Please help!

[soulicro]

Hey all

I've used µTorrent before, with the exact same settings (pre-configured by µTorrent for 768 kbit/s). I formatted my computer two days ago, and ever since my downloading speeds have been horrible!

My d/l speed would usually be at around 500 kb/s and my up at 70 kb/s. This is on average - I don't recall ever seeing a torrent (any torrent) lower than 200 kb/s.

Now, my d/l speed moves between 20 kb/s - 120 kb/s, no matter what. My up speed stays at 70 kb/s.

I've since tried using the parameters in the Setup guide, and noticed no difference. I reverted back to µTorrent's pre-configs.

I am using ESET Smart Security 4, and have followed the guide to add exclusions under "web access protection" AND have manually deleted the exclusions under the firewall, and added them in myself (TCP + UDP, all ports for µTorrent.exe). Of course, I also forwarded the port via my router.

Also, it might be worth noting that if I look under "Peers", the list is huge - but I am only downloading from 1-5 on average.

All the information you might need:

o µTorrent Version: 2.2 "Griffin" beta 21290

o µTorrent Settings: Settings are µTorrent DEFAULT for 768 kbit/s, protocol encryption is ENABLED.

o Network Status Light: Green (port forwarded manually)

o Port Checker: Success

o Speed Guide Settings:

Upload Cap: 70.0 kB/s | Upload Slots: 5 | Connections (per-torrent): 90

Connections (global): 400 | Max active torrents: 5 | Max active downloads: 4

o net.max_halfopen = 100, never toyed around with it.

o OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

o Security Software: ESET Smart Security 4 (as stated, I've manually added exclusions for µTorrent under web access and under the firewall)

o Router: Belkin N+ Wireless Router (F5D8235-4 v1)

o Modem: TNN - AZTECH 600E

o ISP: Bezeq Int

o Connection Type: DSL

o Speed Guide test says: 891.28 Kb/s upload, 288.35 Kb/s download

o DSLReports test says: 749 Kb/s upload (warning, your connection shows signs of ISP upload compression - however, I also tried letting µTorrent upload with no cap and it averaged out at around 80kB/s, so I'm not sure if that's correct) 4849 Kb/s download

This is as frustrating as can be, seeing as everything worked amazing before I formatted two days ago! Wish I could remember what version of µTorrent I was running... Please, any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Switeck]

Bezeq ISP is known to throttle/disrupt BitTorrent.

But as for the other problems and possible workaround... 1st, 2nd, and 3rd links in my signature.

[soulicro]

I just got off the phone with Bezeq Int. (there is a difference between Bezeq and Bezeq Int) and they assured me that they do not interfere with BitTorrent traffic - the tech. support guy even "confessed" using it himself, and made sure with me that the settings on my computer were correct (they were). Also, it doesn't quite make sense that the ISP is the problem if two days ago, before I formatted my computer, speeds were fine, does it?

I'll try to go through the troubleshooting guide again (though I've looked over it and tried doing what it told me to before, to no avail) and I'll come back here after I've done so.

Thanks!

[Switeck]

Some research on Israeli ISPs:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=58932

Bezeq is not clean.

Also on Bezeq:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=63248

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=438631#p438631

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=65358

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=67560

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=76638

Please read them carefully for ideas, because I do not have any good ones.

[soulicro]

Well, interesting thing happened.

My ports were forwarded correctly (every test I've done showed success, and I've forwarded ports before...). Just for kicks, I logged into my router, disabled the firewall and plugged my PC into the DMZ.

Speeds are much better, now getting an average of 235 kB/s on a torrent that has ~1000 seeds and ~5000 peers. Better torrents are getting an average of 400-500 kB/s. I have a 5MB ADSL line. Sounds about right, no?

Also, in the first link (and in some of the others) you posted, last post was "it fixed itself somehow..." and in the Hebrew thread linked to in the first link, a couple of people who obviously know much more than me in terms of networking contacted Bezeq and were told that the issue would be looked into. In any case, I know Bezeq likes to boast that they don't mess with BitTorrent traffic. Who knows though, right now it works, so it works!

Thank you so much for your help Switeck, I was 99% sure that my post would go by ignored =]

[soulicro]

I am bumping this because I'm afraid if I edit you wont see the new post, and I don't want to spam with yet another thread.

So, ok, the speeds are now much better. HOWEVER, something funny is happening - they are not constant what so ever.

See attached link - http://imgur.com/ULu6d.png

I like to download first, and then seed.

It seems that whenever my upload speed rises just a bit my downloading speed completely drops, from ~500 kB/s to ~100 kB/s. This happens every couple of minutes, and resets itself. What's going on?

[Switeck]

ADSL has very limited upload and uTorrent probably slams into the max hard...causing TCP/IP networking packet losses. Losing a critical packet auto-causes huge speed losses. That's why I recommend never setting upload speed max too high for your line even when only wanting to seed at "max speed".

Bezeq is certainly still using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) equipment. You just don't throw away working networking equipment that costs 100+k euros/dollars! How often it mucks with your connection...they'll never tell you. But just look at the proportion of "near" ips to "far" on your torrents. And holding your max speeds down to prevent overloads of the system during peak evening hours...I'm sure it does that still at least for some areas/sometimes.

Turning off extras in uTorrent that you don't need may also help.

UPnP and NAT-PMP -- if you did manual forwarding, you don't need them! (...and they can cause port locking issues if they're on!)

