100/100 Mbit connection, but upload stops at 10% of potential

[NorseGuy]

Hi there, and thanks for reading this.

I am on XP and only run AVG Free. No other programs creating firewalls.

Next I would like to say that I have done quite a lot of experimentation with settings and tweaks for 100/100MBit connections, but perhaps I have found the wrong advice, so I would like to ask for help here.

I have for years had this fibre optics connection (no modem nor any router or any kind of box that follows my internet connection; the PC is plugged with a wire straight to the wall. My ISP is related to the Swedish Bredbandsbolaget, but is a branch from it with a different name. I'm mentioning this in case I could be so lucky that some Swede with Bredbandsbolaget would read this and could help me with the correct/optimum settings for uTorrent in correlation to that ISP : )

I have also done the "Glasnost" test, which showed that my ISP is not throttled.

I have tried different tweakings here, but I find it to be a bottleneck to go pass 1-1,3 MB/s upload speed (approximately 1200-1500kbps) upload, when I should technically be able to reach 12500 kpbs with my bandwidth - of course given that there are people who download from me.

(Btw: The download speed is no problem at all. It spends all the 12500 kbps if enough seeders or a seed with equally strong bandwidth, so I am only worried about my upload speed.)

When I am lucky, a few times I connect very well with some individual IPs and upload almost to the max of what my bandwidth promises, but that is not at all often. But it tells me that my bandwidth is capable to achieve high speeds.

Online bandwidth tests show that I should reach approximately what my ISP promises me.

I am a member of several private trackers, and even when there are people leeching, far too many of them get very little speed from me. And when I say little, I speak about as little as below 1 kB/s to 20 kB/s, and a few others perhaps get 100 kbps - there are often very low upload speeds even when only I am seeding individual torrents (but again as I said just above with some IPs I connect well, so when I reach past 1000 kB/s, it is simply 'luck' as I then happen to connect well with perhaps one single IP out of fifty or hundred).

Because I concentrate on private trackers, I tend to leave lots (read: hundreds) of torrents open (but most torrents are idle anyway as opposed to public trackers where people download 'all' torrents all the time). Right just now, there are only 20 of my more than 300 torrents which are active, but as said, the upload speed is lousy with most people that I connect to. Only having torrents open - even when they are idle, will that harm the upload speed?

So is there anyone who could give me an advice on how to go further on my search to optimise uTorrent? People who themselves have got Bredbandsbolaget or links suitable for 100/100Mbit fibre optic connection etc etc?

I will here list what settings I have touched in uTorrent verson 2.2 - latest verson, and I would be happy if people would comment whether there are things I should do differently:

Under "Connection":

- I have not checked "Randomize port each start" (Should I do so since I am not behind any other firewall than Windows XPs own one?

- UPnP port mapping is enabled. Should it be left so?

- Add windows firewall exception is checked.

Under "Bandwidth":

- Maximum upload rate have I capped to 11000 kB/s. (Max for my ISP is 12500). I have also tried 9000 and 7000 without any difference to upload. (But since I have SDSL/fibre optics connection, I should be able to use my full upload speed in that box or not?)

Global maximum number of connections: 2500..

Global number of connected peers per torrent: 250...

Number of upload slots per torrent 250 ( ? I read some place that with my internet speed I could use such a huge number, but I thought it was a very high number and have tried much less, like 4, 8 or 20 open slots instead of that high number.)

- I have unchecked "Apply rate limit to uTP connections", but I have also tried having it checked. And under "Advanced" settings, have I tried changing the bt.transp_disposition from 31 to 29 back and forth. I haven't noticed change to the upload speed when trying these different settings.

Under "BitTorrent":

- Disabled DHT Network & DHT for new torrents

- Enabled "Enable Local Peer Discovery".

- Enabled "Enable bandwidth management [uTP], but have also tried disabling it without really seeing the light.

"Advanced", and what I have changed there:

- bt.allow_same_ip - *true (have also tried the default).

- bt.shutdown_tracke_timeout *20

- bt.trasnp_disposition - now it's default (31), but I have also tried changing the number to 29.

- diskio.coalesce_write_size *20000 (but have also had it 37000 something as I have read several places.

- diskio.sparse_files *true

- net.calc_overhead *true

- net.max_halfopen *70 (and used the patch to change XPs own ports from 10 to 100).

