uTorrent 2.2.1 newbie seeding questions

[ConnieD]

I pick up a torrent that has 18 seeds. 15 seeds have 100%.

The moment I get the download 1 hour 35 minutes later, they disappear.

It appears I am left alone with three people sharing my "seeding" Up Speed of "less than 5 kbps" with an estimated ETA 5 days and 2 hours.

My service provider has a Yagi antenna on the roof here, with line-of-sight to their antenna. I have their modem and my dLink WiFI modem. It has WPA-2 PSK AES encryption with a random 26-character login and name hidden. I checked, no one else is on my service.

My onboard computer NetMeter software reports: Ave. down: 532.3 kbps Ave. up 42.8 kbps

I pay for:

1.5 Mb download

512 kb upload

The problem:

I want to get a reasonable upload speed to help out those three and at least reach my 1:1 ratio of downloading to seeding a torrent. And because I think these guys must be on dial-up, I leave my computer on and wait until either they give up and go offline, or, 5 days later.

I have been on torrent downloads, where everyone (I think are "greedy" fast guys) get the download to 100% and run. It appears I am the only one left "seeding" 4 people with 10 people listed in Peers.

FACT: I can only run one download and one upload, not more, because if I use my Firefox 4.0 browser my XP Pro SP3 PC crashes. My firewall is Commodo. I have all the OS updates and all BIOS and driver updates from manufacturers. This means I can do practically nothing else online with my older PC.

Right this minute, I am on my Vista Basic laptop.

Here is what is happening.

I read the Documentation. I run the uTorrent Setup Guide:

Bandwidth USA, WA, Seattle

Results:

Upload: 838.85 kbit/s (102.3 kB/s)

Download: 2.12 Mbit/s (259.1 kB/s)

Your Upload Speed:

Test Result (838.85 kbit/s)

uTorrent Bandwidth Configuration

Upload Limit: 70.0 kB/s

Connections (per torrent): 90

Max active torrents: 5

Upload Slots: 5

Connections (global) 400

Max active downloads: 4

Network

Results: Port is not open (you are still able to download).

Current Port: (0:random) 29866

Automatic Port Mapping (Recommended) checked

Save and Close

Right this minute, I still have that very patient guy in Japan who was downloading all night at less than 5 kB/s Up Speed I got up to a fluxuating 52 kB/s Up Speed and ETA 14 hours. But he drops to 23 kB/s Up Speed and ETA 1 day 3 hours. Now, he is at 3.5 kB/s, then 17.2 kB/s.

What is with that?

I would like to do better, but reading in the Speed section of the forum, it appears they are talking about other uTorrent versions.

Here is one example: http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=58404

512 kb upload:

UPLOAD: 47 limit 4 slots

CONNECTIONS Torr 40 MAX 100

MAX ACTIVE Torr 4 Down 3

I do not see where to enter that data.

Hey! I am a newbie.

I don't even know, if I am left as the only one online "seeding". Maybe other people "seeding" do not show? uTorrent "shows" Seeds 0(7) Peers 1(3).

However, I am Status "seeding" and only one guy in Japan is there and his Up Speed matches my Up Speed.

This isn't "seeding"? Am I limited by his "dial-up" to "download" his capacity for Up Speed?

I think not knowing what is "going on" and how to do better, it is no surprise new people are not "seeding". Maybe only cable unlimited "broadband" end-users should do the "seeding"?

How can I do better?

[bently]

uTorrent "shows" Seeds 0(7) Peers 1(3).

The seeds did not disappear. There are 7 in the swarm but since you now have 100%, 0 seeds are connected to you. You no longer need to connect to seeds because you have all they had to offer. Now you will continue to connect to the peers to share, as will the other seeds.

[moogly]

When the torrent becomes complete, your client disconnects to the seeds, it's the normal behaviour. Only peers stay connected like in Peers 1(3).

[ConnieD]

I did find in Options > Preferences I could change to those more "conservative" values.

512 kb upload:

UPLOAD: 47 limit 4 slots

CONNECTIONS Torr 40 MAX 100

MAX ACTIVE Torr 4 Down 3

I made the changes in my laptop.

I will make those changes in my old PC to find out if it runs better.

But, I only see me and him.

I only see two, not three, and he is getting only 1.6 kB Up Speed, right now, and that matches my Up Speed.

Is one person "hiding" stealth, or maybe not doing anything up or down? I do see one more person, sometime, but there is nothing to grab from my slow 1.6 kB Up Speed.

If there are 0(7) in the swarm, why do I only see his Up Speed matching my Up Speed?

Isn't he getting anything from the others?

If I "quit" is he left with only the percentage completion I see?

Right now, he has got up to 69.4% and I saw that when my laptop, apparently, breaks off due to a 24 hour reset on my dLink WiFI modem, he apparently has nothing else happening because there he is again, at the same, percentage completion.

It looks like he is not getting anything from the others in the "swarm".

Really? or not?

I do some intense research online, and then, I watch an old tv episode or a movie. But, right now, I am doing nothing except watch this guy get this obscure old discontinued very nice tv-special and have my laptop browser open to this forum.

I would like to just let uTorrent run "minimized" and shove this discontinued 1.79 GB tv-special at him more quickly.

Can I do that, faster? He is uTP, if that matters.

When I "seeded" another time, people shared 66 kB/s Up Speed from me. Why so slow, now?

Is this guy maybe on "dial-up"? Is this guy getting all he can? Is that the limiting factor?

Are their other "better" settings I can use?

If not, I would like to use my browser doing other things much more and not slow, or stop, him.

[bently]

I only see me and him.

