How to increase download speeds of uTorrent
ADVERTISEMENTSuTorrent was very slow for me until recently I applied a few tweaks. Here’s what I did.
Note: Some of the settings mentioned below are optimized for 256k connection. If you want to calculate the optimal settings for your connection, check at the end of this tutorial. But I suggest you to read the entire tutorial for guidance on other settings.
First go to Options>Preferences>Network
- Under ‘Port used for incomming connections’, enter any port number. It is best to use a port number above 10000. I use 45682.
- Randomize port each time utorrent starts: UNCHECKED. I leave this unchecked because I have a router. If you do not have a router or a firewall, and want extra security,check this option.
- Enable UPnP port mapping (Windows Xp or later only): UNCHECKED. I leave this unchecked because I have experienced it slowing down speeds. It is not needed if you manually port forward.
- Add utorrent to Windows Firewall exceptions (Windows XP SP2 or later only): UNCHECKED (do this only if you have windows firewall disabled)
- Global Maximum upload rate (kb/s): [0: unlimited]: 22 (for 256k connection)
- Protocol Encryption: ENABLED. I would recommend everyone to enable this. This can help increase speeds with many ISPs.
- Allow incoming Legacy Connections: CHECKED
Options>Preferences>Torrents
- Global Maximum Number of Connections: 130 (for 256k connection)This number should not be set too low or the number of connections made to your torrents will be limited. Setting it too high may cause too much bandwidth to be used and can cause slowdowns.
- Maximum Number of connected peers per torrent: 70 (for 256k connection)If you see that the peers connected to a specific torrent are exactly this number, or very close, increase this number to improve speeds.
- Number of upload slots per torrent: 3 (for 256k connection)This depends on how much you want to upload to other users. Do not set too low or it may affect download speeds.
- Use additional upload slots if upload speed <90%: CHECKED
- Maximum number of active torrents: 2 (for 256k connection)
- Maximum number of active downloads: 1 (for 256k connection)
- Enable DHT Network: CHECKEDThis is recommended to be checked to improve speeds. More people will be available for sharing if this is checked.
- Enable DHT for new torrents: CHECKED
- Enable Peer Exchange: CHECKED
- Enable scrapping: CHECKED
- Pre-allocate all files: CHECKED
- Append .!ut to incomplete files: UNCHECKED
Options>Preferences>Advanced
net.max_halfopen: 50
If you use Windows XP SP2, patch tcpip.sys with LvlLord’s Event ID 4226 Patcher to get better performance.
DO NOT CHANGE THIS OPTION unless you have Windows XP SP2 and have patched tcpip.sys.
You can also patch tcpip.sys with xp-Antispy
If you have a firewall
- Open up the options/preferences/settings for the firewall - usually your firewall will have an icon to click in the taskbar
- Look for the keywords “allow list” or “programs”
- Add the application you want to give access to the internet
- Make sure to save your settings when you are done
If you have a router
- Go to start>run>type cmd, press enter>type ipconfig, press enter
- Remember both your ip address and your default gateway
- Type in your default gateway into your default browser, a password prompt may come up. The default username and password are admin for my router
- Under ‘Applications’ fill out one line for each p2p client you use
- You need to use your ip address, the correct port range and set either tcp or udp
- You can find and change the ports in the actual p2p client’s settings, just make sure they are the same in the router
- Most p2p apps need both tcp and udp checked, if you are not sure check your p2p client’s FAQ
- Save your settings
Check PortForward.com to forward ports for uTorrent.
Some of the settings I mentioned above are relative to my bandwidth.
How to calculate optimal settings for your connection
In order to apply the following tips you need to know your maximum upload and download speeds. You can test your bandwidth over here.
Maximum upload speed
If you use your Maximum upload speed, there won’t be not enough space left for the files you are downloading. So you have to cap your upload speed.
This is how I calculate my optimal upload speed…
upload speed * 80%
Maximum download speed
Setting your maximum download speed to unlimited will hurt your connection. So use this to calculate your optimal setting.
download speed * 90%
Maximum connected peers per torrent
upload speed * 1.3
Maximum upload slots
1 + (upload speed / 6)
Disable Windows Firewall
Windows Firewall hates P2P and so disable it and get yourself a decent firewall like Zone Alarm.
And last optimize your Internet connection with TCP Optimizer.
Know any other tricks to increase uTorrent’s download speed? Please share them here.
