Strange Bittorrent Behavior...REALLY ANNOYED

brokentelephone · 31-10-2006, 21:30

Hello All,

I recently started w/NTL 10mb cable (after a NIGHTMARE of an install process... dont even ask), and have had a really strange experience thus far.

I have been trying to download some files using bittorrent and most of them are going extremely slowly (between 20-60kb/s. However, one site i am a member of is EXTREMELY fast... up to 1000kb/s). Clearly, the line can go fast, but for some reason most torrents run far slower than even my 1/2mb Bulldog DSL connection.

I also feel that when i download from websites (software etc.) it doesnt go nearly as fast as speedtests (or the really fast Bittorrent ones...).

Is there something i can check or try? I feel there must be something holding back the speed....?

I dont know much a/b computers... but i have made sure the port is above 7000. Any suggestions?

PS: My computer is used at another location (at my home in Canada) and i have no problems whatsoever downloading all torrents at very high speeds so its not a computer related issue i dont think.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Chris W · 31-10-2006, 21:33

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...on-its-network

this might give you a bit of a clue as to what is going on.

Although also check that there are sufficient seeds for the files that you are downloading

brokentelephone · 31-10-2006, 21:35

That makes a bit of sense, but even still, I just tried downloading from the FAST torrent site i am a member of, and it is still extremely fast.

Sorry, any other suggestions?

grubbymitts · 31-10-2006, 22:30

Bit torrent is all dependent on the seeds upload speed. The faster their upload, the faster you can grab it. The more faster seeds there are seeding the file, the faster you will get it. On private torrent sites you will get faster speeds, but keep your ratio up or you'll see that speed drop.

MagicMan · 01-11-2006, 14:43

There are things that can be done within certain bittorrent clients that can make it harder for traffic shaping devices to identify exactly whether the traffic is BitTorrent or not. Encryption can prevent the devices from reading header information (as even they are encrypted) and as such pass them through as "safe" traffic.

See http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-encry...rrent-traffic/

Or it could just be down to the torrents being poorly seeded rather than nasty traffic shaping

brokentelephone · 03-11-2006, 16:37

Hey thanks for all the input. I've been using torrents a long time and know exactly how they work... i just can't seem tp understand why one site is giving me kick ass speeds and the rest , total crap.

i just downloaded an album in 4 minutes from 20 seeders, and now i am downloading a short film from 57 seeders, and the speed is maxxed out at 40kb/s

MagicMan · 03-11-2006, 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by brokentelephone

Hey thanks for all the input. I've been using torrents a long time and know exactly how they work... i just can't seem tp understand why one site is giving me kick ass speeds and the rest , total crap.

i just downloaded an album in 4 minutes from 20 seeders, and now i am downloading a short film from 57 seeders, and the speed is maxxed out at 40kb/s

Maxxed out at 40Kb/s???

Maybe its to do with the specific trackers. NTL could be doing something creative regarding certain IP addresses/ranges. Other than that - I really cant think of anything that would cause that.

It could just be the nature of P2P software - it can be inconsistent as far as speed is concerned.

fluff · 03-11-2006, 22:55

If you are downloading from a public tracker, you should expect very slow speeds. With public trackers people tend to cap their upload speeds because they have no intention of sharing and as a result everyone experiences a slow download rate.

sstainer · 03-11-2006, 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by brokentelephone

Hello All,

I recently started w/NTL 10mb cable (after a NIGHTMARE of an install process... dont even ask), and have had a really strange experience thus far.

I have been trying to download some files using bittorrent and most of them are going extremely slowly (between 20-60kb/s. However, one site i am a member of is EXTREMELY fast... up to 1000kb/s). Clearly, the line can go fast, but for some reason most torrents run far slower than even my 1/2mb Bulldog DSL connection.

I also feel that when i download from websites (software etc.) it doesnt go nearly as fast as speedtests (or the really fast Bittorrent ones...).

Is there something i can check or try? I feel there must be something holding back the speed....?

I dont know much a/b computers... but i have made sure the port is above 7000. Any suggestions?

PS: My computer is used at another location (at my home in Canada) and i have no problems whatsoever downloading all torrents at very high speeds so its not a computer related issue i dont think.

Thanks a lot in advance!

maybe try utorrent ? have had some fast dl speeds with this small program before

03-11-2006, 23:33

you aren't using a router, by any chance?

If so, it helps if you can set it to do upnp, even on 'standard' ports

RealDiamond · 04-11-2006, 02:26

well you arent a good member of the private torrent site FAQ and Rules state your PORT is meant to be above TCP 40000 not TCP 7000. Thats probley why your being shaped via the proxy.

dayloon · 04-11-2006, 06:19

torrents are crap to be honest. the speed is very unreliable. If you were to download your stuff via usenet i think you'd find the speed was maxed out fairly constantly (depending which usenet provider you were using)

mmm · 04-11-2006, 09:47

If you want to see how good Torrents are to download try the latest Official distriibution of NERO (trial version valid for 30 days)

http://nero-mirror.com/software/Nero...ng.exe.torrent

from

http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/nero7-demo.php

Much faster than ftp or http downloads and at 360kB/s it maxes out my 4Mb/s connection.

RealDiamond · 05-11-2006, 02:59

4 meg should max out at 470-480kb