Help! Bittorrent is slow… This is probably one of the most frequently questions asked about Bittorrent. Unfortunately there’s not some kind of magic trick that makes your torrents go through the roof. But you could take some simple steps to optimize your speeds.

1. Cap your upload

Limit your upload speed to approximately 80 percent of your maximum upload rate. You can check your upload speed over here (never trust your isp). Once you know your maximum upload speed, change the max upload (to 80%) speed in your torrent client’s preferences.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone should share as much as possible, but if your upload rate reached it’s max, your download rate suffers significantly.

2. Hack the max TCP connections

If you’re on XP sp2, your TCP connections are limited to a maximum of 10. This seriously hurts your downloading speed because it wont let you connect to a high amount of ip numbers. It is supposed to slow down viruses because their spreading strategy is to connect to a high amount of ip numbers, but it also cripples your torrent downloads.
A nice way to fix this is to download this patch; it allows you to set the maximum allowed connections to any number you want. Any number between 50 and 100 is ok (more on this here)



3. Check seeds and peers

A simple tip, but o so important. Always look for torrents with the best seed/peer ratio. The more seeds (compared to peers) the better (in general). So 50 seeds and 50 peers is better than 500 seeds and 1000 peers. So, be selective.

4. Change the default port.

By default, bittorrent uses a port 6881-6999. Bittorrent accounts for a lot of the total internet traffic (1/3), so isp’s like to limit the connection offered on the these ports. So, you should change these to another range. Good clients allow you to do this, just choose anything you like. If you’re behind a router, make sure you have the ports forwarded or UPnP enabled.

5. Disable Windows Firewall (or at least configure it to allow exceptions)
It sucks. Windows Firewall hates P2P and often leads a life of it’s own. So disable it and get yourself a decent firewall, sygate or outpost for example.

Last but not least… Buy a faster connection… :P

I'd like to make 2 additions to this...

First, when capping your upload speed, remember that the BT protcol favors the faster connections. Basically, someone is more likely to give you the pieces you need, if you are giving them the pieces they need. Upload faster, download faster. So when capping your upload speed, don't think that setting REALLY low will help, because it won't. It will slow your downloading down as well. The 80% rule is just that, a RULE. Do it for the best performance.

Second, regarding the Windows firewall, I agree, it is not the best. Even after you disable it, it has a tendancy to turn itself back on from time to time, usually after you install Windows updates. So it is best to allow your BT client as an exeption, and/or add the port(s) you will be using to the exeptions, to allow for situations where it turns itself on without you knowing. That way, if it does, your torrenting can continue unabated.

Hi imasickboy,

two useful additions there buddy, nice one.

Good tut steviweavi :a013: and good additions sickboy :a013:

Wow nice! How 'bout kicking leechers? Does it help? And how do you do it, I can't see their share ratio in my client.

I know they can be annoying but best thing is ... don't worry about them, why waste your time on those low lives...

hmm http://www.lvllord.de/?url=downloads&lang=en doesnt seem to work, have another link?

Hi ecko223, welcome to DarkSideRG

The link still works for me Maybe this direct link to the .zip file will work for you (English version):
http://www.lvllord.de/download.php?url=en/...atch223d-en.zip

@ ecko223

I messed with a mates puter this weekend and had the same problem. The way i got round it was save it to computer b4 opening. Hope this helps.

Didn't help me in the end looks like my mates ISP maybe the problem. He's using Talk Talk in the UK and i think there might be a bit of torrent throttling going on with the UK's first free isp Grrr!

Does anyone know for sure??

Yep it worked thanks :D

Nod32 tells me this link offers a virus threat

Time Module Object Name Threat Action User Information
03/06/2006 09:20:04 IMON archive http://www.lvllord.de/download.php?url=en/...atch223d-en.zip Win32/Tool.EvID4226 application Connection terminated

I would imagine thats because it wishes to alter windows itself ...I find no virus with in the files with an uptodate pro copy of AVG

Thank you very much steviweavi & imasickboy. These tips helped out so much!

That's exactly what it is .. some AV companies have added it to thier virus definitions so it shows up as a virus ...

:a013: thnx alot folks some very useful tips

Nice work steviweavi, thanks for access to that great tool

It didnot register as virus with kaspersky, but windows complained loudly, twice...
Have a good day

worked a treat thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

http://torrentfreak.com/?s=configuring+bit+comet

^^^another good site for speeding up and optimizing your torrent client

worked for me :a013:

i use bitlord. will the same tips work for that too

hi steviweavi, is it true that when uploading to 25 leechers @ 20kbps,, they all recieve that amount ?? or is it shared among them ? thanks in advance for any reply.

is this patch removeable again???

I realy dont know if you can remove it but im sure that you can reset the values to xp standard. i use it every time i format and have NEVER had a problem with it.

thanks a lot

I hesitate to even ask a question about this because I'm so new with torrent downloads.

Even when I read the step by step instruction, which I am sure are basic, I feel like I need a computer slang dictionary.

Can anyone suggest a torrent for dummies guide.

I don't even know if I need to do this, I get dl speeds up to 500kbs per second is that slow or fast?

Feels like a long time, 1 to 3 hours depending on how many seeds and peers for a normal aXXo movie.

Thank you

Elessar

your speed is ok i think, i have 2 mbit and i can download with around 200-230 kbs. Which means a movie on 700 mb takes 6-9 hours

@ lv.elessar

Try M00ters guide

If this is too hard reply or if you want PM me or any other member of staff, and one of us will find/write a guide that should help you out

@ lv.elessar your speed is more then okey with the fact that you're from USA

Thanx for the tips steviweavi and imasickboy gonna install the patch now.

got everything else right and the fastest connection i can get but speeds seem slow sometimes so maybe this is it.