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Posted on April 19th, 2006 | Category: Tutorials |
mike
April 20, 2006 at 5:10 am
When you first choose the utorrent settings there is a slider to choose what your internet connection is… When I am at school I set the slider to the highest (T1 I think) and then procced to download. On real popular torrents a download speed usually just shy of 1 megabyte per sec and upload at a little over 1 megabyte usually.
gooey
April 20, 2006 at 6:08 am
for me the biggest issue for download speed is what i have the upload speed set to.
i have a 1.5mb/256kb connection. if i set my upload speed to 17kb - i get great download speeds, if i push it too 18kb, the download speed dies - just hovers around 30kb.
johntp
April 20, 2006 at 6:25 am
gooey- What’s the maximum download speed you have got till now? I am on a 256kb connection too.
Keith Dsouza
April 20, 2006 at 7:06 am
Hey John,
Another one of those gem’s from you, keep it up.
I hope to see much more from you in the future.
Keith
johntp
April 20, 2006 at 7:13 am
Thanks Keith for your support. It’s regular readers like you that encourage me to write more
Keith
April 20, 2006 at 9:11 am
Hi there,
Thank you very much for the advise in uTorrent. I am currently running BitComet, I believe similar changes can be applied to improve the download speed of BitComet, as well as other BitTorrent clients. Good efforts for your post!!
johntp
April 20, 2006 at 9:17 am
Keith- Yes, most of these settings can be applied to other BitTorrent clients and thank you for your kind words
Azrane
April 21, 2006 at 12:44 am
This pumped my uTorrent speeds from about 50k/s to 250k/s. Brilliant
johntp
April 24, 2006 at 11:45 am
Manas- Same here
daniel
April 24, 2006 at 7:49 pm
johntp
April 25, 2006 at 1:24 am
Daniel- Guess you were successful in increasing download speed
Mirna
April 29, 2006 at 9:42 pm
These tips worked great for me! Previously, I was not able to get above about 30kB/s and now I can get up to 90!
johntp
April 29, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Mirna- That’s great. I am glad this article was of help
nasiru
May 1, 2006 at 9:46 am
nice tips , just changed from bitcomet to uTorrent
Dreadhead
May 1, 2006 at 5:46 pm
I have used azureus for over a year.. It was using more and more cpu speed.
So i looked for something else.. Then I found utorrent. Installed it.. And it worked perfectly ever since.
Don’t have to mess with the speeds i always have speeds at least 150Kb\s with multiple downloads.
utorrent rules
johntp
May 2, 2006 at 6:25 am
nasiru- Thanks. I have used bitcomet before and find it slow. I still like uTorrent.
Dreadhead- Azureus is resource hungry and needs to be installed. I like uTorrent because it’s simple and at the same time offers the same features as Azureus.
zipman
May 2, 2006 at 8:41 pm
1000 concurrent connections? woah… I set mine to 125–much more and I can’t open new connections at all (can’t browse web, etc..) but that’s probably my ISP capping that cuz I got a letter/call once when they said I had 500 connections open, then that issue started.
Also, my speed issues are ISP related as well, with torrents I can only get about 1/3 my max DL speed when I should easily be able to max it (using well seeded torrents). Basically, I paid more for an 8mbit connection but can’t get the speed I could with my 5mbit… I’ll try utorrent again for the Protocol encryption and see if it helps any.
david ko
May 3, 2006 at 1:01 am
my highest speed was 65 kB/s!
david ko
May 3, 2006 at 1:02 am
download speed i mean, thanks for the help johntp, you rock!
johntp
May 3, 2006 at 1:16 am
davidko- I am glad you found my tips useful.
Next time Guys please mention your connection speed along with your highest download speed. Thanks
andreas
May 3, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Hi John!
I like your article,but i’ve got one major problem with utorrent!It kills my browse speed totaly!!i am running xp pro.2 gb ram,64 bit-no firewall!Can you please give me the right configurations to keep my browse speed!Thank’s a lot!
