uTorrent Causing Wireless Network Hang

[Montol]

Hello!

I have done all sorts of reading all over the darn place and I can't for the life of me get this figured out.

At some point in the last few months, a uTorrent update came along that has started to cause my wireless network to totally hang. It used to be that uTorrent would dominate the wifi traffic, but pausing torrents would let everything come back. Now it outright hangs the network, refusing to let our iPhones connect, and the weirdest part is that uTorrent will work on my laptop through WiFi after a pause/restart of torrents, but web pages won't do anything. Attempting to disconnect/reconnect to WiFi will NOT work until the router is hard-reset (unplug power)

Currently running:

Laptop with Win7x64 Home Premium, fully updated

802.11G connection using Linksys WRT54Gv8 with DD-WRT firmware

So, here's what hasn't worked:

- closing uTorrent and waiting (for up to 1/2 an hour)

- updating uTorrent to the most recent 2.2.1 build

- updating DD-WRT firmward to most recent

- using recommended settings to the full degree / most lenient settings

On the computer, Firewall has a uTorrent exception

On the router:

- uPnP is enabled

- max connections at 1024 (the limit for my router)

- Port Forwarding Enabled (port 50033)

On uTorrent:

- uPnP port mapping Enabled

- NAT-PMP port mapping Enabled

- Max Download Rate: 1000kB/s

- Global Rate Limit Options: All Selected

- Global Max Connections: 150

- Max Connected Per Torrent: 50

- DHT Disabled

- Enabled Local Peer Discovery

- Enabled bandwidth management [uTP]

- Enabled UDP tracker support

- Selected 'Ask tracker for scrape info'

- Enabled Peer Exchange

- Protocol Encryption: Forced, Allow Incoming Legacy

- Max Active Torrents: 3

- Max Active DLs: 3

- net.max_halfopen: 4

Please for the love of God help me!!!

Thank you,

Matt

[skrana]

I am having the same problem....I just switched internet provider and bought a netgear router. First I am unable to download at full speed and second whenever utorrent on i am not able to browse the web. I have done a lot of search to find the answer and nothing seems to works. I NEED HELP!!!

[Montol]

I have continued reading and researching, have uninstalled TVersity as it was potentially interfering via uPnP (didn't work) and am planning to disable the router firewall as basically the last thing that I haven't tried in order to get this mess fixed. I can't say that I'm very hopeful anymore.

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that perhaps my issue with running a setup that includes 4 wireless users (2 iPhones, a laptop and a desktop, occasionally 2 more iPhones when friends are over) and one wired user (PS3) is simply too much for the Linksys WRT54Gv8, even while running DD-WRT.

Could anyone confirm/deny that upgrading my router would be a quick and easy fix (I don't mind throwing a bit of money at it to save my continued frustration), and if so, what the best router would be?

I have seen DreadWingKnight suggest a Cisco (Linksys) E3000 before - would this be a suitable choice for my setup as listed above?

I just want to be able to run uTorrent and not completely hang my wifi connections - I miss being able to swing into and out of uTorrent whenever I want without causing such issue... :(

Thanks to all!

[GTHK]

The later 54G line like ours is shit. You neglected to mention your upload rate. Have you tweaked your router for p2p? Disable SPI firewall and set tcp/udp timeouts to 60/90. Try with and without uTP. Watch the routers status page to monitor load memory usage and # of "connections".

[Montol]

Thanks for the reply GTHK. Much appreciated. Router has been tweaked for P2P already, down to my last few options now.

Shaw High Speed:

DL: 12-25Mbps (depending on who I'm testing with)

UL: 0.49Mbps (terrible, eh?)

Planning on removing the SPI Firewall tonight from the router settings. TCP/UDP timeouts are 120/120 right now, but I'll drop them further as you've suggested. I've tried with/without uTP enabled before, but will attempt again after SPI Firewall is removed.

Will report back to you this evening with results...

[GTHK]

We both just plain need new routers. My plan was originally 10/1, I think things went to shit AFTER the medium plan was boosted to 20/2. I haven't tested TCP only, UDP only seems to work better then tcp+udp. Disable UPnP in uT, DD-WRT has a nasty little DoS bug with manual+auto that may not be resolved. I've got cron off, spi off, connlimit/tcp/udp 4096/120/120. syslogd, telnet, ttraff daemon disabled. DNSMasq for DHCP and google's DNS configured. My v6 is find during seeding but overloads when downloading maybe 10-14Mbps.

Also, Shaw probably hates you, but that's probably not connected to the router sucking.

[Montol]

Ah, no surprise that Shaw probably hates me. I complain that I can't lock my rate as they raise it 3% twice a year, like clockwork (look for the next one in Sept/Oct, hah!)

So then - perhaps the easiest question is: What is the most accessible, kick-arse, out-of-the-box router that I could buy that will just love my PS3 media streaming and uTorrent downloads and come asking for more??

[GTHK]

Personally I want (for starters) something that supports Tomato, has at least 16 MB of RAM, and no bad reviews, but since I have no money I've no intent of researching it. A PC can also be made into a powerful router.

[Montol]

So yeah. Came home, disabled SPI Firewall on router. Dropped TCP/UDP to 90/60. Ensured all other settings were good, uPnP in uTorrent was disabled, port was forwarded, DHT and uTP were turned off, total max connections were low and weren't conflicting...

...and within seconds the router was maxed out of memory and crashed again. Definitely router in general (not just wireless) because even the wired connection wouldn't work.

So...I'm guessing its just straight up that my WRT54Gv8 is totally done for, and can't meet the demands I'm putting it through.

Can anyone confirm that the Linksys E3000 router will be able to handle both full-power uTorrent and PS3 media streaming? Any point in installing DD-WRT, or is it good to go out of the box? Is there a different, similar-cost (~$140) router you would suggest?

CPU Broadcom BCM4718

CPU Speed 480 MHz

Flash ROM 8 MB

RAM 64 MB

Radios 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz

WLAN Support a/b/g/n

WLAN Max Speed 300 mbps

Again, I'm just looking for some plug-n-play love from my router. Want my uTorrent to work so bad!

[DreadWingKnight]

If you don't have the budget for an E3000, and E2000 will probably also do.

DD-WRT might not be required, but would be recommended.

[Montol]

Hey, thank you DreadWingKnight for replying/confirming.

I actually bought a Linksys E3000 last night (Kijiji is a wonderful thing - $75! Don't worry, I double checked it wasn't a brick before handing over the cash). Set it up in my house and got everything up and running. Found that (unfortunately) my laptop wifi card is a single-band, not a dual-band, but fortunately because the Linksys supports dualWPA/WPA2 security, I can keep it set on the 2.4GHZ band and everything connects at full speed. Further, the guy threw in a D-Link Dual-Band 802.11n USB key that I can use for my computer upstairs, so I'll just have that one running on the 5GHz band.

Haven't bother installing DD-WRT...yet. I did go through all the settings and enabled uPnP. Uninstalled/reinstalled uTorrent to get a fresh load of default settings...and...(drumroll please)

uTorrent works GREAT on wifi using the Linksys E3000.

I had no problems whatsoever getting an extremely high DL speed, I could continue browsing on the laptop, the upstairs computer and our two iPhones at the same time. I was TRYING to crash the thing and I couldn't.

So, overall - it might be a bit more expensive to upgrade the router as opposed to getting the settings perfect on a crappy router....but it sure is a heck of a lot less frustrating!!

Thank you to GTHK and DreadWingKnight for their help on this one. This forum should just straight up put a sticky post somewhere with top-recommended no-brainer router selection...and I would argue that the E3000 would be right at the top of that list!

Thanks again,

Matt