Why is BitTorrent so slow??

Bubba

Just wondering, ive used this program before in the past and got sick of it cause it was so slow downloading files so i just uninstalled it. I moved onto other FTP programs which i won't mention but were alot quicker. now i downloaded bittorrent again just to give it another shot but its still really slow for me. speeds of like 1kb/s!! taking like 3 days to download a file which is only 430mb. why is this? i thought it was mean to be quick and reliable?

what is it?

I'm running BT BB

Thanks!

aidan_walsh

Ports forwarded?

chump

well i sent this email to my cousin the other day... its worked for me


_________________________________________________________
this is provided you have a broadband connection in your apartment or whatever, your machine at home mite be a bit slow for it...

anyway the jist of what needs to be done is...

1. install a program for your computer, I'd suggest BitComet http://www.bitcomet.com/

2. organise port forwarding - this you have to figure out yourself, best bet google "portforwarding + bitcomet + whatever is broadband provider" or else just "portforwarding + broadband provider" or some derivative. It's important that the right port is forwarded though, so in Bitcomet, under preferences, Listen Port should be fixed. For example mine is 6881. (example instructions on http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/BT/Voyager205/BitComet.htm)
When you choose the port, stick with it.

3. Have firewall on computer, you probably do already. Kerio Personal Firewall is good. You must allow bitcomet work thru this program and the port. You'll have to figure this out yourself, but tis fairly easy. For the basic windows firewall, which I don't use (under control panel, security centre), you set up an exception. 3 exceptions should do it. One for a Port 6881, using TCP, the second Port 6881 using UDP, and a third, a program BitComet.

4. Use websites like ...
<snipped> Chump....be more careful please.

Loads more.
When getting files you are interested in a thing called SEEDS. More equals better.
Settings in Bitcomet that work good for me ... see attached image
It is important to open the amount of "sockets", don't know exact term, in windows XP, as this increases download speeds LOTS. Try the download section @ http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads&PHPSESSID=9383ae63133b3607f0df53e12ade73a5
And actually an all round better program might be
http://www.xp-antispy.org/
Download this, install and when running click on Special at the top of the screen and then Connection Limit, set it to unlimited. You'll need to reboot after I'd say.

Then after you've done all this, it's test time, so go to thepiratebay for example, and go to top 100 files, download one of them an Open With Bitcomet. Then start downloading. On the bottom of the bitcomet screen there is a window thing with loads on info in it, one piece of info is HashKey, right click on this and press copy.
Then go to http://btfaq.com/natcheck.pl,
Type in your chosen port number, and paste (right click) the hashkey into the box...
If you pass, all good, if not, you did it wrong...

Best o luck o

aidan_walsh

Better edit that quick fast, sunshine...

wheresmybeaver

Hey is it ok to mention a filesharing site by name, as long as u don't provide an actual link...?

Anyway everybody knows that these sites should only be used to download or distribute large ISOs of Open-Source software... ;-)

Dave

Dman_15

aidan_walsh wrote:

Better edit that quick fast, sunshine...

Sure all we use P2P for is downloading Linux distros and the like.

What are you insinuating?

hardCopy

Thanks for that chump, I had found most of those tips elsewhere, but not the one about increasing the socket limit. Hopefully I should get better speeds in future.

Sully

Im fairly good with helping people solving NAT problems with Azureus Any questions, just ask

Khannie

wheresmybeaver wrote:

Hey is it ok to mention a filesharing site by name, as long as u don't provide an actual link...?

Hmmmmm. I'm gonna say no. Only because it could be seen as promotion of that site and its warez-monkeying. Let's keep it clean peeps.

Smurfpiss

I have my ports forwarded and all that... I'd like to know why BT steals so much bandwidth? If there's a good seed to leech ratio I get a fast speed so that's understandable, but why is it still so slow when i'm downloading at like 10 kb/s? browsing slows to a crawl (almost worse than 56k) and i can't use voIP programs like skype because the lag is so bad...
Any ideas?
Forgive my ignorance!

parasite

because you're swamping your upload bandwidth, limit the upload rate in your BT app
further reading : http://azureus.aelitis.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Khannie

What he said. (counter-intuitively...) downloading requires upload bandwidth. For standard browsing, you need at least 3K upload free. For downloading files over http at high speed you need around 8-9K upload bandwidth free.

Smurfpiss

cheers!
I had a feeling it had to do with upload speeds...Is that why upload speed is stuck at a crappy 128 with eircom broadband? their own little way in restricting your download speed?

slave1

Hi,

question for chump re your bitcomet screenprint
how some you have the UPNP of BitComet ticked? portforward recommends shutting it down - whatever it is
you have a couple of 1000 limits, does that really improve your downloads?

also, in general terms, if someone could explain about sockets and what those two links you provided actually do to your pc
cheers

wheresmybeaver

Everybody's upload speeds on broadband got upgraded over the weekend, so bit torrent really flies now. I've set my max upload to a conservative 29KB/s in bitcomet (used to be 7KB/s) and as a result the download rate is much higher. Also, can browse away happily enough in the background. Its much better. I'm on BT BB+ by the way. Yay for free upgrades!

Dave

Terry

Sully04 wrote:

Im fairly good with helping people solving NAT problems with Azureus Any questions, just ask

private message sent. i just forgot to mention that i'm using eircom.

chump

slave1 wrote:

Hi,

question for chump re your bitcomet screenprint
how some you have the UPNP of BitComet ticked? portforward recommends shutting it down - whatever it is
you have a couple of 1000 limits, does that really improve your downloads?

also, in general terms, if someone could explain about sockets and what those two links you provided actually do to your pc
cheers

Hi, I don't really know the answer, as it was a while a go I came up with these settings. All I know is I can get max download speed (100kB's ... now that upgraded all speeds... ~ 200kB's) when downloading with all these settings, and b4hand the best I was doing was roughly 30kB's (all popular files)...

and by the by I limit my upload rate to 3kB's ... doesn't seem to make a difference, occasionally up it if a less seeded torrent, and also if not using the rest of the bandwidth surfing and what not, tis always a nice idea to max ur upload rate (be generous!)

Pixel8

BitLord and BitComet seem to be very similar, ive been using BitComet more recently and even after the upgrade to BT BB+, files are only going at around 30KB/S - 60KB/S

I've also been using Bit Tornado which seems to be a lot quicker than the other two progs. My mate who uses Bit Tornado always seems to get around 100KB/S and that was before the upgrade... we're both on the same ISP though. Only bad thing about Bit Tornado is that you need to restart each torrent individually every time you reboot your PC, great program though, probably the fastest at downloading torrents.

tq

If your looking for faster speeds you should look into newsgroups.
I get full speed on my 3mb line for €10 a month

heres a guide
http://www.slyck.com/ng.php

Pixel8

Wowsers, now this sounds interesting!

the_syco

Default ports = super slow speeds!