ANSDREAS
david ko
May 3, 2006 at 10:46 pm
oh my god! oh my god! now its going at 171 kB/seconds
johntp
May 4, 2006 at 2:37 am
andreas- Have you set the maximum download speed to unlimited? That could hurt your connection. Try calculating your optimal settings with this formula-
download speed * 90%
Also try setting the bandwidth allocation of the torrent you are downloading to normal priority.
davidko- What’s your connection speed?
fullmetal
May 4, 2006 at 4:43 pm
I want to set my maximum speed to 90%, but what is the maximum download speed for 1024/384 ?
johntp
May 4, 2006 at 4:47 pm
fullmetal- To know your maximum upload and download speeds, you can test your bandwidth over here.
david ko
May 4, 2006 at 8:32 pm
okay, i downloaded the game, but how do i play it? lol
i don’t know what my connection speed is… how are you suppose to find that out?
dave mccaul
May 5, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Hi, i just wanna say thanks a million for helping me out i couldnt understand anything until now and my ports are finally open so thanks again, cya!
johntp
May 6, 2006 at 1:14 am
dave mccaul- I am glad my tutorial was able to help you
CactusSac
May 13, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Download Speed: 2504 kbps (313 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 380 kbps (47.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
what setting do u think i would need to change the setting u provided isnt helping my speed. and help would be nice.
johntp
May 13, 2006 at 6:30 pm
CactusSac- Some of the settings I mentioned above are optimized for 256k connection. Did you calculate your optimal settings with the formula I mentioned?
CactusSac
May 13, 2006 at 10:59 pm
yes i did , and i found no change in the speed.
johntp
May 13, 2006 at 11:22 pm
CactusSac- these formulas have helped me and all the people who have tried it from here. I don’t understand why they don’t help you.
Anyways also try this-
Start uTorrent and hit ‘Ctrl+G’ on your keyboard. Now select your connection type and click ‘Use Selected Settings’. Doing this, uTorrent will select the settings it thinks is optimal for your connection.
Before doing this make sure your port is forwarded properly.
CactusSac
May 14, 2006 at 1:33 am
ok ill give it a try . thanks for the help. i’ll let ya know if it works.
RdBW
May 17, 2006 at 8:14 am
I have some kind a different problem with my .toorent downloads. I use uTorrent and the problem is that it blocks all my internet connections. When uTorrent is working, I can’t browse (witha any browser) on internet or sending/receiving mail. With other words my internet traffic is off except uTorrent upload/download. Is there some setting to activate other internet used aplications?
I’ m behind my home router firewall and do not use any other, not even the one from MS.
johntp
May 18, 2006 at 12:51 pm
RdBW- Have you set the maximum download speed to unlimited? That could hurt your connection. Try calculating your optimal settings with this formula-
download speed * 90%
Also try setting the bandwidth allocation of the torrent you are downloading to normal priority.
CactusSac
May 19, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Well i got everything working upgraded internet to a 6meg conntion and got rid of my router (which was my problem befor) and now download zip at near 500kbs.
so thanks for the help.
johntp
May 19, 2006 at 9:55 pm
CactusSac- I knew there was nothing wrong with my formulas
esperado
May 20, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Please can you give me this help in French language
settnfires
May 20, 2006 at 10:20 pm
good job, john! i think its a good idea to get this translated if u can and add all the different language versions to ur site. i m sure it’d bring in a hell of alot of traffic and it’d help out alot of ppl out there, such as myself. got my speeds goin a bit faster
keep up da good work!
johntp
May 20, 2006 at 10:55 pm
esperado and settnfires- I am very sorry, but I do not know French. Give me some time, let me see if I can get it translated.
Madhur Kapoor
May 21, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Hi John .
I tried these tips but my speed fluctuates between 15Kbps to 2 Kbps . What could be the reason .
johntp
May 21, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Madhur- Optimizing the uTorrent settings is not enough. To get good download speeds you need to select a torrent that has good seed-peer ratio.
Henry
May 23, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Hello,
If you guys want this in French, you should copy the text into “babelfish” on altavista. That might help a bit.
http://www.altavista.com
Beneath the search bar there is a picture of a fish, press it
johntp
May 23, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Also try to translate this web page to languages such as French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
Just enter this web page address under ‘Translate a web page’, choose the language you want to translate to and click ‘Translate’.
Sam
May 25, 2006 at 4:31 am
Hey I started at average of 112.5 kB/s and after a few tweaks I am now at an amazing 402.3kB/s!!! Thanks!
johntp
May 25, 2006 at 6:48 am
You are welcome, please take a look at the Top Posts to find similar posts.
