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New and slightly confused

bluedvil333

By bluedvil333
in Speed Problems

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bluedvil333 Newbie

bluedvil333

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So I've just started using uTorrent and started downloading a big file. I've read all of the set-up articles and searched posts, but I still have some questions.

1. I keep reading about port forwarding. I'm pretty sure I only do the firewall thing (the one microsoft has with Windows XP) but am confused if I should open a port in that or something else.

2. I get that my modem (cable) has much high download speeds than upload speeds.

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I also get that its in kilobits and not kilobytes, but I'm having trouble figuring out why im only doing 150kb/s on download (which I think is what I want when downloading a file. Does upload play a part in that?) when im capable of doing 13k+.

3. From what I can see there are such things as false seed/peer readings. Hopefully that explains why out of 764 seeds I'm only getting 4-7 and out of 10155 peers I only connect to 60-70.

4. Should a file size of 9.33GB take me a day + to complete when my download speeds are capable of much higher?

My ISP does not throttle from what I can see.

Please, lay some knowledge on me!

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Switeck Advanced Member

Switeck

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1.If you have a router, it needs to be port forwarded...if not, then you're probably good just doing settings in Windows XP's firewall.

2.ComCast uses SpeedBoost, which is really a short-duration burst of download and upload speeds WAY beyond the normal maximums. It normally lasts about 30 seconds to 2 minutes, plenty long enough to make speed tests of your line seem a LOT faster than it really is!

uTorrent's settings are almost entirely based on your sustainable upload speeds. Since I have ComCast as well, my guess is you have at LEAST 384 kilobits/second upload bandwidth.

Try the 2nd link in my signature. Or use Speed Guide (CTRL+G) in uTorrent. Start with the 1 megabit/second upload settings and see how fast you can upload...lowering the settings to match.

3.The tracker remembers ALL seeds and peers possibly from the last few hours to days...often this includes many that have left for good. Some may even be double-counted due to their rapidly-changing ip address!

Also, roughly 60-90% of ALL seeds and peers are firewalled. They may be able to connect to you if you're not firewalled...as an incoming connection. BUT you can never make a successful outgoing connection to them.

It is actually NOT a good idea to try to connect to every peer and seed on such a huge torrent...and uTorrent has set limits on how many it will connect to both per torrent AND global/total. Each connection uses download and upload bandwidth even when "idle", and although the download amount isn't much...on the upload side it can really hurt because you have a lot less of it. Plus, you cannot possibly return the favor in a reasonable manner to 50+ peers that you might be downloading from. It really is a matter of...if everyone does it, EVERYONE would have much lower download speeds. If you don't do it, your download speed may be decreased slightly...or it may not if you were allowing way too many. :P

The real hostile ips are often in the 38.x.x.x ip range (the most common hostile range I know about.) But if you see a tight grouping of ips and having trouble downloading the torrent...they may be hostile too, and you may need to add their ip range to ipfilter.dat so uTorrent will automatically block them.

4.9.33 GB is bloody huge! It is also very hard to find enough connections to upload fast enough to you to complete such a torrent in less than 1 day. Your upload, even at 384 kilobits/second (about 40 KiloBYTES/second usable) is faster than most. Seeds and peers are also likely uploading to other peers on the torrent...even on other torrents as well. They may also have reduced their upload speed well below their connection max, either because they're sharing their connection or even because their ISP limits their daily/monthly bandwidth use. On top of that, they may be using really bad settings in their BitTorrent program which further reduces how fast they can or likely will upload to you. It's a sad state of affairs with file-sharing, hostile ISPs...crappy upload speeds...firewalled peers/seeds. It's amazing it works at all at any speed.

For instance, assuming "average" peers and seeds have 20 KiloBYTES/second total upload speed, they're running 2 torrents at a time with 4 upload slots each. Their total upload speed gets split 8 ways, so any peer they're uploading to is likely to get only 2.5 KiloBYTES/second on average. You'd need to be downloading from about 50 of them at once to download that 9.33 GB torrent in a day. Even getting 10 KiloBYTES/second download from a single peer is exceptional, though this is becoming more common hopefully as internet connections get faster.

And with ComCast, I can personally say they disrupt seeding severely. Even with encryption forced, I still disconnect from peers quickly (in less than 1 minute) and almost constantly.

