Torrents killing my internet speed

[fustercluck]

Well, obviously torrents are going to take up bandwidth, but even if i'm just downloading/uploading at 15kpbs it's like I'm back to having a 56k connection (I have Cox Cable). It seems like torrents slow down everything more than they should. I can hardly browse the net when Utorrent is open, no matter how fast/slow things are downloading/uploading. Just normal or something ain't right? My upload cap is around 65kbs.

 

[ViRGE]

Some routers and cable modems have significant issues with BitTorrent due to the number of connections the client keeps open. I'm not familar with uTorrent, but see if you can't decrease the number of connections it's capped at; 100 tends to be a good conservative numbers.

Oh, and what cable modem (and router, if you have one) are you using?

 

[fightcancer]

Originally posted by: ropeadope
I can hardly browse the net when Utorrent is open, no matter how fast/slow things are downloading/uploading. Just normal or something ain't right? My upload cap is around 65kbs.

I have the exact same problem using uTorrent--even when I manually stop all torrents from running. If uTorrent is open, I can't surf on any PC on the network. I'm about to reinstall Azureus or another. I have tried everything I can find to alleviate this issue including ViRGE's suggestion above.

It's nice to know I'm not alone with this quirk.

I'm using uTorrent 1.7.5 but this issue has persisted for a year or longer through several of the previous versions. I've encountered many people online who have reported the exact same issue with uTorrent (and rarely other BT clients). I'm using a Linksys WRT54G on an old Motorola Surfboard cable modem.

 

[robmurphy]

I use utorrent, and do not have the problems you mention. What I do is cap the upload speed to 40 KBs ( ~50% of my upstream bandwidth). At this rate I can browse the web fine, and you only notice the utorrent when downloading big files. I regulary get 800 KBs - 1.2 MBs downloads on the torrents and I've seen it get as high as 1.6 MBs, thats at least 12.8 Mbs. My ISP is Virginmedia in the UK and I'm on the 20 Mbs service.

My router is a Netgear WGT624 V3. Maybe the problem is with the routers you have.

I did have problems with utorrents crashing the link to the ISP but this was the old ambit cable modem, which was not up to the 10 Meg service it was working on. Virginmedia sent me a new cable modem last year and now everything works OK. I have seen 2.4 - 2.5 MBs (i.e. 20 Mbs) downloads, but this needed a change to the TCP window size, and the RFC 1323 options enabling.

Try connecting the torrent machine straight to the cable modem so you can check if the router is at fault. If its still causing slow browsing then maybe the cable modem is at fault.

Rob.

 

[kreactor]

i have the same issue, only i'm sharing bandwidth with a sibling in a 2 family house
everytime he uses utorrent on his laptop w/ 802.11g, my desktop w/ 802.11g gets either real slow or get the internet disconnected....is there a router that allows bandwidth to be divided 50/50 via ip address?

 

[Rottie]

Same problem here too but it doesn't bother me at all because I let it runs when I go to bed anyway.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

I actually got a new router JUST to fix this problem. This is an old problem and the only fix is to get a better router that can handle more simultaneous TCP/IP connections.

In my case, I built my own router. Just need to build a computer, install Clark Connect on it, and voila, you've got a router that can handle practically anything you throw at it. Plus you can make this into a fileserver as well. Clark Connect needs very little to run. Any old computer with an ethernet port should work.

 

[heymrdj]

The router is normally the issue, but most all SOHO routers are the same. Limit your connections to 100-150, and cap your upload speeds to 50-80% of your connections upload speed (that's the major one there). Those two things fix the problem completely most of the time.