Bit-by-bit-by-bit torrent

June 11, 2007 11:01 AM

Big dumb stupid newbie Bittorrent question.

My Bittorrent downloads are painfully slow, and I"m wondering whether this is par for the course or if I have something configured wrong.

Let me start by confessing that my understanding of how BT works is cursory at best. I understand the concept, but not the specifics.

For instance, I'm trying to download a torrent that has almost 200 seeds. That's people sharing it, right? So how come my client (Bittorrent) only sees 4 "peers"? And how come my download speed ranges from 0 to 4 kb/s, while my upload speed goes into the high double-digits?

Things I've done, from reading the instructions:

* Turned off Windows Firewall
* Enabled automatic port mapping
* Set up that dedicated port thing in the settings of my Motorola wireless router (this one I really don't understand at all ... I know I set up a dedicated thingie for it, gave it a number that wasn't being used, then specified a slightly lower number in the "Look for available port starting at port ___" preferences box.)
* Enabled "Autodetect available bandwidth"

This last one is interesting, because it tells me my "average maximum download rate" should be 9.5 MB/s. It's automatically got upload throttled at 90 KB/s.

Lots of detail, I know, and probably not all of it helpful. Windows XP, by the way, on a smokin' fast computer with lots of RAM and hard drive space. Is there some magic button somewhere I'm not pushing?

posted by jbickers to Computers & Internet (20 answers total)

Seeds are users who have the entire file available for sharing. You will also see a stat for "leechers." These are people like you who are downloading the file and have bits and pieces of it, but not the entire torrent. You want to look for a high seeder to leecher ratio.

Which BitTorrent client are you using? The auto-detect settings seem rather high. Try setting them yourself...

Go to a bandwidth testing site like DSLReports and figure out your max upload speed. You want to set your client to allow a max upload speed of ~80% of what your connection is capable of handling.

Also keep in mind that more connections to peers does not necessarily mean faster speeds. It's the law of diminishing returns.

But first things first. Set that max upload speed and give it some time to see if your download speeds improve.
posted by roomwithaview at 11:09 AM on June 11, 2007

Make sure your ISP doesn't throttle bit torrent, or otherwise muck around with the service. Rogers in Canada does all sorts of stuff to make sure downloading via BitTorrent sucks. Your ISP may do something similar. I say this because it sounds like you have things set up right on your end.
posted by chunking express at 11:13 AM on June 11, 2007

chunking express brings up a good point. If your ISP does indeed throttle BitTorrent, you can try enabling encryption in your client.
posted by roomwithaview at 11:14 AM on June 11, 2007

You could also look into using Azerus in conjunction with GreedyTorrent which will lie about how much you've uploaded which in turn increases your download speed. (This isn't really 'fair' but hey you're probably downloading stolen shows/movies anyway)
posted by zeoslap at 11:15 AM on June 11, 2007

Which client are you using? Some sites/programs actively filter out certain clients known to allow users to "cheat" on their uploading.

Do you have protocol encryption? Some users only upload or download to clients who have protocol encryption enabled.

Who is your service provider? They may be throttling your bandwidth.

What side did you download it from? Sometimes I run into private sites that will let me see that there are seeders but none of them will let me make connections.

And it may just be selfish seeders. I like to test out my Bittorrent speed by downloading the CD-sized version of Knoppix--Linux torrents are usually great for bandwidth. You could try that out here.
posted by Benjy at 11:19 AM on June 11, 2007

Response by poster: you can try enabling encryption in your client.

I'm guessing I'll need to try a different client to do this? I'm using BitTorrent itself, and it doesn't appear to offer this as an option.

You could also look into using Azerus in conjunction with GreedyTorrent which will lie about how much you've uploaded which in turn increases your download speed.

I don't think the amount I've uploaded is a factor - that number is much, much higher than the amount downloaded.
posted by jbickers at 11:21 AM on June 11, 2007

Response by poster: And it may just be selfish seeders. I like to test out my Bittorrent speed by downloading the CD-sized version of Knoppix--Linux torrents are usually great for bandwidth.

Very interesting - the Linux distro smokes, at about 70 kb/s. So I suppose that means it's set up properly? Will switching to a client that supports encryption speed up the "losers"?
posted by jbickers at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2007

Best answer: "I'm using BitTorrent itself"

The Windows BitTorrent client itself is pretty lame. I've never had good luck with it.