DHT (both kinds) is worthless if you do only private torrents. And DHT is of limited value even if you do public torrents for trackers that are seldom/never offline long.

Local Peer Discovery -- sure if you're on a big office LAN or college WAN, this can be great. For regular ADSL and cable ISPs it can cause havoc because it thinks "local" ips should not be speed limited.

Bandwidth Management (which includes allowing uTP peer/seed connections) is a mixed bag. If you're on uTorrent v2.0.3 AND your ISP allows full MTU-size packets (1500 bytes), then it might be ok. It'll probably work ok even on some/most ADSL modems with ~1400-1496 byte MTU. But if you're on torrents with lots of older uTorrent versions (especially v2.0 and v2.0.1!) it can cause very high overheads for the traffic -- a 100 KB/sec download from a uTP peer/seed can cause 10-35 KB/sec upload overhead! uTorrent v2.0.3 by itself using uTP would only have about 3-6 KB/sec upload overhead for a 100 KB/sec download...roughly the same as TCP does.

Peer Exchange I almost always say it's BEST on...despite what some paranoid private tracker admins might say. Their private flagged torrents won't ever use Peer Exchange anyway! Peer Exchange passes lists of ips between peers/seeds so they can learn more quickly others on the same torrent. By reusing the already-connected peer/seed connections and only being done about once every 5 minutes or more, this requires semi-low bandwidth and no extra networking connections.

Resolve IPs (right-click in Peers window of a torrent) -- disabling that leaves the peers/seeds as "bare" ip addresses, saving a small amount of bandwidth and a surprisingly amount of networking load from making extra connections to resolve the peers/seeds.

In preferences, advanced settings...

bt.connect_speed is how fast per second to make outgoing connections for more peers/seeds. It doesn't count incoming connections or already connected peers/seeds, only how fast to attempt to make MORE outgoing. This need not be higher than 1 or 2 if uTorrent is not firewalled and you're not running 10+ torrents at once.Setting it higher may speed up slightly how fast uTorrent starts downloading/uploading when first launched, but after 5 minutes the gains can be next-to-zero and after a couple hours, retrying probably-dead-or-firewalled ips (that didn't reply the previous 100+ tries) at this rate WASTES bandwidth.

net.max_halfopen used to default to 8...but on Vista or Win 7, it's now getting set by default as high as 100-400! This is how many outgoing TCP peer/seed connection attempts to have in progress at once. (bt.connect_speed was how fast, net.max_halfopen is how many) Note this doesn't count UDP/uTP connections in OR out OR already connected! So...8 is enough for regular use. Only if uTorrent is firewalled and/or you have 20+ torrents active at once to test ips on do you really need more. Setting it higher may speed up slightly how fast uTorrent starts downloading/uploading when first launched, but after 5 minutes the gains can be next-to-zero and after a couple hours, retrying probably-dead-or-firewalled ips (that didn't reply the previous 100+ tries) at this rate WASTES bandwidth.

[rafi]

Bezeq is certainly still using Deep Packet Inspection

s/Bezeq/Bezeqint/

[soulicro]

Something horribly sad happened.

I stopped using uTorrent.

After applying everything posted in this thread, doing 10 speedguide tests and taking the average, then plugging that in, after following the suggestions posted by the various members of this forum... I had to check if uTorrent was the problem. I went ahead and installed Vuze, and my speeds are much, much higher. Trying out the same torrent (731 seeds / 1630 peers) on both clients, I was getting MAX 200 kB/s on uTorrent... and on Vuze thats my minimum - on average, I'm getting 500 kB/s. I didn't have to mess around with the settings at all, just install, and run.

I don't like this situation. Except for my first torrenting days, in which I used the original BitTorrent client, I've always used uTorrent. I love this little program. I'll be checking every new release until I get my speeds back the way they're supposed to be.

Again, thanks a lot for your help and input! It really is much appreciated.

[Switeck]

soulicro, your ISP probably is to blame for some of this...what with there even being DPI equipment that in theory can detect not only which network-using program is being used but also even what VERSION.

[mcaspi]

soulicro, for everything there is a reason. This might have happen. If a 300kB/s peer/peers already downloaded all they have to you (uTorrent case) you'll get 200 kB/s. When you start the torrent from 0% (Vuze case) they have data to send to you and you'll get the 500 kB/s. All you did doesn't say that Vuze is faster.

[soulicro]

@mcaspi - That would make sense, but I performed this test pretty carefully after I saw what speeds Vuze was getting. I purposefully deleted the torrent & data from both clients, then started each from scratch. I ran uTorrent for 20 min, then Vuze for 20 min, then uTorrent again and then Vuze again. The speeds from both clients were constant. I also ran the test again after deleting uTorrent + settings and reinstalling, seeing as it was only fair to use preconfigured settings via the speedtest for uTorrent if I was using it for Vuze. I hoped the speeds would be better, but they were worse off.

I tried going into Vuze's config to see if I can make out what was different, but there is way too much information there for me to make sense of; if I could post screenshots and you guys could let me know, I'd config uTorrent the same and use that.

I'm not saying Vuze is a better program - I am 100% positive something with the config for uTorrent is off, I just don't know what it is, and letting Vuze do its own speedtest / automatic thing worked.

@Switeck - That, honestly, is just down-right frightening. You're telling me that they can pretty much see exactly what program you're using to download / upload anything, and just block it?

[rafi]

I suggest you use ubuntu as your test-torrent And I don,t believe that ISPs care/view what client you are using.