Thank you nomies.

Thank you Sp4, I had actually read the front page. I'm good with all the definitions uptop, until they start talking about firewalls and static IPs. I read in another forum that the Microsoft firewall sucks, that is what I have but if I'm not having any problems with my dl speeds is it worth changing?

I'll keep reading all these how to guides, hopefully the light will come on.

Thanks again everybody

Elessar

Elessar, you firewall are often hindrance for topspeeds if it not configured the right way, and yes MS firewall suck. So you don't need a firewall to increase your dl-speed. I've turned it off. If you want a good firewall that's free, try Zonealarm.
The reason to have a firewall is to make it hard for people to hack your computer and to stop programs that shouldn't have internetaccess and so on.

I hope that explained it a little better

So MS firewall is the program that I get pop ups from telling me what programs are trying to access the internet? Will Zonealarm automatically disable the MS firewall and install its self? If I am running PeerGuardian2 doesn't that make it hard for people to hack my system?

Thanks for your help Nomies

Elessar

No, you have to turn off the MS firewall yourself, and then you need to configure Zonealarm so it grant access to the programs you want. You get popups from the tray whenever a program wants to access internet. Just click on Accept or Deny and Remember this setting box.

How do I turn off MS firewall?

Elessar

Contol Panel -> Security Center -> Firewall -> Turn it off

Thank You

I'll give it a try.

Elessar

Hi everybody,

I'm still new too, I always take it step by step and ask. I don't dare too much to change my settings because I'm afraid to screw up something. The begginners guide are very helpful for an overview for newbies or for tech freaks that already know what's talked about. Here's another one : http://www.utorrent.com/beginners-guide.php

But what about the people in between? I'm using utorrent and there isn't even a site that explains the software, which I - despite that - still like because it works, but I would like to understand it better or the rest of the stuff that's not self explanatory. I can't reduce my upload to 80% for instance. It says "0" is unlimited. I only get between 0,something and 20,0 something anyway. If it's not running at night and I wanna surf at the same time I tried to reduce it to 10 and that helped. Is that a good figure for the others then?

Calculating the peers and seeders I have given up on, every now and then I get a surprise and get 65 or so, but beats me why. It also states the inactive peers/seeders so sometimes this doesn't work or gets better because of the time differences I guess.

Your big figures are amazing me. I have 1,5 DSL and a movie usually takes a night, I consider that good.

The MS firewall got disabled from my buddy when I bought the pc and got Zonealarm instead, but the freeware is not programmable and I have to admit I just cut it off when I'm just downloading since I still have an AV. Don't kill me, it's not supposed to be an advice. Just a calculated risk from an otherwise unskilled user. Hey I can't even tell the smileys apart.

Well, Scottee, if you live in Sweden you're used to high speeds. 100/100 fiber aren't even unusually here I probably would go crazy if I had to wait so many hours for a movie, 1½ hour for a DVDr are a good time.

Hi nomies,

I would prefer Florida, but for the moment I'm stuck to goold ©old germany. I guess I have to live with my speed for a little longer. It all depends in which area you live anyway., I couldn't even subscribe to more. Once I was stuck for 14 days with a - seldom - movie. But I don't complain. I'm happy when I found what I was looking for and actually get it quasi "overnight delivery".

lol maybe i should move from denmark to sweden :D
it takes me 7 hours just to get an xvid movie

A more complete method is.



From ADL's how to get good download speeds.

When I went to turn my firewall off, I found out it already was off. I have been trying to get onto zonelabs.com but website must be down because neither FF or IE bring it up. I'll keep trying, I am running Norton online service and PeerGuardian2. I think it is Norton that is alerting me to Internet access attempts.



Elessar

personally I'd lose anything with Norton's name on it.

Link to Zone Alarm free Download

Awesome link

Thank you so much, you couldn't have made that any easier.

I have nine months left on a year subscription to Norton. I havn't had one virus since subscribing. I can tell from the forums that there are better programs out there, when my subscription is up all look into something else.

Do I have to change from stealth mode on the firewall when I use bittornado and download?

Thanks again!



Elessar

No you should keep your stealth mode... but... make sure your firewall allows the port you are using with your client.

Sorry you lost me

How do I know what port (what is this) the client (is this bittornado) uses?

Thanks you all have incredible patience.

Elessar

If you click on preferances you'll get a pop up with options you can set, by default it seems to select a range 10 000 - 60 000 and randomly allocates the port


That might be ok in a software firewall but if you use a router you migt be best chaning the setting
To for example

From 10000
To 10001

Deselect Randomise

Where do I select preferences from?

I did look before asking this question, must not have looked in the right places.

Stupid not lazy

Thank you

Elessar

Top Guide

I'm on a 512/256kbps line (it's fiber but hell it's romania...)
That's about 60KB down and 30KB up

If I'm not mistaking when downloading something 6% of the download speed uses your upload.
This means that if downloading at 100KB you will also upload 6KB (just for downloading)

So if you leave your upload speed unlimited when downloading a torrent that 6% might get sapped.

I have the window firewall on, the bitdefender firewall on and I download at my connection limit. I can get up to 60KB down and 30KB up.

6% of 60KB is 3.6KB of used upload bandwidth

Knowing this I set my upload to a max of 27KB and I get both speeds at max.

I also want to be able to browse so my final settings are max 58KB down and 27KB up


Here are my favorite sites for testing my bandwidth

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
http://speedtest.net/