Problem downloading torrents?
 

Hi, firstly, I've read dozens of forums on this already but I can't see anybody having the same problem as me.
I just had Virgin 100 installed yesterday, I though "woo fast downloads", so I started to download Ubuntu via torrent to check out the speed. It didn't budge past 1.1MB, and kept dropping and rising throughout the download. I decided to download a load more to see how they worked out, including a mixtape with 23,000+ seeders which didn't go above 100KB/s.
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/12/24.png

So far I have:

• Reinstalled windows as VM said it was my PC
• Turned off firewalls on both the PC and SuperHub
• Portforawarded ports above 25000, made sure BitTorrent was on a port higher than this
• Capped BitTorrents uploads at 50, 100 and 150KB/s
• Forced an encrypted connection on BitTorrent
• Tried 15+ different torrent files, the highest speed I've gotten is 1.1MB/s

When I was on Sky 20mbps I got a constant download of any torrent at minimum 1MB/s. I've heard about them capped you if you torrent too much but these are my first downloads on VM.
I just reinstalled windows 7, firewall off. I'm running the SuperHub Software V2.37.01. I'm going through a wired connection from the hub.

Any ideas why my speed isn't constant and fairly slow?

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/12/25.png http://www.pingtest.net/result/74004031.png

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

I didn't think torrents could be constant by their very nature,all depends on number of actual seeders(not reported seeders) and at what speed they are up loading

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

These are the current speeds I'm facing from various Linux distros; ridiculously slow!

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/12/23.png

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

If you are using a Superhub you may want to lower the maximum number of connections, there could be too many for the thing to handle.

VM do throttle torrents though so you may be suffering from that. Try it off peak on a weekday and see how you fare, though I can pretty much get my full 50meg connection maxed out regularly.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

How many would you say, I've set it to 80. Also, what sources are you using for your torrents? Mine really like to drop all the time. I just hit 2.7MB/s then it dropped to 10KB/s...

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/12/22.png

It's getting really annoying now :(

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

Virgin throttle torrents and newsgroups big time in the evenings and weekends. Their throttling works based on a percentage of current load, so could explain why its low but not a constant speed low.

I thought using ssl/encryption on the client got around that though.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

That could be why, but like you say, I don't see why it drops from just under 3MB to 10KB max... I also read encrypting torrents stopped throttling, I might try a VPN service.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

I tried downloading from a newsgroup server during their traffic shaping hours once, got between 4 and 7kb/s but it was pretty steady at those speeds. Exact same server 3 hours later, out of the shaping time and it maxed my connection out.

Setting your torrent client to only initiate/accept encrypted connections along with using a random port should give similar results as to what a VPN would do. Worth trying anyway.

After I cancelled my VM broadband I decided to go with Sky simply because they had no traffic shaping or time of day limits.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

If you are using torrents I would say using a VPM is a must.

VM use 2 types of throttling. STM runs at peak times but I am pretty sure that Protocol Management (BT and NNTP) runs at all times. In theory Protocol Management guages the load on the network and gives you a percentage of the available spare capacity. As many areas are over subscribed anyway and those that aren't run on the absolute minimum bandwidth by design, the bandwidth allocated to you for BT/NNTP use could well be zero. :(

Welcome to the world of micro managed BB. :shocked:

Maybe you should have stayed with your unmanaged sky connection? :erm:

I'm with SkyFibre Pro these days which is completely unmanaged. I'm quite sure my grass is greener than yours. ;)

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

I've just tried downloading a Linux iso from here (dont worry mods, its a Linux tracker and nothing else) and even with just 10 seeds I was hitting 3.4 MB/sec after a few minutes.

So either uTorrent manages to avoid VM's throttling or they just arent doing it in this area.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

Yeah, slightly regretting the move now :P any reasonablly priced VPN services you know of which will work well with 100mb?

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

Do you need to do this?

There's an option in the SHUB about UPnP (in the 'Advanced' section) which I thought was something to do with port-forwarding for utorrent?

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

Sorry I have never used or felt the need for one as I am only a very occasional BT user.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

Torrent speeds are fine here, perhaps you're using public torrents? I would recommend a seedbox + FTP client but if you're using public torrents most seedbox providers don't allow them.

Re: Problem downloading torrents?
 

disk caching in the utorrent settings plays a major part in the download speeds, i was from 1mbs - 5 i think to my maximum of 11mb by changing my disk caching settings (i think)

settings > advanced > disk caching > override automatic cache size and set to 1700mb on avg (google it if u need another number)

I havent looked back :angel: