Virgin choking torrent streams?

[desktopcarl]

Hi guys,

bit of a newbie to posting to the forum but have always found it useful to read. However in this case I think I have an interesting problem?

I installed an SMC router (SMCWBR14S-N2), which works fine, I can browse and everything is rosy in the garden.

BUT:

If I set utorrent (or Azureus because I suspected the client mught be the problem, but it wasn't) running the connection drops after about 10 minutes. This is Dropped, there's no IP/Gateway/DNS registred on the router, only way back on line is to reboot the router.

I tried putting the pc outside in the DMZ so it wasn't using the router DHCP and that worked a treat for about 10 minutes, then blam, no connection to the virgin DNS. That internal static IP and DMZ still won't work.

Now,one has to be suspicious that only high traffic causes the problem so the million dollar question is that:

A: is there a history of SMC routers turning up thier toes or

B: Are other people suddenly finding connection 'issues' as soon as they start actually using thier connection.

For background I have a 20Mb connection (good speds on it too 19 Mb on one test), ambit modem, windows Vista 32 bit.

cheers,

Carl

---------- Post added at 13:16 ---------- Previous post was at 13:14 ----------

o spiffing...I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on... sorry fyi:

Located in Leicester, former NTL customer...

[haydnwalker]

How about taking the router out of the equation and try connecting your PC directly to the modem via ethernet cable for a test.

If it drops out then try using opendns dns servers to see if this helps.

It could be something on the network or your modem but we can rule out the router if its connected and the issue still happens.

[ceedee]

In Vista you are limited to 10 half-open tcp connections which will produce similar symptoms to those you describe.

Try searching for the patch that's been available for some time.

[stewart28]

You need to open a port on your router for utorrent.

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by stewart28

You need to open a port on your router for utorrent.

While that is true (unless you have uPnP activated), it's not related to desktopcarl's problem as it wouldn't stall his tcp connection just allow lousy torrent download speeds.

[TheDon]

A lot of home routers can't cope with high numbers of connections that torrents can give, and will just fall over because of it. My old router used to do it, anything that opened up a number of connections would force the router to reset.
The fact you have to reboot the router to get back online definitely points to it being an issue with the router and the number of connections rather than anything VM are doing. Try limiting your maximum connections in utorrent to something like 50 and see if you get the same problem.

[Hans Gruber]

Does your router allow you set a maximum amount of active IP connections? If it does try a higher number.

[desktopcarl]

Ta for this... hadn't imagined that the router might do that... have looked and there's a whole heap of stuff it restricts.. will beaver on this and post the solution forthwith for future reference as the router was on offer at pc world... so I would imagine there'll be a fair few more with similar issues!

[desktopcarl]

OK ongoing news.

When I choked the bittorent settings back... I managed to keep a connection.. Horray...

But it still was up and down which I tracked to the fact that the router kept asking for a DCHP update every 5 to 10 minutes.. Booo...

Thinking it was still some sort of TCP session problems I eventually disabled the firewall on the router (ramped up all the limits I could to max on the TCP connections), it still insisted on asking for a new DHCP assignment from VM every 5 to 10 minutes.

So, thinking I was being clever, I made the router accept that VM is a static network (my IP address doesn't change for months at a time)

The router STILL seems to reboot every few minutes under heavy traffic from bittorrent and ask for an NTP time update. (It didn't for an entire 3 hour period of browsing over this afternoon.. I turn on bittorrent and phhht)

I will keep you posted seems to be something fairly fundamental about the router and how it's dealing with traffic and the IP assigned via the modem.. wierd...

[MovedGoalPosts]

Some routers will allow you to install thirde party firmware. Such firmware (effectively the operating system of the router) can have more tweaks than the standard settings so you can get a workaround.

The real problem is the way torrents work. The software is continually sending out connection requests, and receiving them from other computers. This applies even to the computers you are not uploading / downloading, as the torrent software is always searching for a better connection. Trouble is the connections usually stay open for a while after they aren't needed. In turn this uses up the router's memory tables, until something crashes. I had that problem on my Linksys WRT54GS, until I did a found the DD-WRT firmware and the settings to go with it.

A short term fix is to limit the number of concurrent connections in your torrent software. Most people won't need many more the 60-100.

I'd advise against your fixed IP setting for the router to modem connection. One unexpected reboot and all sorts of unexpected stuff could happen. Plus there may be clashes on the VM network if the network lease on your IP expires.

[desktopcarl]

ok, just an update, still working on cutting connections down on utorrent and changing the router settings.

I note with interest the posts that seem to report similar problems to mine where the modem is rebooting, now it's in another room so it's difficult to catch it to see if that's what it's doing when the connection goes wappy... think a move of PC to the modem and sitting waiting is called for

[desktopcarl]

OK, have to conclude the router simply can't deal with bittorrent it's that that's kicking the modem to go for a dhcp each time.

A direct connected machine will now run bittorrent fine through the modem as is.

[hoggie]

same problem, sorted using this site and stopping the "use random ports in utorrent"

http://portforward.com/routers.htm