Speeds negligible with BT.

[JayDub]

Hey again everyone. Been a while since I've been around. I'll try to keep this post short, as I do tend to get wordy at times.

Problem: Any torrent I try to download gets practically no speed (d/u) at all. I haven't been able to successfully download anything with BT in months. I've tried different clients (BitComet, ABC, Azureus, TurboTorrent, G3Torrent, etc), and there seems to be no difference. I have a cable modem, and my cap is about 3mb, I think. Regardless of that, my speed is nothing, aside from getting connected occasionally. I don't know that my connection shows as yellow... I may actually get fully connected, but just without any download.

This is a computer I built, so and that makes it doubly frustrating that BT won't work. There are a couple other issues (every Sunday my system clock drops two hours, and I can't make the ATI tv play sound through my speakers), but those are something else.

Ok, system info. WinXP Pro, SP2 Build 2600, 3.0ghz pentium, 2gb Geil RAM, etc (point is it's not an "old computer" problem). I don't have a router, and use the Windows Firewall. My network card is a Microsoft card, I think an MN-150. It's the one that was in my old computer, and the old computer was fine with BT.

I've read through many pages (at least 10) of posts in Technobabble with no help. I'm not new to BT, and have tried everything I can think of. I actually can't think of all that much, unfortunately.

Can anyone help? If I didn't provide enough info, or left something out, please just let me know and I'll fill in the blanks.

Thanks!!

[thisistoto]

Get rid of that windows firewall first thing, its a bitch and a half and will cause you more problems than good.


Are you going through a router JD?


The system clock problem might be a dieing battery on ur motherboard, had that problem before. Go into ur BIOS and make sure everything is kosher in there.

[JayDub]

Originally Posted by thisistoto

Get rid of that windows firewall first thing, its a bitch and a half and will cause you more problems than good.

Are you going through a router JD?

The system clock problem might be a dieing battery on ur motherboard, had that problem before. Go into ur BIOS and make sure everything is kosher in there.

I've disabled the windows firewall and that didn't help. Is there a more indepth procedure for turning it off than just using it's own shutoff to do it? What firewall should I use inplace of the Windows firewall?

I do not have a router.

I've considered the battery issue, but like I said, the clock drops two hours every Sunday, not more, not less (save once). So it's not the battery, it's too specific of a problem. Thanks though.

[thisistoto]

Check your BIOS, there could be something wierd in there.



And just turning off the Windows Firewall should do the trick. Did you make sure the settings in ur BT client were all good? How full is ur HD? Defrag?

[JayDub]

Originally Posted by thisistoto

And just turning off the Windows Firewall should do the trick. Did you make sure the settings in ur BT client were all good? How full is ur HD? Defrag?

Like I said, I've tried multiple clients, all with the same speed. I just installed G3, and it's actually about twice the other clients' speeds, but the tracker says about 200 seeds, and I'm seeing about 50 of them. My down speed is about 6KB/s. I haven't adjusted any settings within the client. I have 4 hard drives, for almost half a TB, so space isn't the issue. New computer, so it's doubtful that defragging would affect anything, but I'll give it a shot.

[thisistoto]

nice sig

If you really want a firewall, get PeerGuardian. I use it not so much to protect against bad data, more to protect against police detection as I download copyrighted data.

When I was new to BT, I used this http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/229385 to get me started. Its really helpful.

[sadu]

1. Buying a router for $10 will help forward/unfirewall your computer.

2. Do a speed test on the NET. Just search for bandwidth test

3. You're on a 3mb connection...or you get 3 megs up/down. Which is 3000kb
or 24,000 kbs/sec. I would assume you're ona 3 meg backbone...meanig 6kb isn't all that bad cause you wouldnt get more that 400 at the very most.

4. Do you live in Canada?

5. Look @ www.dslreports.com and look for your ISP. There are reports of ISP's throttling speeds. Check to make sure you're ISP isn't one of them....Mine is one of them but there are ways around it.

6. good luck, let us know

[gsmyth79]

Do a NAT check (link somewhere in TB) as well to make sure you're not firewalled when you get all that figured out. Your light should be green not yellow.

I don't know shit about PCs (thankfully) so that's as far as my knowledge goes.

[JayDub]

Originally Posted by sadu

1. Buying a router for $10 will help forward/unfirewall your computer.

2. Do a speed test on the NET. Just search for bandwidth test

3. You're on a 3mb connection...or you get 3 megs up/down. Which is 3000kb
or 24,000 kbs/sec. I would assume you're ona 3 meg backbone...meanig 6kb isn't all that bad cause you wouldnt get more that 400 at the very most.

4. Do you live in Canada?

5. Look @ www.dslreports.com and look for your ISP. There are reports of ISP's throttling speeds. Check to make sure you're ISP isn't one of them....Mine is one of them but there are ways around it.