- net.utp_dynamic_packet_size *false

- net.utp:initial_packet:_size *8

- peer.disconnect_inactive_interval *500

- peer.lazy_bitfield *false (just tried it the last hour.)

(I used "rafi's uTorrent Guide", so there were possibly a couple of other settings under "Disk Cache" that was also changed.)

* Except for the net.max_halfopen setting which I have had as it is for a couple of years, I would like to mention that the other settings are only hours old, so they are not alone to blame for my decreased upload speed. The upload speed appears the same whatever setting I have tried, but there are so many settings, that perhaps some conflict?

It's too bad that I am not able to utilise the potential of my upload speed, so I hope someone would try to help. Perhaps it's some obvious error that I have done, so after years of googling for answer, I now seek help from you :-)

Edit: I almost forgot to mention that the speed doesn't fluctuate but is stable, and nor do I experience 'disk overload'.

Thanks.

NorseGuy

[DreadWingKnight]

- bt.allow_same_ip - *true (have also tried the default).

Doesn't help at all, just adds extra protocol overhead.

- net.max_halfopen *70 (and used the patch to change XPs own ports from 10 to 100).

Also doesn't help you, all it does is increase the speed at which you attempt to connect. It does NOTHING to established connections. And if you're connectable, having this increased at all is completely useless.

How many torrents are you telling uTorrent to have open at once with your connection limits?

Also, does speedtest.net report your connection as 100/100 or as 100/10?

[Switeck]

UPnP and NAT-PMP should probably be disabled.

Are PEX (Peer Exchange) and Resolve IPs enabled/disabled?

Teredo/IPv6 and/or native IPv6 active?

[NorseGuy]

Hi there and thank you for your response.

I have tried different amounts of "Maximum number of active torrents (upload or download)" - if that was what you meant, and admittedly as one could read between the lines, I have often put in a high number there. Currently I have (had -- as you can read below)... 500, and under "Maximum number of active downloads" I have 20. My thought is that if the torrents in my uTorrent were from a public tracker, it would be insane, but on the private trackers I use, most torrents are idle, so I thought - perhaps wrongly - that it didn't really matter if I had a high number "Maximum number of active torrents".

Is it always wrong to have a high number plotted in there?

And yes, I do pay for a 100/100 line, but I believe the company is cheating on their upload Mbits. Speedtest.net (which I have tested many times before)..closest to my area show more than 100Mbit down and slightly above 40Mbit up. (I have for years had this ongoing correspondance with my ISP about my impression that there's a bottleneck somewhere.) The thing is that even though the average speedtest.net result for upload speed shows less than half of what I pay for, the reality is different sometimes; if I connect well with some people/IP I may at rare occassions upload to 90-100MBit. Either it's fluctuations (traffic?) or an unstable line perhaps?

I'll go on a public tracker and test downloading an episode of popular show and see what upload speed I can get there. [Done]. Having reduced the "Maimum number of active torrents" to 20, testing popular series with loads of takers. It first became bsolute better in the swarm of takers there as it for a while kept around 30-40Mbit up, but now it is back to under 20Mbit up (and now while writing it's back to the magical 1-1,3 MB/s again.

The strange thing is that it's like a bottleneck as I say. If I get pass the 10+ Mbit upload, it might jump to the double or much more; like when on a private tracker only hours ago, it would seed between 50-75 Mbit for perhaps an hour before dropping again.

If not expecting pure 100Mbit upspeed, I would love to know how to get better connections/speed with the general IPs (as I wrote in my first post the upload speed to most IPs are really low for my fibreoptic bandwidth.)

So should I keep "Maximum number of active torrents low" even though the torrents on the private trackers are idle?

Other suggestions?

Thanks for your advice : )

[DreadWingKnight]

250 connections per torrent multiplied by 20 active torrents causes uTorrent to attempt to open 5000 connections.

Since you have a global limit of 2500, the math fails.

I would recommend keeping the number of active torrents down around 10, and the active downloads at 5.

Not only will you be splitting your connection fewer ways, you will be causing less random-seeks on your hard drive, improving overall performance.

Idle torrents, by default, won't count towards the queue numbers and uTorrent will automatically start additional torrents as needed.

[NorseGuy]

UPnP and NAT-PMP should probably be disabled.

Are PEX (Peer Exchange) and Resolve IPs enabled/disabled?

Teredo/IPv6 and/or native IPv6 active?

