Bit Torrent Questions

Topia

So, I'm sitting here downloading something (don't worry, completely legal) and pretty pissed off that I manage to upload at 2mb/s but can only download at, usually, like, 10kb/s. In this example I have 50 connections, as well. Anyone know if maybe I might have some port-forwarding problems, or maybe a different torrenting program to use that might increase my download speeds? Currently I'm using the regular plain 'ol torrent program.

Smasher

Port forwarding is definitely a potential issue. Make sure any firewalls and routers you have (all of them, if there's more than one) are properly configured to forward traffic on the proper ports to your computer. There should be some sites online that tell you whether your ports are working correctly or not.

You seem to have a fairly unusual connection, but your upload bandwidth may be swamping your download bandwidth. Try throttling yours back to 1 mb/s and see if your download improves any.

I believe some systems have limits on the number of connections you can have at once. I don't know much about that, but if the first two angles don't help you may want to try limiting your upload connections and see if that helps.

Finally, this won't fix your particular problem but I'd highly suggest switching to a different torrent client. utorrent is widely regarded as one of, if not the, best ones out there.

Blake T

Personally i prefer Azerus but I use uTorrent as it has less of a RAM footprint on my old arse machine.

Try throtling back, also check the "health" of the torrent Azerus and uTorrent both have features to see how much of the entire download is available as in there are 4 or 5 full copies available. If it's only one what could be happening is you are downloading from the seed which is a slow connection and everyone is then leeching off you with your fast fancy connection since you have sole access to the seed. I explained it really badly but that is what could be happening.

Also

http://portforward.com/routers.htm

Topia

Aweomse, thanks guys, I'll take a better look into my ports, and give azeurus a try.

Secondary question, do either of you know where/how I can figure out which would be the appropriate ports to make sure are forwarded properly?

Edit: nevermind, your link does exactly that for me, blanket. Wonderful, thanks.

Falx

I don't know about Azeurus, but utorrent is awesome in that it has built in stuff to test if your ports are forwarding properly. Also, tiny download, very little memory.