Found a problem with 2Wire routers

[Aroll605]

2Wire gateways seem to be having a quite small connection limit. If you set the connections in uTorrent over 200, a lot of requests will time-out, like a tracker query or the browser will report Connection Timeout (Firefox) or disconnect (MSN messenger, Pidgin etc). Settings the max number of connections to 100 should fix it, but the speeds will be reduced, if downloading more than one torrent at once.

2Wire 2701HG-G Gateway

Aroll

[Switeck]

There's LOTS of networking hardware (routers, modems, USB/wireless, and network cards) and software (firewalls, old OSes) that cannot handle more than around 100 connections at once.

Speeds with 100 connections at once should be extremely good.

But if you're on a hostile ISP like Bell Canada/Sympatico then you can't expect much either way.

[Aroll605]

I use Sympatico, but they do not filter my traffic (at least between 2 AM and 4:30 PM), I get full speeds on torrents.

I switched to 2wire a few weeks back, before I had the speedstream 6520, and it could handle much more connections, I never had any problems with it, unless the wireless signal was too low.

[hermanm]

Your 2Wire router should have a port forward feature which also allows you to set your TCP & UDP timeout. Adjust it 120 seconds.

[Switeck]

Ok, so you're NOT being throttled/crippled outside of typical evening "peak" hours.

Still my point remains, you should still be able to get at least 60% the download speeds you used to get with as few as 30 connections per torrent. With 100 connections, if you're not getting max download speed for your connection...it's because your upload speed is way too slow relative to your download.

(By way too slow, I mean less than 1/10th your download max.)

[Aroll605]

about 550/80 when using http, when bittorrent, 500/70

I have 100 global, 50 per torrent, connection to trackers is still timed out DHT saves my butt

P.S. I'm in "dmzplus", I'm not behind my router, no need for port forwarding, I accept all incoming connections.

[Switeck]

DHT's UDP packets are also more than many low-end routers can bear.

It's not their total bandwidth, but rather more to do with UDP packets-per-second.

uTorrent v1.8 is possibly a little better (than v1.7 and earlier) at not killing routers when DHT is enabled.

DMZ mode is a last resort.

It exposes your computer to unwanted traffic from the internet, such as viruses and worms trying to auto-infect your computer.

Was there a problem with port forwarding uTorrent's listening port from the router to your computer's LAN ip address?

[Aroll605]

Nope, no problem, I simply host servers from time to time and use applications that require port opening and my router does not support UDnP. Plus, Bell told me to do that: "It will fix your disconnecting problems, also disable Attack Detection: Port scanning"

[Switeck]

It's best to use fixed LAN ips for computers on a network anyway, shrink the DHCP range to as low as 1 ip, and do manual port forwarding on the router.

NOTE: Your internet ip address can still be dynamic doing this, but most ISPs seem to be too dumb to tell you how!

[Aroll605]

I have more than one computer on that router :/

edit: Gah, now I can't connect to any tracker, all time-out This is messed up