The aforementioned Azureus is great, but since you're using Windows you also have access to the very excellent uTorrent client. I suggest you try that in preference to the rather cruddy BitTorrent client.

"You could also look into using Azerus in conjunction with GreedyTorrent..."

I don't suggest doing this. Not because of the dishonesty itself but because the dishonesty will get you banned from most of the high-quality torrent trackers out there.
posted by majick at 11:28 AM on June 11, 2007

Response by poster: Hazarding a guess - is the fact that I don't use a static IP address (i.e. I allow Windows networking to automatically choose one) a problem?
posted by jbickers at 11:37 AM on June 11, 2007

Is 70k really smokin'? I can hit 150Kbps on my DSL but was considering going to cable instead for even better speeds. BTW at 150k, other pc's on my network are unusable to browse the web, check email, etc.
posted by thilmony at 11:38 AM on June 11, 2007

I know I set up a dedicated thingie for it, gave it a number that wasn't being used, then specified a slightly lower number in the "Look for available port starting at port ___" preferences box.

This is key: Don't use a slightly lower number. Use that exact number. If you tell your bittorrent client to use a lower port number than what's actually being forwarded, it obviously won't work.

Also, make sure that the port is actually getting forwarded to your computer! In the "dedicated port thing", you had to put an IP address in, right? What did you enter?
posted by marionnette en chaussette at 11:49 AM on June 11, 2007

If you have a router, you will need to do some port forwarding. Erm, um that's what I over heard, once, a long time ago, in a far away land.
posted by 517 at 11:55 AM on June 11, 2007

Best answer: I've hit 300k on dsl with some good torrents.

I definitely recommend forwarding your ports. Depending on the site you download from, port forwarding is a must (altho I see you did that already).

I also second the suggestion to switch to uTorrent. It's much better, has more options, has a low footprint for cpu usage and has a very simple interface.

As somebody else mentioned, your download speed is slower the higher your upload speed is.

Lastly, you might simply have a slow torrent, despite the amount of "seeders".

On a related subject, anybody know what's wrong with OINK today?
posted by ashbury at 11:56 AM on June 11, 2007

Response by poster: OK, so I'm beginning to think I've done the "port forwarding thingie" incorrectly. 2 kb is a far cry from 300.

How important is it that my machines have static IPs? Because right now, they don't.
posted by jbickers at 12:00 PM on June 11, 2007

Best answer: You really don't need a static IP since they rarely change on a small home network BUT you then need to check you IP before you start a torrent and make sure that you have the torrents port forwarded to that IP. From a command prompt window issue a ipconfig command and that will tell you your current IP.
posted by Ferrari328 at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2007

static ips are important - since you will set your router to always forward ports to that static ip address.

you need to set the DHCP settings so that the bittorrent PC always gets the same IP address from your router. (usually this is done with the MAC address. (try "getmac" on the cmd line or look in the networking control panel.)
posted by kamelhoecker at 2:30 PM on June 11, 2007

on preview: if you want to change your port forwarding in your router each time you bittorrent, you can do that. but it's tedious. Much easier to set DHCP to give you the same IP address each time.
posted by kamelhoecker at 2:31 PM on June 11, 2007

Or just don't use DHCP: set your ipaddress to an allowable one (192.168.1.90 for me) and the router will take your packets to their correct homes all the time.
posted by Four Flavors at 4:22 PM on June 11, 2007

Unless you have specific, DHCP-related problems, then telling your computer to always get its address automatically, and telling your router to always hand the same IP address to your computer's MAC address, is a better idea than setting a fixed IP address in the computer itself. It's less fiddly, it leaves more things Just Working, and it means you most likely won't have to deal with IP address conflicts later on.
posted by flabdablet at 6:37 PM on June 11, 2007

A long time ago (couple years at least), I wrote a fairly widely circulated piece called "The BT Bible". I made it as far as version 1.2 and then stopped updating it.

Realistically, it has everything in it that you need to know, even if it is a little dated. I won't self link, because my server's down right now because my host sucks, but it'll be back up in a couple days (maybe tomorrow! Thumbs crossed.) I'm pretty sure the guy at torrentfreak.com is hosting it too.

It's had something like 3 million downloads, so it must not suck too bad. But ya, I've got lots of fix-your-issue type tutorials on there, but like I said, it's down until I get the time to transfer the site to a new host. (It's in my profile I think, I'll let you find it yourself so nobody can say I'm selflinking.)
posted by TomMelee at 9:36 PM on June 11, 2007