I only see two, not three, and he is getting only 1.6 kB Up Speed, right now, and that matches my Up Speed. Is one person "hiding" or not doing anything up or down?

If there are 0(7) in the swarm, why do I only see his Up Speed matching my Up Speed?

Isn't he getting anything from the others?

If I "quit" is he left with only the percentage completion I see?

***

From your original post "Seeds 0(7) Peers 1(3)"

Seeds: there are 7 in the swarm. Your file is complete so you will no longer show being connected to any of these 7, therefore "0 out of 7" seeds in the swarm {0(7)} are connected to YOU.. Just because they don't stay connected to you after the file is complete doesn't mean they are gone and not connected to other peers still in the swarm.

Peers: there are 3 in the swarm. You are connected to only 1 of the 3 at the moment. That will change from time to time. You may get 2 or all 3 or 0. Or the one now connected disconnects and another connects, which would still show as 1(3)

You do not see what peers or seeds the others are connected to, you only see those reported to be in the swarm and those at the moment connected to you. They may well be and probably are connected to other seeds and peers. Before you completed the file, it was perhaps showing Seeds 0(6) Peers 1(4). Once you completed, you jumped from the peer box to the seed box, so Seeds 0(7) Peers 1(3).

No need to worry about you leaving them hanging, as long as real seeds are available, they'll eventually get their files, parts from you and parts from others. That is the beauty of multi-source p2p programs...they do not rely on any single user. It is the community 'cloud' that allows for people to come and go whenever they need to or want to. The exchange process continues regardless of any single user's status.

That said, when you have a rare file that has few if any other seeds, it is appreciated to keep seeding it so it doesn't become orphaned. I have a couple files that have been sitting at 99.6+% complete for days on end, one for many months. It seems the original seeder abandoned them, so I might never be able to complete them and one is over 4gB, just looking for 200kB to finish!

[ConnieD]

I had that, once.

It was a collection of speeches I wanted.

Finally, I wrote a big website, asking look you have a big website server, would you host this famous man's speeches?

I got it!

You guessed it: I have 100%. I do not want to "orphan" him.

I saw they did have 100%, because I got it from them. But I do not "see" them, other than listed in the "swarm".

I am concerned this is a rare file.

I will leave it run, but I do want to be able to use my computer.

[bently]

I have 100%. I do not want to "orphan" him.

I saw they did, because I got it from them. But I do not "see" them, other than listed in the "swarm".

Again, if there are 6 other seeds, you are not abandoning the peer that is cueecntly connected to you. You need to understand that they may be connected to 4 of the 6 seeds and maybe 1 or 2 of the other peers also while they continue to download. You have no way of knowing who they are connected to and how much of the file they are getting from others. Relax. If there are several seeds, other peers will get what they need.

[ConnieD]

His percentage completion only seems to be moving at the rate of my Up Speed.

[bently]

I am concerned this is a rare file.

I will leave it run, but I do want to be able to use my computer.

My uTorrent has been connected for days, and averages just 2.5% of my CPU power resources over that time period. I set the upload bandwidth to allow a steady, near max flow without interfering with my web surfing or other processes. If I need to do something that is bandwidth intensive, I'll just throttle the BW allowed for uTorrent briefly until my task is done. When I go AFK, it is set to unlimited so that it uses my entire UPload BW serving files as fast as possible.. Works for me.

[ConnieD]

I would like to do that.

I have AdBlocker and Flash blocker. I watch my CPU, RAM and pagefile useage on the PC.

I keep big files on external hard drives.I do frequent housekeeping.

The PC has more resources than the laptop, but the XP Pro PC has been crashing.

Right now, my Up Speed to him is so slow, and I am doing nothing else on Vista Basic laptop, except right here in the forum.

What kind of numbers do you use?

I would rather be on the PC. This laptop display is getting old.

[moogly]

Your torrent is dying, use a torrent with a huge swarm of leechers.

[ConnieD]

My "peer" stopped. He was up to 60%. However, I only had 1.4 kB/s Up Speed.

I asked how to make it faster, for him.

I do not understand: the torrent "dying"?

I searched a long time, to discover it. It is the only one.

When I go AFK, it is set to unlimited so that it uses my entire UPload BW serving files as fast as possible.. Works for me.

Seeds 0 (4) Peers 0 (4)

I set it to 0. If he comes back, I will see if it is faster.

[bently]

The PC has more resources than the laptop, but the XP Pro PC has been crashing.

Right now, my Up Speed to him is so slow, and I am doing nothing else on Vista Basic laptop, except right here in the forum.

What kind of numbers do you use?

I would rather be on the PC. This laptop display is getting old.

My main system is XP media center which I am told is based on PRO. Recent it was constantly crashing on me. I ended up doing an OS refresh and that seems to have solved my stability issues.

I am not sure what you mean by the "numbers I use". All 10 digits I guess unless I'm hexed and then I have to resort to A-F also

I have a 1mB/s UPload limit. At the moment, I am running eMule with about 500 files and lock it to 40kB/s UL. Then uTorrent takes up the slack, using ~90-100kB/s when I run it unlimited. That includes using DHT.

I have changed settings a lot experimenting but currently have limits of 200 global connections, 60 per torrent with 6 active slots per torrent. As to queuing, I allow 25 total and 10 download right now, mostly nursing lots of files with few other seeders. I'm currently seeding 32 torrents.

[moogly]

You torrent is almost dead, only few sporadic peers who want to leech to you. That's why your UL speed for this torrent job is fluctuating a lot.

Try a torrent of LibreOffice, you will see your DL speed will reach its max: http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/3.3.2/win/x86/LibO_3.3.2_Win_x86_install_multi.exe.torrent