6. good luck, let us know

1. Why would adding another link to the chain (router) help to get less blocked?
2. 2.8 megabits per second
3. Honestly 6kb isn't all that bad? Please... Like I said, I'm not new to this. I know what speeds are respectable. I'd take somewhere in the 200s... heck, 100 would be good right now. 6kb IS all that bad. I used to get over 1000 at work (yes, over 1000). 6kb (max) allows me to download about 100mb in weeks, not days or hours. In any event, I want to get the problem fixed.
4. I don't live in Canada.
5. I've called my ISP and they said they block nothing, and any problem I'm having is on my end. I asked about BT specifically. I think the guy said that he had some torrents going at the moment, and there are no blocks on that.
6. Thanks, I hope to be able to get this worked out. Thanks for your help.

NAT check said only this: "Could not contact TCP server 2 (tears.lcs.mit.edu at 18.26.4.77". I don't know what it means, so if there's someone to explain, please do.
As I said above, I do not think I am yellowed. Using G3 Torrent, I'm not sure where precicely to look, but what I believe is the indication of that is in fact green.

Thanks again for your help.

[U2Lynne]

As suggested, do a real bandwidth test and tell us what the results say. (just google Cable Bandwidth Test). Run it a couple of times to make sure the results are consistent.

I have a link in my sig about forwarding ports throught the XP firewall. However, it may be best to simply disable it while trying to figure this out. You may have to restart your computer after you disable it.

Regarding only seeing 50 seeds out of 300, that is typical. There is a setting in bt that tells how many people you are willing to connect to per torrent. Other people have that same setting. I think for Azureus, my default is 80 per torrent (under Options > Transfer) and 400 for all torrents open. So, if there were 150 leechers on a torrent I was seeding, I could only connect to 80 of them at max.

NAT check: http://btfaq.com/natcheck.pl Or, stop all your torrents in Azureus, quit and then start the application again. Before starting any torrents, go to the Configuration Wizard and a couple steps in it will test your port for you.

[sadu]

Adding a router...atleast in my experience helps direct traffic to the correct ports. I could be wrong but when I was direct to the modem speeds were slower and I was blocked.

"Please... Like I said, I'm not new to this. I know what speeds are respectable" 2.8mg/sec backbone where I come from is slow...so I apoligize I didn't know you were used to 200kb a second but change your tone pal I'm trying to help you.

I would suggest doing a scan of your computer..the best and most updated is trendmirco.com they do all of hotmails real-time scanning so I trust them. I know you're going to say "I have norton" f norton just use TrendMicro.

The whole issue with the system clock is bad news. It's a system function that gets it's info from the BIOS like toto said...so check that out too.

[JayDub]

Originally Posted by U2Lynne

As suggested, do a real bandwidth test and tell us what the results say. (just google Cable Bandwidth Test). Run it a couple of times to make sure the results are consistent.

I have a link in my sig about forwarding ports throught the XP firewall. However, it may be best to simply disable it while trying to figure this out. You may have to restart your computer after you disable it.

Regarding only seeing 50 seeds out of 300, that is typical. There is a setting in bt that tells how many people you are willing to connect to per torrent. Other people have that same setting. I think for Azureus, my default is 80 per torrent (under Options > Transfer) and 400 for all torrents open. So, if there were 150 leechers on a torrent I was seeding, I could only connect to 80 of them at max.

NAT check: http://btfaq.com/natcheck.pl Or, stop all your torrents in Azureus, quit and then start the application again. Before starting any torrents, go to the Configuration Wizard and a couple steps in it will test your port for you.

As above, my bandwidth test indicated 2.8 megabits per second. I ran it again to get some consistency like you suggested, and it is just about 2.8. Maybe 2.76 if you want to be specific.
I disabled my firewall last night, restarted, and that's when I was able to get speeds as high as 6kb.
I understand not seeing every seed. That wasn't the point of me saying I could only see 50 of 200. The point was that the torrent was very active, that I could see plenty of seeds, but I was still getting negligible speed.
Thanks again for help!

sadu, I'll go to trendmicro and scan right now. I also use pandasoft from time to time. I don't use Norton or Mcafee, as I can't stand how they junk up the system. So yes, I'll definately do this post haste. I just built this computer on freshly formatted drives, and the problem existed immediately. But it's a good idea for a scan now anyway, so that's what I'll do.

Thanks!! Eventually something will click and the problem will disappear! Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

[sadu]

Keep the firewall on...I don't use XP but you have to allow your Bit Torrrent in/outs. The other things should remain firewalled.

This happened to me once when my C: which wasn't even the drive I was saving to was almost full. I cleaned out C: and my download speeds picked up. Your computer may just be a little messed right now.

Spyware scan?
Virus Scan?

What are your speeds when downloading HTTP? or FTP?

good luck

[U2Lynne]

Jay, did you get results for both your upload and your download speeds? Also, what are your upload speeds looking like when you connect to a torrent? Is it possible that you are allowing your upload speed to max out and thus making your download speeds really, really slow? I usually suggest to people that they set there upload speed to about 80% of it's max and then play with it from there (I know that I can go to about 95% of max when I am only downloading one torrent, and about 90% when I am downloading two).