Cody
May 27, 2006 at 4:38 am
You alos need to do this, to go along wtih the .net_half-open connections, even though you apply the patch to allow more than 10 connection, utorrent still limits it to 8!
to fix this go to options>preferences>advanced
click net.max_halfopen
change the valeu from 8 to 100 (or anywhere between 50-100)
click set
then click OK
enjoy!
even if you dont apply the patch(not on sp2, still on sp1), still do this!
johntp
May 27, 2006 at 11:29 am
Cody - I have already mentioned about this in the article. Looks like you have not read it.
Johnc
May 29, 2006 at 4:48 am
Hi and thank you! I hope you will help me with other problems later. my speeds are like 32 now thanks to your tips. I’ve also played around with the maximum download and upload rates and that helped alot too. God bless!
johntp
May 29, 2006 at 6:31 am
Johnc- what other problems do you have? Just choose a torrent with good number of seeds and leechers and you can get download speeds of 35-45 (for 256 k connection)
johnc
May 29, 2006 at 5:37 pm
my other problem is that the download rate goes up and down a lot. Is that ok or bad?
johntp
May 29, 2006 at 10:45 pm
johnc- It is normal for the download rate to go up and down.
Cody
May 30, 2006 at 4:40 pm
yes, in the tutorial you have written about it. I just skipped it because it says do not apply this unless you applied that patch in SP2… but I am on SP1 and technically its already “patched” so i needed to do that anyway…
nathan
June 2, 2006 at 9:05 pm
seriously man thank you. 200kB/s now, it was 40. lovely cheers
ANDREAS
June 3, 2006 at 6:24 am
Hi John!
Is it normal that the DHT light is red when the Tracker is offline? XP SP 2 Firewall Disabled,only Peerguardian and Avast Anti Virus is running! (or how can I turn it into green?)
I followed all your instrutions but still can\’t get a descent Download speed! My Web browsing is still much too slow!
Can you give me some Tips again??
Thank\’s,
Andreas
johntp
June 3, 2006 at 7:57 am
Andreas- Hi, those lights display the Network Status. The red light means that uTorrent was unable to bind a listening socket. Most likely, this means a firewall is blocking it. It’s also possible that another torrent client is using this port, which will require you to change ports, or not run both clients at the same time.
Have you ever seen the green light? If you have not, it means you have not forwarded your port.
If you see the yellow light most of the time and green rarely, it could be that the torrent is slow (having low number of seeds and peers).
Try a popular torrent (one with a large number of seeds and peers) and see if you get the green light. If you do, then its the problem with the earlier torrent you were downloading.
To get good download speeds you need to download one with good number of seeds and peers.
johnc
June 4, 2006 at 4:51 am
Hey john!
sry but i have a problem of having 0 upload speeds.
Please help, Im using a computer that shares a modem. SBC DSL
johntp
June 4, 2006 at 5:59 am
johnc- Have you forwarded your port?
Aakash
June 4, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Well I installed “LvlLord’s Event ID 4226 Patcher to get better performance.” but it hasnt’ helped in anyway
instead my upload speed just keeps going higher and higher than my download speed(which hasn’t improved at all), so I set the upload speed limit to 20 kbps however its still going upto 100 kbps
I’m pretty much a noob at this, so can somebody explain where I might had gone wrong?
Thank you
johntp
June 4, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Aakash- Go to Options>Preferences>Advanced and set net.max_halfopen to 50. Also download torrents with a good number of seeds and peers.
Aakash
June 4, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Well tried it,
after 30 minutes I see no change whatsoever
however it might be that i got like only 150 seeds and like 3000 peers
but My speed’s not increasing from 17 kbps for some reason, and my upload rate’s going above 100 kbps…
I got comcast but that isn’t really helping here either I guess
Just before i made these changes, for certain movies I was downloading at around 260 kbps but its not even reaching 50 anymore
should I wait longer and see if the speed eventually increases?
thankz
Aakash
June 4, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Another update
Finally my download has begun to increase however it haven’t gone above 80 kbps which is kinda unusual
also…my windows media player out of nowhere is taking 100 % CPU Usage and slowing down everything… I know it has to do with the patch since I didn’t install or run anything except that today
help please
johntp
June 5, 2006 at 5:09 am
What is your connection speed and have you done everything I explained in the tutorial?
