Utorrent Sucking Up All My Bandwidth

[Gigabyte]

Hello,

I'm surrently downloading a couple of torrents and seeding 3-4 more, and even if the speed that I get is very, very slow (15 kbps) my 8MB connection comes nearly to an halt and I can't even load web pages anymore in my browswer. And it's not only the computer with uTorrent installed, but my other laptop using the same connection gets its connection also very affected that I can't even use Outlook to download my mails.

As soon as I close uTorrent my speed is back to normal on both computers. I would understand if I was downloading torrents at the speed of light and take all the bandwidth, however it is not the case, I have a very, very poor download speed (caused by the lack of seeders, I concluded, because it's not popular materials - more popular materials get downloaded at a very decent spped).

Any one else have this issue or know a solution?

Thanks!

[Supernova]

It's not the download you should be worried about, it's your upload rate. Setting this value too high will choke your connection, even if you're not downloading. Limit your uploads to 70 percent of your line speed (upstream).

e.g. 512K upstream, limit upload rate to 40KB/s.

[bifftastic]

yep, I agree with the above, limit your upload speed, either manually for each torrent or in the preferences for all uploads. Sometimes, if lots of torrents you're seeding become active you need to pause some of them so your computer will still do other things apart from upload. Choose those with the best ratio or those with more than one seeder (ie more people than just you seeding).

Hope this helps.

p.s. 40kb/s is way way more than i allow mine to upload, the most i allow per torrent is 5kb/s, let the servers do the bulk of the uploading, this, of course, depends on what kind of sites you're using.

Edited September 16, 2010 by bifftastic

[Supernova]

p.s. 40kb/s is way way more than i allow mine to upload, the most i allow per torrent is 5kb/s, let the servers do the bulk of the uploading, this, of course, depends on what kind of sites you're using.

I meant "global" upload rate.

[bifftastic]

p.s. 40kb/s is way way more than i allow mine to upload, the most i allow per torrent is 5kb/s, let the servers do the bulk of the uploading, this, of course, depends on what kind of sites you're using.

I meant "global" upload rate.

ah ok gotcha even so, I don't let it get as fast as that, depends on your computer I guess, mine slows to a standstill before it gets anywhere near 40kb/s

Edited September 16, 2010 by bifftastic

[Cloggie]

See manual attached.

Good luck!

M.

Download Torrents Faster - Beginners Guide.pdf

Edited September 16, 2010 by Cloggie

[Gigabyte]

p.s. 40kb/s is way way more than i allow mine to upload, the most i allow per torrent is 5kb/s, let the servers do the bulk of the uploading, this, of course, depends on what kind of sites you're using.

I meant "global" upload rate.

ah ok gotcha even so, I don't let it get as fast as that, depends on your computer I guess, mine slows to a standstill before it gets anywhere near 40kb/s

Thanks both!

I have set the max. upload global speed to 30 kb/s and let's see what happens! The existing (default) setting was set at 1,120 kb/s!

[Gigabyte]

So Great!

Thanks all!

I have now set the upload speed limit to 20 kb/s (30 kb/s seemed to be too high) and not only I can download my web pages faster (or download them at all!) but my Torrent download speed seems also much faster! :-)

Have a great day all, and thanks for the kindly help! :-)

[astral]

Thanks from me too.

I will check my settings later today, when time permits.

[JetsetBkk]

So Great!

Thanks all!

I have now set the upload speed limit to 20 kb/s (30 kb/s seemed to be too high) and not only I can download my web pages faster (or download them at all!) but my Torrent download speed seems also much faster! :-)

Have a great day all, and thanks for the kindly help! :-)

If your downloads have got faster it may be because you have freed up bandwidth on the upload side for the acknowledgement messages.

These acknowledgement messages are going back to the computer that is sending you the torrent file and are using up a part of your upload bandwidth.

As this is not "data" being uploaded, i.e. it is not your torrent file being seeded, it will not be displayed by your client as part of the "uploaded data rate". You may not realise just how much of your upload bandwidth is being used by these outgoing messages.

You need software that shows all traffic between you and the outside world to see that outgoing traffic. I use Netmeter.

When I am downloading at 600 kB/s, Netmeter shows that I am also uploading at about 15 kB/s - 2.5% of that figure. For people who have 16 times more download rate than upload rate - e.g. 8 Mb/s down, 512 Kb/s up - this 600 kB/s down would be using nearly 25% of their upload bandwidth.

So it's not just a case of restricting the uploaded "data" rate of your client, you also have to consider the bandwidth needed by your client to acknowledge the downloaded data.

I've changed to a 8mb down/1mb up service, and that extra 512 Kb/s up has made an enormous difference to my ability to download, upload and browse at the same time.

Sometimes I still have to restrict an unnecessarily fast download of one torrent to allow other, more desirable, torrents to download, and to continue browsing.

Of course, none of this has much effect on TOT during the daytime as it is nearly always crap anyway.

[Cloggie]

JetSetBKK

"If your downloads have got faster it may be because you have freed up bandwidth on the upload side for the acknowledgement messages."

I don't think this has anything to do with it.

Downstream and upstream use different 'channels' AND downstream and upstream don't have the same 'capacity' (that's why it's called Asymmetric - download is higher than upload as we download more than we upload).

If you use a bittorent program you just need to make sure that the download of the bittorent not uses 100% of your downlaod capacity and the upload of the bittorent not uses 100% of your upload capacity. The manual as attached previous says: use 80% of your upload capacity and 95% of your download capacity

Even if you don't use your download capacity this not not mean that you can add that to your upload capacity, it will simply not be used.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[ianwuk]

Stop seeding and things should improve.

ianwuk

[Gigabyte]

Stop seeding and things should improve.

ianwuk

Well, if I do that, won't it go against the basic concept of file sharing?

[Supernova]

I browse the web while I download + seed torrents all the time and hardly notice any slowdowns. I can even watch YouTube videos without constant buffering... All this on a *slow* 2Mbps/512K connection. It really depends on how you setup your torrent client. You need to try out different settings until you find the "sweet spot" for your connection. This can be a rather time-consuming process, but it's worth the effort. Moderation is the key...

Good luck!

[Gigabyte]

I browse the web while I download + seed torrents all the time and hardly notice any slowdowns. I can even watch YouTube videos without constant buffering... All this on a *slow* 2Mbps/512K connection. It really depends on how you setup your torrent client. You need to try out different settings until you find the "sweet spot" for your connection. This can be a rather time-consuming process, but it's worth the effort. Moderation is the key...

Good luck!

Thanks!

And I think that I have found the G-spot... :-)

Browsing and downloading are smooth now. Correct that moderation is the key.