Been reading these forums for a while now trying to sort out my speeds with BitTorrent but I'm still getting pretty rubbish speeds for my connection. I've read J-Kwon's guide (and DVDBack23's guide when I was using BitComet) as well as several others and I'm still not getting the speeds I'd like. So I thought I'd post my details and see if anyone can help me :) Incase you didn't notice, I'm using uTorrent...
System: Windows XP SP 2, Firewall is allowing uTorrent, no anti-virus software blocking anything, no spyware, all clean :)
ISP: Tiscali
Connection: 1Mb (was 512kbps until week ago)
Speeds: 120kB/s max down, 30-35kB/s max up, limited between 6-11pm everyday
Torrents: Mainly use private trackers, sometimes public if I'm desperate for something!
uTorrent: Showing Network OK green circle, DHT disabled due to using private trackers
The Situation
I was using BitComet until two weeks ago when the latest uTorrent version was released with protocol encryption and since BitComet's protocol encryption didn't seem to be doing anything I thought I'd give uTorrent a go. I didn't notice a big difference in speeds. I was getting around 40kB/s download average with BitComet when I was on 512kbps, with uTorrent I was only getting around 15-20kB/s download. My upload speeds were a little better with uTorrent, I've never really had a problem with upload speeds though!
I never seem to get anywhere near my max speed with uTorrent. Obviously I'm not expecting to get this constantly but my downloads never seem to get above 20kB/s, apart from one part of the day at 11.00pm when Tiscali stop limiting my connection and suddenly my speed races up to 100kB/s plus. Example here, see the time, 23:00 exactly! (Big images from now on so I' m linking)
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5057/topspeed3ep.jpg
With this particular torrent, the speed dropped down to 40kB/s after 10 minutes or so, then down to 20kB/s after another 15 minutes or so. Frustrating :mad: Also notice the amount I'm receiving from each seeder. Which brings me on to the next point.
One thing I've noticed is that I don't get a lot from each seeder/peer I'm connected to, typically 1kB and below! There are exceptions obviously, a torrent I was using the other day I had 36kB/s from one seeder, then the rest were 1-2kB/s and below. Here's an example, I used a well seeded torrent to get these screenshots, most of the torrents I use have a ratio of 10 seeders for every leecher. This torrent has 668 seeders and 46 peers.
You might have noticed I'm not connected to many of these 668 seeds, I've tried using more connections, connected peers etc, but nothing seems to change.
So right now I'm thinking Tiscali are limiting my BitTorrent activity 23 hous and 50 minutes a day, because when I download something from a website or somewhere I max out my connection anytime of the day.
If anyone has any idea of anyway I could improve my speeds I would be very appreciative.
