which ports to forward?

[the snare]

Right now I'm trying to download a torrent that is 46.2 gigs. It has 1 seed and 31 peers.

Yes, I know that isn't a very good seed/client ratio, but I'm not where else I could find this torrent with one. People keep telling me always find a torrent with a good seed to client ratio, but why don't they realize that what if there isn't one for that particular torrent you want to download?

Anyway, I'm using utorrent for my bittorrent client software, and I alternate between 2 physical places with my laptop. Right now I'm at my parents house visiting for labor day weekend (Thursday to Tuesday) which I usually stay at on weekends and another place is the apartment where I live with 2 room mates that I usually stay at during the week.

That's another thing that I think I need help with. Since they also use the internet I can't be bandwidth hog and hog all the bandwidth for myself using bittorrent (no one else uses bittorrent either at my parents or my apartment.)

Right here at my parents we have a Dlink DGL-4500 router, and I've heard one of the keys to getting faster speed is correct port forwarding. How do I know which ports I'll need to forward? I know how to get into the setup for the router.

And, finally. Is there a way I can find out what firewalls, if any, are interfering with the connection and how to modify them for use with bittorrent?

[Ultima]

There isn't really a specific port that's more optimal than others. See http://www.utorrent.com/setup_guide.php

As for firewalls... They generally leave a systray icon. If you don't know still...

a) get HijackThis from trendsecure.com, run it, view the log, and post the contents here

get Process Explorer from sysinternals.com, run it, Ctrl+D (to show the lower DLL pane), select the µTorrent process from the list, Ctrl+S (and save the list somewhere you'll find easily -- like the Desktop), then post the contents of the saved process list in the .txt file here

[Switeck]

There are certain ports that are far WORSE than others...25, 115, 445.

Either software firewalls will be blocking you because they think uTorrent on that port is a "hacker attack" or you're VASTLY more vulnerable to auto-infection from worms and viruses because that port is used by insecure...often Microsoft...products.