Speeding up torrents?

Local H Jay

Any advice on speeding up the process of downloading large files via torrents?
I have about an 8 GB file coming in that has pretty much stopped dead in the last 4 hours. It went from "ETA of 2 days" to "ETA of 1 week, 1 day." Man, what???
I know very little aboot torrents, but I know since there's only 16 seeders (and only 5 I'm connected too???), and about 80 leechers, it's pretty much very bad. But it was like that the past two days and I made it to 49%. Then today it only made it up about 9%. So depressing.
Facts:
Using UTorrent.
It's at 49.7%.
I have it on "High" Bandwidth allocation. Unlimited download size, 4 KB Upload time (Dunno if this helps).
It's not imperitive it get done quickly, but I'd like to have the file (a program actually, freeware is what it says) for school next week. And a week and a day ain't gonna cut it.

TL;DR:
How do I speed up a torrent that has come to a stand still?

Thanatos

I usually just wait. It takes a lot of time. I've spent about a week on 8 gb worth of files (multiple), and I'm a bit more than halfway through.

Local H Jay

So I have to tough it out.
MAN. Where'd I put my patience...

Cycophant

Ensure you've got the proper ports open. Open up uTorrent and make sure there's a little green icon with a checkmark at the bottom. If it's anything else (like a yellow caution symbol, or I think in the new uTorrent, a red dot), your ports aren't open correctly and your speeds will be significantly hampered.

As well, you mentioned you've limited your upload speed to 4kb/sec. uTorrent automatically throttles downloads if your upload is set below 6kb/sec, to prevent people from downloading without uploading their fair share as well. You'll know this is happening if the words "Download Limited" is on the bottom status bar in uTorrent. Bump your upload speed up to six, and you'll notice a difference too I bet.

Failing all that, yes; you'll just have to wait it out. As the number of seeders rise as torrents finish, it should slowly get better.

Local H Jay

I changed it to 6kb, and it did speed up to 5 days ETA.
I do have the Yellow icon aswell, but opening the port is wayyy beyond me.
Thanks for the help, though!

Edit:
SHIT it's down to 1 day. That's awesome, thanks alot!

EggyToast

It's still entirely based on what the people you're connected to can upload at. Something else those people are uploading could easily get priority and hop over to another person. As long as they're still seeding, you'll get it eventually, but yeah, Bittorrent is *efficient*, it's not necessarily lightning fast.

tsmvengy

Why do you have your upload capped at 6kb/s? It should be faster - so that you're actually helping to share. Do a speed test then set your upload to 50-75% of your max upload speed. That will leave you w/ plenty of bandwidth for surfin'.

Ruckus

tsmvengy wrote: »

Why do you have your upload capped at 6kb/s? It should be faster - so that you're actually helping to share. Do a speed test then set your upload to 50-75% of your max upload speed. That will leave you w/ plenty of bandwidth for surfin'.

That can actually have a negative effect, especially if the OP is using ADSL.

EggyToast

And his upload speed at 6kbps may already be 50% of his max. Some people are on connections with bad upload speeds.

reddog

It is dependent on seeders...usually when i'm torrenting, even 16 seeders isn't that much because out of those 16, you'll probably only connect to maybe 5-6 like you are right now.

Also, how many people are on the internet in your house while you're downloading? I notice that when i'm downloading something on uTorrent and no one's online in my apt, it's a lot faster and i'll download something that's 1Gb in less than 30 minutes. When all 3 of my roommates are online doing stuff, it's slower.

Just my 2cents...

vonPoonBurGer

Ruckus wrote: »

tsmvengy wrote: »

Why do you have your upload capped at 6kb/s? It should be faster - so that you're actually helping to share. Do a speed test then set your upload to 50-75% of your max upload speed. That will leave you w/ plenty of bandwidth for surfin'.

That can actually have a negative effect, especially if the OP is using ADSL.

Setting your upload too low can also have a negative effect. Most BT clients use a reciprocation algorithm, so if you want be able to download from lots of other clients, you need to upload to them. If your upload limit is very low, or if you're just leeching, you're essentially restricted to downloading from seeds, or downloading from peers the will send data to you despite the fact that you're not reciprocating by uploading. For most torrents (especially those without a lot of seeds), in order to max out your available download capacity you need to do a fair amount of uploading. Otherwise you'll never get enough pieces coming in simultaneously to tap your available download bandwidth, and it'll take a really long time to finish the file(s). 50-75% of your normal upload capacity should be an Ok limit, provided there's no other activity on your connection that would saturate the available upload bandwidth.

Cycophant

vonPoonBurGer wrote: »

Ruckus wrote: »

tsmvengy wrote: »

Why do you have your upload capped at 6kb/s? It should be faster - so that you're actually helping to share. Do a speed test then set your upload to 50-75% of your max upload speed. That will leave you w/ plenty of bandwidth for surfin'.

That can actually have a negative effect, especially if the OP is using ADSL.

Setting your upload too low can also have a negative effect. Most BT clients use a reciprocation algorithm, so if you want be able to download from lots of other clients, you need to upload to them. If your upload limit is very low, or if you're just leeching, you're essentially restricted to downloading from seeds, or downloading from peers the will send data to you despite the fact that you're not reciprocating by uploading. For most torrents (especially those without a lot of seeds), in order to max out your available download capacity you need to do a fair amount of uploading. Otherwise you'll never get enough pieces coming in simultaneously to tap your available download bandwidth, and it'll take a really long time to finish the file(s). 50-75% of your normal upload capacity should be an Ok limit, provided there's no other activity on your connection that would saturate the available upload bandwidth.

That's the joy of using uTorrent. They openly state what their upload limit is to prevent leaching, hence why I suggested to him to raise his upload speed to 6kb/sec. In terms of pure benefit within the software, he won't get any faster downloads above that. Sure, the spirit of torrents means that if he contributes more, all the better. But like many folks have said, a lot of connections have an abhorrent upload speed, and 6kb/sec may already be hampering his internet speeds.

BathTubb

I am in the same boat as the OP, but I did forward my ports and is still getting crap for download speed. I have a G5 imac and the program I using is Transmission. Any help will be much appreciated

Shurakai

If my stupid ISP didn't have a down/up cap I would seed way more than I do now.

Just trying to do a 1:1 seeding ratio puts me over my cap about 20 days into the month. They don't actively slow me down until I'm about 20% over though, so it usually works out for the end of the month unless I go on a major downloading spree.

Remember, your ISP could be evil in more ways than one. Almost all throttle BT traffic, so enable encryption in whatever client you happen to have.

As far as choosing the right file to download, make sure to always sort by Seeds. Lots of listing sites sort my age, which is stupid. Sort my seeds, higher is always better.

If you start downloading something with hardly any seeds, the availability will be very small, but you will probably have a fast download speed right off the bat. The reason for this is that you are downloading from all the other peers that do not have the complete file and are waiting for thier turn at the seed(s). Frustrating, but thats just the way it is.