I did a new speedtest on uTorrent and UPnP and NAT-PMP was now enabled afterwards. Normally I have had both unchecked, but sometimes I try leaving UPnP port mapping on to see whether it makes a difference.

Also after I did the uTorrent speedtest "Enable bandwidth management [uTP]" has turned itself on again. I have played with that one as well.

"Peer Exchange" have I unchecked after some advice I have got. (A week ago. Didn't seem to make much difference.)

Resolved IPs were checked. (Now trying to uncheck it to see whether it makes a difference.)

Teredo/IPv6.. you then mean the button under "General" settings where it says "Install IPv6/Teredo"? I haven't done anything with that. Is that important?

I realise that with all my playing with uTorrent that it might be a mess. There may be settings that conflict with each other. (I'm not going to pretend that I know exactly what I am doing)

[NorseGuy]

250 connections per torrent multiplied by 20 active torrents causes uTorrent to attempt to open 5000 connections.

Since you have a global limit of 2500, the math fails.

I would recommend keeping the number of active torrents down around 10, and the active downloads at 5.

Not only will you be splitting your connection fewer ways, you will be causing less random-seeks on your hard drive, improving overall performance.

Idle torrents, by default, won't count towards the queue numbers and uTorrent will automatically start additional torrents as needed.

Thank you. It was an advice I needed. I had the feeling that the high numbers would somehow conflict. I have now reduced the active torrents and active downloads (and uTorrent has itself changed the "Global maximum number of connections" to 1000, Maximum number of connected peers per torrent" to 125 and number of upload slots per torrent to 50 -- this after I did the setup guide again a couple of hours ago.

Even with reduced active torrents and active downloads it is unfortunate to see that the upload speed is still struggling with the bottleneck. Fluctuating from the magical 1,3 to 2+ something MB/s, As mentioned in another post, I am currently testing a few and very popular torrents as a test, and then it usually get passed the 1+ bottleneck and increases to up to 3 MB/s, but then races back to 1 again. Sad thing is that if I stop the popular public torrents, I will rarely get passed the bottleneck when seeding for private trackers.

I am gradually understanding more and more. Strange how all the googling on uTorrent (for fibre optics).. tips during the years have led to much confusion; I am glad I finally posted here, as the fibre optic question has been difficult to me. Thank you for all responses. (And keep coming with suggestions everyone who may help )

[Switeck]

UPnP and NAT-PMP should not be needed if you're doing manual port forwarding from your router. Even less needed if you don't have a router.

Teredo/IPv6 is enabled/installed *BY DEFAULT* in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

If you're only getting 1-3 MB/sec upload in uTorrent, you almost certainly don't have 100 mbit/sec upload speed...general speed tests will probably show that.

[NorseGuy]

Sorry about late answer. I had left home for months when you responded to my post:

Thank you for explaining Teredo/IPv6's auto installation on Windows Vista & Windows 7.

I agree that with my limited speed, it cannot in reality be 100/100 line that I have. But on paper (subscription) I do have it. Typical tests show all from 25Mbit to 70Mbit (possibly less on the latter number - it's been such a long time that I ran those tests that I don't remember the best results), depending on what kind of test service I run.

I'm still not at home, so I am not able to perform more tests.

BTW: I have had this ongoing telephone and email dialogue (sometimes just monologue) with my ISP (BBB) for years. Typically I get sick and bored of waiting for they to do respond and I give up for a year before I start complaining to them again. I usually speak to a customer service person on the phone, then send test results from sites that they themselves ask me to test from, then send in the results, and simultaneously with the test results I actually demand for the tech department to respond to me with information to whether the lower-than-promised speed is due to a general failure from their part, or whether it's an error on my individual line. I have never received an answer from neither customer service nor the tech department each time it get to that part of the 'dialogue'. (The reason that from my part I have these long breaks from the 'dialogue' with the customer service, is that I stay away from home months each year, naturally making it hard to be really pushy when I am not at home all months a year.)

Considering that I started complaining to them four years ago (with long breaks complaining to them as I explained above), I would say that their customer treatment isn't really commendable. When they never respond after receiving tests, I feel they mock of their customers.

UPnP and NAT-PMP should not be needed if you're doing manual port forwarding from your router. Even less needed if you don't have a router.

Teredo/IPv6 is enabled/installed *BY DEFAULT* in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

If you're only getting 1-3 MB/sec upload in uTorrent, you almost certainly don't have 100 mbit/sec upload speed...general speed tests will probably show that.