I have written this quick but extensive guide to help all fellow members who are having troubles downloading torrents or using Utorrent in general.

1) First read the very basic guides on Afterdawn on what torrents are in general

2) Next visit http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ pick the city closest to yours and get your max upload speed. Now with that same number, (for eg. 300 kb/s) divide first by 8 (eg. 300/8 = 37.5) then take that number you just got and multiply it by .8 (eg. 37.5*.8 = 30) (If you are good with percentages, then just take 10%. ;) The final number you get is your Global Max Upload, which can be set in the Preferences section of Utorrent.

Note: If you do not live in the US, visit here and pick the city closest to you, http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?more=1

3) Download Utorrent 1.6 here: http://www.utorrent.com/download.php

4)Install and then run Utorrent.

5) Under Preferences, select a random listening port. Check this site for vulnerabilities first however, http://www.commodon.com/threat/threat-ports.htm

6) Run this test and follow all the steps it tells you to GREATLY improve your cable/dsl connection.
http://www.broadbandreports.com/tweaks
Under advertised speed, use the max speed you got after taking the speed test.

7)If you are behind a firewall such as McAfee, please allow full access to the internet for Utorrent. If Using Windows firewall, then you must do the following: Open Windows firewall through the Control Panel. Go to the Exceptions tab and press Add Port. Then add the port # you selected in step 5.

If you are behind a router, please visit http://www.portforward.com and then select your router, and then Utorrent or torrent. Follow every step to forward your ports and allow greater access to better speeds for your torrents.

9) If possible, register with private trackers such as http://torrentleech.org or http://scenetorrents.org . If these are full, keep trying as they ban people on the regular leaving open spots.
If not, use decent public trackers such as http://mininova.org , http://thepiratebay.org , http://isohunt.com or ONE of my favorite, http://torrentspy.com

10) Download the torrent of your choice that has the most Seeds but least amount of leechers. Keep in mind, torrents with for eg. 8 seeds will download slower than a torrent with 100+ seeds.

11) When downloading large files (500+ MB) it takes up to 30 minutes to get up to full speed, so dont worry if you start off slow. Also do NOT download more than one torrent at a time.

12) Under preferences in Utorrent, go to Torrents and set "global max number of connections" to 450 and "max number of connected peers per torrent" to 200 (as to not crash your router).

13) While still in preferences, go to Network and set Protocol Encryption to ENABLED. http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/4324/setts7qc.png

Well ive tried to keep this small guide short and sweet, and I hope it helps the many out there who still have problems with torrent downloading

PS. In case anyone is not sure that this works, i have a 10000kb (1.4 MB) connection, forwarded through a Netgear Router, registered with a private tracker and i get normally 500-1300 KB/s download speed.

Enjoy!

EDIT: Heres a couple of easter eggs for you guys ;)
* Clicking the µTorrent logo in the About subsection of Help will play a synthesized sound
* Pressing the T-button on the keyboard when viewing the About subsection of Help will start a game of Tetris (thanks Ronin)

Copyright Andre Yoskowitz (DVDBack23) 2006

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