Aakash
June 5, 2006 at 9:15 pm
Yes I have done everything
I got the wireless comcast in my room which is connected to the main router in other room….if that makes sense lol
My connection speed is 11 mbps I believe…or atleast that’s what it says
well I tried checking it with one of those speed test and here’s what it says
2118 kbps or 264.8 KB/sec.
But what I don’t get it is…why is my media player suddenly taking 100% CPU Usage
and torrent download did get a little faster and reached upto 150 kbps but that’s my usual…and all this tweaks I did, did not really help me
johntp
June 5, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Aakash- Try this
Start uTorrent and hit ‘Ctrl G’ on your keyboard. Now select your connection type and click ‘Use Selected Settings’. Doing this, uTorrent will select the settings it thinks is optimal for your connection.
Before doing this make sure your port is forwarded properly.
Aakash
June 6, 2006 at 12:06 am
well that really didnt’ do anything
and now my aim has signed off and won’t log on (i’ve had this problem eearlier too but it stopped for a while)
and well there isn’t really any effect on the speed, its really …slow
should i re-install utorrent again?
johntp
June 6, 2006 at 2:02 am
Aakash- There is something wrong with your system. If I were you I would re-install the OS.
Aakash
June 6, 2006 at 8:22 pm
hmm well like i sed…i have no knowledge about installing my OS again…and also i got alot of files and stuff which i’ll have to install yet again, and then all the softwares….which i don’t even think I have the Cds for anymore….can’t I just undo this all? I mean can you tell how to just change this port back to default 8 or whatever it was?
and how exactly can I reinstall my OS again?
johntp
June 6, 2006 at 9:12 pm
To change Port number go to Options>Preferences>Network and look under ‘Port used for incomming connections‘.
Ramsinks.com
June 7, 2006 at 3:12 am
Good tut!
Thanks~
However I do believe you mean “kerio or Sygate” not bloatware like ZA.
Aakash
June 7, 2006 at 4:21 am
ooh man how do i change back to the original file for which I installed the patch?
“LvlLord’s Event ID 4226 Patcher”….the original file for this
anywayz I think the problem lies within my wireless network because i’ve never even really seen that light on utorrent at green…its always red..and i mean ALWAYS…so its probably due to my wireless connction.
thankz for all the help and tutorial though! : )
johntp
June 7, 2006 at 6:09 am
Aakash- LvlLord’s Event ID 4226 Patcher renames the orginal file to TCPIP.SYS.ORIGINAL and backs it up at windows/system32/drivers. Find the file and rename it back to TCPIP.SYS
Aakash
June 8, 2006 at 12:55 am
it says file already exist, do I change the name for the other file to something else before changing the TCPIP.SYS.ORIGINAL to TCPIP.SYS??
johntp
June 8, 2006 at 1:19 am
Aakash- Ofcourse you have to rename or move the other file
viral
June 10, 2006 at 2:30 pm
i use an adsl connection
the router is dlink dsl-520T
i tried downloading a torrent of 82.8mb and it got stuck after 99.7%
the logger shows UPnP mapping failure
windows firewall failure(its disabled)
sys config
p4 and the works
os xp with sp1
also the torrent downloads are damn slow
plz help… its driving me insane…
later i tried using a dial up and it ended up downloading 83.1mb and still the downloads not complete….
i tried reconfiguring my router for manual port forwarding but am not able to save the settings so i’d prefer if u can help me in way where i don’t have to use port forward…. plz plz help me!!!
viral
June 10, 2006 at 2:32 pm
i use mtnl triband incase u’re from mumbai u’ll know abt it.. hope this’ll get solved soon enough
johntp
June 10, 2006 at 2:45 pm
viral - Have you forwarded your ports properly? Does the network status light turn green for you?
Aakash
June 13, 2006 at 2:17 am
well I have to say ..my ports never forward clearly…the green light has NEVER been on lol….wassup with that?
beside ever since i put back the original file, my speed has increased to 250 kbps …which was usual before
johntp
June 13, 2006 at 4:58 am
Aakash- You will never get the green lights until you forward your ports properly.
Aakash
June 14, 2006 at 7:57 am
how exactly can I forward my ports? i mean i tried everythin here and none seemed to work so what will?
thankz
johntp
June 14, 2006 at 8:02 am
Go to PortForward.com to forward ports for uTorrent. I have explained this clearly in the tutorial.
