Slow download speeds

[Ripebear]

Hello, i'm new to these forums but been using torrent clients for a while, deciding to stick with Utorrent since these forums seem active and helpful.

At this present time i'm getting about 30 kb/s max download speed on Utorrent, I have tried popular files which should download far more on my connection.

I have looked through, and done most of the tweaks and done all the basic setup, only thing I could not find was

# Try disabling IP resolving in the Peers tab's context menu

I also didn't yet Try patching TCPIP.sys, mainly because it said it was a last resort, will do it if anyone thinks it will help, here is what information I can provide at this time.

I did:

# Try lowering net.max_halfopen to 4 or lower (Can be found in Preferences > Advanced) (chose 4)

# Try lowering bt.connect_speed to 10 or lower (Can be found in Preferences > Advanced) (Chose 10)

# Try disabling DHT (Can be found in Preferences > BitTorrent)

# Try disabling UPnP and NAT-PMP (Can be found in Preferences > Connection)

# Try disabling peer.resolve_country if it isn't already set to false (Can be found in Preferences > Advanced)

# Try lowering maximum global number of connections to 200? 100? 50? Lower? (Can be found in Preferences > Bandwidth)

# Try disabling uTP (set Preferences > Advanced > bt.transp_disposition to 5 for µTorrent v1.8.3 and above, or set it to 0 for µTorrent v1.8.2 and below)

I have forward ports, at this moment im on 6882 my connection is 8MB/S but where I live I get around 4, upload speed of around 350.

I have a green network light on Utorrent, also did these and tested the openoffice.

# Try enabling Protocol Encryption? (Can be found in Preferences > BitTorrent)

# Made sure peer.lazy_bitfield is enabled? (Can be found in Preferences > Advanced)

# Test your connection with Glasnost to make sure your ISP isn't throttling BitTorrent (and check this thread for a compiled list of ISPs known to throttle)

Seemed openoffice was at 30KB/S as well.

On speed guide I have upload limit at 32KB/s, Upload slots 6

connections (per torrent) 200, (global) 200

Max active torrents 6, Max active downloads 5

Current port [0: Auto] 6882 (tested and is working properly)

System is windows XP, SP3

I have windows firewall on, with the ports adding into exceptions there too, Antivirus software is AVG Free

Connected through BT Home hub (Older white model), also have a router connected to it, Belkin one but I doubt it is affecting since I have my PC connected directly into the Hub.

ISP = BT Total Broadband

Using a cable connection, after several tests I average about 4.4MB/S and 360 Upload.

I know BT are known to throttle but not at this time of day usually? I thought it usually started about 5PM GMT and until about 12, I will keep downloads active to make sure. (Did test but everything seemed OK, although the resulted download and upload speeds from the throttle test seemed kind of low)

Thanks for any help, any other information needed feel free to ask, i'll be keeping an eye on this post.

Luke

[Switeck]

BT Total Broadband often throttles BitTorrent traffic to around 30 KiloBYTES/second down...I don't know what they do on the upload side, but it's probably reduced from line max as well. They will probably be throttling BitTorrent traffic all the time now...something about their efforts to "reduce piracy by 70%".

"I have forward ports, at this moment im on 6882 my connection is 8MB/S but where I live I get around 4, upload speed of around 350."

It is *HIGHLY* recommended that you do not use a port between 6800 and 6900...because those are even more likely to be crippled by your ISP and other ISPs you connect to. Better to use a port above 10000 and below 65535.

Your connection's supposed max is 8 megabits/sec down...but due to where you live you only get ~4 megabits/sec down and 350 kilobits/sec up. That means you should probably use the 320 kilobit/sec upload settings from my speed guide (2nd link in my signature).

Have you also disabled Resolve IPs? (right-click in PEERS window/tab of a torrent)

Also, Encryption in the BitTorrent options might help marginally...but you'll probably need FORCED outgoing encryption and NOT allow incoming legacy (unencrypted) connections!

[Ripebear]

Hey thanks for reply, i'll be sure to do these but wanted to ask:

Can you stop ISP's throttling you're connection, or is it totally impossible? I would google it, but I would rather you guys advise me, google can sometimes be misleading with results.

thanks

[GTHK]

You can try to compensate for it by using Switecks suggestions, but you can't always get around it.

[Ripebear]

OK, i've done all you said and it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference, I had speeds of 50-60 but it dropped back down to 15-30 again pretty quickly, if I want to download a lot should I really change ISP's? Or is there anything else I can do to speed things up. On common downloads I recall getting 150-500 before.

[GTHK]

If a better ISP exists, switch.

[Ripebear]

Seems now I got it so Openoffice downloads at 500KB/S, but my normal downloads are still slow, it's only connecting to, for example on one:

27(1052) SEEDS

3(221) PEERS

Is this normal? If not what can I do to change it? Considering openoffice doesn't need to get a lot of them to download at 500KB/S i'm doubtful this is the problem, most likely the download i'm trying.

[Switeck]

If you used my settings guide, that's about as many peers/seeds as it should be connecting to.