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Originally posted by: Kingsama
i started using bit torrent for the first time and my downloads are collectively topping out at between 15-20kbs. i have dsl and should be getting much better speeds. How can i fix this???
Alright, that last suggestion was probably based on the idea that you are running on a cable-modem connection. (300kB/s?!? Awesome!) But since you have DSL, things are likely going to be a little different.
What's happening is that you are having your bandwidth choked out by all the uploading, and so the ACKs (acknowledgements, I think I've got this part correct), which confirm that you've received your download data are getting screwed up/pushed aside. You need to limit the amount of upload bandwidth so that you have some overhead left for the little bits of confirmation data which are sent when you recieve a packet of data.
First of all, get a copy of Azureus 2.0.4, install it and set the "default max upload slots" to 3, and the "global max upload speed" to 80% of your upload bandwidth in kilobytes. Now be careful, 'cause the upload bandwidth takes a little math. Companies advertise in kiloBITS, not kiloBYTES. You're gonna have to divide by 8 to get the target number. Then multiply that number by .8 (to get 80%). This leaves you with some overhead for outgoing data other than the uploads of files. Now remember, don't get nutty and set this really low, thinking that you'll get faster downloads, cause you won't. Your torrent download speed is based on your upload speed, so you need as much upload bandwidth as possible without choking your connection (hence, 80%).
For example, if your line is advertised as:
a) 768/128, then you have 128kb of upstream bandwidth. Set your max upload to 13kB. (128 / 8 = 16 x .8 = 12.8 round this to 13)
b) 1.5/256, then your target number is 25kB (256 / 8 = 32 x .8 = 25.6 round this to 25)
I have a 1.5/256 line, and I find that on many torrents, I get about 100kB/s to 120kB/s speeds... sometime I hit 150kB/s or so. Not bad, considering I had all 20 episodes of Clone Wars in a couple hours, and this is still pretty close to the theoretical 192kB/s limit on my DSL line. Odds are, you have either a 128k or 256k upstream, but if you're not sure, assume it's 128k. I often see that I'm only uploading at 10kB/s to 12kB/s, and still breaking the 100kB/s download mark. The thing is, BitTorrent is really more of a techie's trade, as where Kazaa is more for the layman. However, stick with it and break outta that shell... 'cause Kazza sucks ass and torrents are much more "community friendly", if you take my meaning.
As to where you actually plug these numbers in, look under "Configuration" in the "View" menu. Also, lots of help can be found at Azureus's website. I'm just trying to give you a shortcut to the specifics and the numbers.
Also look into port forwarding if you are using a firewall or router. Just try to avoid the "default" ports for torrent clients, since sometime they are blocked by ISPs, and other times they become targets for hackers. You should onyl worry about the TCP ports, but I've got some UDP ports forwarded as well since Azureus has a setting that uses them as well.
Hope this helped a little!