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bluedvil333 Newbie

bluedvil333

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Ah ok. It all makes much more sense now! Thanks a bunch. I was getting low Download speeds until I switched to the 1mbit settings and for a few hours I was hovering in the 90-150 kB/s range, however recently it's dropped to around 45kB/s.

Could you explain more on why you disconnect with peers after a minute or so? and how?

and also why in the logger it has banned IPs.

thanks again!

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Switeck Advanced Member

Switeck

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If uTorrent is banning ips in the logger...you almost certainly have hostile peers/seeds on that torrent/s! Might be worthwhile to add a couple ip ranges to ipfilter.dat! (It's a text file...edit or create it using notepad or wordpad.)

Watch your upload speed to make sure uTorrent is usually uploading within 90% of the max you told it to use. If it isn't, you probably need a lower/slower setting.

ComCast has invested in VERY expensive networking hardware that monitors what their customers do...using Deep Packet Inspection (sometimes just shorted to DPI) as well as detecting trends/patterns. Whatever they have is good at recognizing BitTorrent peer and seed connections, and disconnecting them often within seconds of them being made...but usually only while I'm seeding only. They can detect that too...somehow. uTorrent's encryption doesn't "defeat" this monitoring, though I dare say it reduces it considerably...otherwise I'd likely have NO connections alot of the time. ComCast seems to allow a very tiny number of BitTorrent connections at once, but while seeding that number is USUALLY less than 5 and almost always less than 10. They can certainly detect when I'm uploading faster than ~30 KiloBYTES/second to a single peer -- as that often triggers an immediate disconnect of that peer. I am certain that ComCast can configure these settings, because sometimes they are FAR WORSE or better than others despite roughly the same conditions on my end.

The United States Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is well-aware of this problem and is taking action on the matter, as they have already ruled that ComCast has overstepped its authority by crippling the internet in this manner. However the FCC has limited authority and ComCast so far has ignored their recommendations. :(

ComCast claims their right to do this under "reasonable traffic management practices" to prevent their networks from becoming overloaded. And they are part right...if even fewer than 10% of ComCast customers were running uTorrent with "extreme" settings (such as unlimited upload or upload speed set too high, which is essentially the same thing or 100's of peer+seed connections at once) ComCast's networks would degrade and/or fail under the excessive load. ComCast really only has about 1/10th the internet bandwidth as it's selling as max speed to their customers. That low ratio isn't quite as evil as it sounds, as while web surfing...most people are not constantly downloading or uploading at max speeds. And it's getting to the point now where most websites CAN'T upload to you fast enough to max out your download speed anyway. Lots give 100 KiloBYTES/second or less...but your line and mine will probably download well over 5 times faster than that!

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rudboy Newbie

rudboy

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Bluedevil,

Due to the size of your file I am going to guess that you are trying to download the exact file I am at the moment....the Warhammer Online Beta Client? I do not use P2P sharing at all so I am also new to this and I'm having the same problem.

Looks like its going to take 4-5 days to DL this behemoth! I also have a very fast connection but I believe that the problem with this file is NOT a configuration problem for either you or me or anyone.

Don't even try to mess around with your router settings and port forwarding etc... I took the router out of my system entirely and am running straight from the modem to my computer and I'm still getting only about 10-15k DL speeds. I think its the file itself, too many trying to get it....not enough people sharing it. I tried to download Open Office from a link I found on these forums and the DL speed was just great.

It must be the Warhammer bits file itself...its just in TOO much demand IMO.

Good luck!

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bluedvil333 Newbie

bluedvil333

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Yes rudboy, you caught me. haha. I've been downloading now for about a day and an hour and have 70.5%.. my dl speeds go from anywhere from highest ever 245kB/s (very rare, usually tops at about 150kB/s)to staying around 45kB/s.

**edit**

And all of my aforementioned banned IP's start with 98.x.x.x. However, I'd say about 90% of my peers start with 98. This mean anything?

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Switeck Advanced Member

Switeck

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I don't know enough to be sure either way. Just a (remote?) possibility.

I've seen my uTorrent try to connect to itself as much as 5 times in 1 minute. Once I added both my LAN ip range AND my internet ip to my ipfilter.dat file...that stopped happening -- and without any noticeable side-effects.

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