Ok here's the deal, I'm living in China and I'm having pretty slow downloads. I'll explain why in a bit.
Here is what I have. ChinaTelecom (I think I read on a list it throttles torrent activity or something)
2MB connection (I don't know if this is good or not)
uTorrent.
A PPPoE connection with a router that handles the username/password broadcasting wireless with WEP encryption. Without my router The only machine that can connect is my personal laptop, period. No other laptop/computer can connect even if I log off and log on a different computer unless I use a router.
I'm using a DI-524M (D-Link) and so it was a huge hassle to figure out how to foward my ports, but I did so eventually (as the router is in Chinese and I only know English.)
I followed that guide and immediately I was getting up to 150 kbps on a Rossetta stone app I was downloading. Since I was happy I figured out how to forward my ports with my router, I attempted to open the ports for a game called Metal Gear Online. Well the guide I was using said to open a certain port twice (53) once as UDP and once as TCP. It caused an error and it deleted everything but the uTorrent port.
Then the download went down to 40-50kbps. Now this is still good, before I had been trying to dl it for a week and my highest was maybe 5kbps. But I want to know why it went down so low. I checked my settings and nothing else changed and the port is still open.
I think I only had 20-30 seeds connected when I was getting 150. BUt later I had 30 and I was 0nly getting 50 kbps. Im now downloading other things and I have 20 seeds connected but my speed is only 10-20 kbps. Still better but not good enough.
One thing I notice is that if I close uTorrent and turn on HotSpotShield (a proxy kind of program) I get more seeds and so I usually do that every couple of hours. I know China blocks sites like the pirate bay and I just realized that the trackers are being blocked too, and the only way to connect to them at all is to turn on HSS before I even open utorrent.
As for seeds I dont understand. Im currently trying to download Season 1 of the Venture Brothers. I have 17/40 for seeds and 32/98 for peers, and yet my DL is 12 kbps on average right now. Why can't I connect to more and why is it soooo slow? Why can't I get back up to 100 kbps+ dls?
Is it the amount of seeds that you are connected to that determine your DL speed, or is the connection of each individual seed matter more? EX If I connected to 10 people with T3 would it be faster than 100 people with Dialup (or something along those lines?)
Two more tweaks you can try are Protocol Encryption: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/395674 and disabling UPnP at options>preferences>connection. I'm guessing you are downloading from public sites, seeds probably have their upload speed turned way down and you have no way of telling plus with more peers than seeds, speeds will be lower. Could be those peers you are connected to have the same parts of the file as you and won't be uploading to you. Also downloading more than one file at a time means your speed is shared between them. 2 MB is a decent speed and people on the other end can't upload to you any faster than their connection allows. You can't connect better or go faster because you're being throttled; a port check in utorrent is showing green or red and what port are you using and is your upload set in utorrent? Totally off topic but I don't know how China approaches this but I'd find out. They don't seem to mess around over there if something annoy's them and their legal system seems to be lacking too.
Originally posted by mistycat: Two more tweaks you can try are Protocol Encryption: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/395674 and disabling UPnP at options>preferences>connection. I'm guessing you are downloading from public sites, seeds probably have their upload speed turned way down and you have no way of telling plus with more peers than seeds, speeds will be lower. Could be those peers you are connected to have the same parts of the file as you and won't be uploading to you. Also downloading more than one file at a time means your speed is shared between them. 2 MB is a decent speed and people on the other end can't upload to you any faster than their connection allows. You can't connect better or go faster because you're being throttled; a port check in utorrent is showing green or red and what port are you using and is your upload set in utorrent? Totally off topic but I don't know how China approaches this but I'd find out. They don't seem to mess around over there if something annoy's them and their legal system seems to be lacking too.
I'm currently downloading 2 because the other one I'm dling only has 2 seeds and is already pretty damn slow so I don't mind sharing a dl with that.
I'm using port 64100 and my upload is 30. It shows green on the port check as I've opened up the port. I've set it for 200 connections per torrent and 450 for global. I also just disabled UPnP port mapping but it doesnt seem like it's done anything.
Also I only have access to public torrents because I wouldn't know how to go about finding a private one =).
And I'm not sure about your question as far as China? Are you asking me if I should be concerned about being caught downloading things?
As long as your being throttled, about all you can do is set your upload speed properly and, maybe, download at an off peak time like 12:00 AM - 6:00 AM. Just bookmark some private sites and check them daily. It may take awhile but eventually you'll get in, particularly the less well known ones, got all mine that way. Not really a question on illegal downloading in China, I'd just want to know how it was regarded if I was there.
Originally posted by mistycat: As long as your being throttled, about all you can do is set your upload speed properly and, maybe, download at an off peak time like 12:00 AM - 6:00 AM. Just bookmark some private sites and check them daily. It may take awhile but eventually you'll get in, particularly the less well known ones, got all mine that way. Not really a question on illegal downloading in China, I'd just want to know how it was regarded if I was there.
How do I go about finding private sites?
And I don't know about the goverments feelings. But on almost every corner there are people selling bootleg dvds, and almost everyone I know who can afford a computer/psp/internet connection pirates games/things.
Every private site I am a member of, I heard of on this site, bookmarked, and checked it every day, some took quite a while though. Actually, two I really like I haven't seen mentioned in some time, pm me if you need a list. Seen a few mentioned the last few days, they are always pruning account's and, if you're on the spot, can register. Or if you know somebody who is already registered and has invites, they could invite you but don't ask here, it's not allowed plus some sites hold both parties responsible for the invited person's ratio and both can get banned. Yeah, I knew China was one of the capitals of piracy, just wondered how it could affect anyone caught doing it there.
