Why do I need to run a second torrent to maintain speed of the first?

[zoso69]

This is really weird. I've been running 2.02 and am experiencing the same problem with 2.03b.

When I download a single torrent (3 seeds, no other leechers) I get a perfectly acceptable speed of around 80kB/s but for 1 reason or another after 5 or 10 minutes the speed plummets to 1 or 2 kB/s - UNLESS a) I stop and start the torrent again, when the same thing eventually happens or I download another torrent (similar number of seeds, low number of leechers, u/l & d/l limits identical). It seems there is something causing the speed of the second torrent to maintain the acceptable speed of the first torrent! As soon as I stop the second torrent the speed of the first plummets again within a few minutes.

I am not imagining this - I've done this again and again. (I'm running Windows 7 32bit).

Does anyone know why this is?

Thanks!

[paintball9]

Try turning off utp and see if it stops, this sounds kind of like what was happening to me. We found a temporary work around for mine so that I could still use uTP. If this is the case here as well I'll relay that to you.

Preferences - Bittorrent - Bandwidth management

[zoso69]

Hi, thanks for replying.

No, I turned off utp and stopped the second torrent and the speed died again.

Turned the second torrent back on and the speed crept back up to normal!

[paintball9]

Have you checked for proper speed settings through the guides on these forums. Its possible that having two torrents is keeping your upload speed in check (balancing between the two) but when you drop one torrent the other one takes all of your upload speed. (Upload is very important in a bittorrent connection. it allows you to request pieces as well as contribute to the overall health of the torrent.)

[zoso69]

Yes, they are as per setup guide but with 80% of max upload speed.

[paintball9]

Two questions.

One, Does the slowdown happen both ways. If you stop one torrent does the second one slow down, and then reverse, stop the second torrent does the first one slow down.

and two, what do your upload speeds look like in these situations, for each torrent before and after slowdowns.