac]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/298702451.png

[Switeck]

I like to argue, so here goes:

"I'm running 1100 megaBytes D/L, not bits."

You've got a serious units foul-up there.

Previously, you said you had "1100 kB/sec high speed".

AND...

"they do limit uploads to 150 kB/sec max."

For upload, 150 KiloBYTES/second times 8 bits (per byte) = 1200 kilobits/second...however with overheads involved, you might have just shy of 1500 kilobits/second...or roughly 1.5 megabits/second.

While you may very well have 1.1 MegaBYTES/second download speed, you seem to have less than 1.5 megabits/second sustainable upload speed.

And it is UPLOAD SPEED that decides the best settings for uTorrent, since most people have so little of it.

Download speed is best left "unlimited" in speed in uTorrent, at least for a connection of your class.

Once again, I say you'll want either the 1 megabit/second one or an average of the 1 and 1.5 megabit/second.

(BTW, a T-1 line is 1.5 megabits/second. In this day and age, that's not even "fast" anymore...though it's still ok for upload speed.)

About reported seeds and peers on a torrent:

Those numbers are often bunk. They include reconnecting DSL lines that get a new ip every time they disconnect+reconnect, pretty much every ip seen by the tracker in the last day or more, and probably quite a few from peer exchange and DHT as well (if allowed). It's even possible that some of the ips NEVER connected to the torrent, though that's probably only due to BT client bugs or outright maliciousness.

Somewhere around 60-90% of everyone on a torrent swarm is firewalled. With the proliferation of modems with built-in router features as well as conventional routers used with multiple computers, that number may even be growing due to the difficulty many people have port forwarding. (Some routers seem to intentionally make it hard to do!)

So 60-90% of the other peers and seeds cannot be connected to at all if your uTorrent is firewalled.

Even if you're not firewalled, you have to wait for firewalled peers and seeds to connect to you...it does no good to hammer their ip since they never get the message.

Also, on torrents with very many seeds+peers it's possible for other downloaders and seeds to have already reached maximum connections per torrent. They won't accept any more until they lose a few.

I also don't see the need to connect to as many peers+seeds per torrent as Speed Guide suggests. If you're intending to upload as much as possible back, then connecting to lots of peers+seeds doesn't do as much good...since you can only effectively upload back to a few peers at once and every connection you have costs bandwidth to maintain that you could've "spent" uploading instead.

You get rewarded more from fast peers if you're uploading to them faster (by a small margin only) than most everyone else. That's not as hard as it sounds, because most everyone else is uploading less than 4 KiloBYTES/second per upload slot. This is even counting those that follow Speed Guide (CTRL+G) speed settings OR my recommended speed settings if they're running max torrents!

[kerouac]

See, now that's why I have trouble accepting these phenomenal speeds exist, and I'm not doubting you personally for a second, but really, who offers these? I rarely see anyone in the utorrent universe D/Ling as fast as I am, and have never seen anybody D/L faster than 900 kB. BTW, peers are back bigtime, so something you suggested must have helped.

P.S. (that's an acronym for postscript, referring to handwritten letters) (acronym - abbreviation) I'm a 64 yr old trying to convince others in this seniors complex I live in that there's more to life after retirement than bingo. I installed a Vista/Netgear Max wireless hotspot so whoever wanted to could pigpile on and experience instant surfing - so far only one taker has been willing to (could afford to) buy a network adapter. Most have old Windows 95 & 98 systems/boat anchors on dialup, k-k-hr-r-r, boing, boing, boing. Gawd, no wonder they head for the sounds of the bingo caller. Let's face it. Most've us have resigned ourselves to accept that damned technology is changing faster than our MCUF (max catch-up factor). You see, truth is, at this point in our lives we just want to turn computers on and use 'em. We don't really care how they work. Oops. Sacrilege.

[Firon]

I've downloaded at 10.9MB/s sustained.

[Switeck]

I never went top-of-the-line with computers...it's too expensive.

Better to get something that was still really good and less than half the cost.

Almost everyone has days when we just want the computer to work. Tweaking is when you want "more power".

It's the modern geek equivalent of hot-rodding a car.