Steve
June 19, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Thanks for diong this thread. I am trying to optimize uTorrent, and have applied your tweaks and am up to around 30kB/s on a 512K connection. But the light is still yellow. I have gone into port forwarding and assigned the port to a static IP on my network (192.168.1.100) — but the port forwarding tester still reports that the port is closed on 208.82.8.207 which is the dynamic IP assigned by my ISP. Do I need to get them to open a port, or are there some ports that are open by default? Thanks for any advice
johntp
June 20, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Steve- 30kB/s on a 512k connection is too slow. I get around 30 to 40kB/s on a 256k connection. The slow speeds and the yellow light shows that you have not forwarded your port properly.
What’s the port number you are using? It is best to use a port number above 10000.
andreas
June 23, 2006 at 5:10 am
Hi John!
How can people d/l a torrent like The Fast and the Furious on Mininova with a d/l speed of more than 340 kb/s in less than 40 min??Thar’s what they are telling other people in the forum!Or is it all just BULLSHIT??I am running xp pro,64 bit processor.2 GIG RAM with a 512 Broadband connection and can’t squeeze more than max.24 kb/s out of my machine!!Please tell me this peoples Secret or let me know if that is just CRAP!!
THANK’S,
CHEERS.ANDREAS
Takuyar
June 24, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I have a 256k connection, but after downloading a 1.2GB file, it slowed down from 20KB/s- 30KB/S to 10KB/S- 19KB/s..
I’ve done exactly as you said, but my global max network connections is 110 and the max number of peers is 55.
Also, I just lost my torrents from Utorrent for no reason. Its not in any folder, but the files I downloaded are still in C:/ Drive.
John
July 1, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Very nice tips John, many thanks
heres a very nice speed test i found, no plugins,java or anything for that matter.
http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/
johntp
July 1, 2006 at 10:31 pm
uTorrent 1.6 has been released, download it to experience much faster speeds.
John
July 2, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Hi Johntp
Just downloaded the new Utorrent, dont really see any big difference in speed but a few nice extras and its always good to keep upto date.
maybe you can help me with one thing, why my download speed is so unstable it can go from 350kbs for a 30 seconds and then right down to 12kbs and stays there for also around 30-45 seconds. Do you have any tips?
Grateful for any help, cheers
John
Takuyar
July 2, 2006 at 3:32 pm
I’m 1/4 through dling a file, will dling UT 1.6 affect it?
And could you help me with my speed problems?
I have a 256k connection, but after downloading a 1.2GB file, it slowed down from 20KB/s- 30KB/S to 0.1KB/S- 10KB/s..
I’ve followed the guide, but its not doing any good now, speeds are at a max of 10KB/s.
johntp
July 2, 2006 at 5:37 pm
John- It is normal for your download speeds to fluctuate. Select a torrent with the highest number of seeds and leechers to get the maximum speed.
Takuyar- You can delete the old version of uTorrent and download and use the latest version. It will continue downloading the file that you were previously downloading.
Now for your Speed problem, are you using a slow Torrent?
Madhur kapoor
July 2, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Hey John
I am downloading a game , the seeders are good but sometimes the speed reaches 30 Kbps and then after a minute it decreases to 15 something . And it is showing no. of seeders to be 40 so why is there so much fluctuation . The speed keeps on increasing and decreasing .
John T P
July 2, 2006 at 11:29 pm
It is normal for download speeds to fluctuate however high the number of Seeds is. It depends on the torrent you are using.
Have you ever seen your download speeds not fluctuating?
Madhur kapoor
July 3, 2006 at 1:36 am
In some of the torrents mainly of the latest movies , the fluctuation is not there .
John T P
July 3, 2006 at 6:48 am
For popular torrents having a large number of seeds and leechers, the fluctuation maybe less.
CAbi
July 6, 2006 at 10:33 pm
I dont know what i did to my connection but i am on a really slow broadband connection and even with only 5 seeds and 7 leeches ratio my download speed exceeds 30Kbps even 40Kbps
CAbi
July 7, 2006 at 7:05 pm
its been running upwards of
90 for the past few days
John T P
July 8, 2006 at 7:59 am
What’s the speed of your Broadband Connection?
girish
July 9, 2006 at 10:48 am
hi,
is there any other more hack in Options>Preferences>Advanced .
bcause i still have slow download speed.i have done that net.max_halfopen: 50
but no results.i also applied that patch.
plz help
CAbi
July 10, 2006 at 1:18 am
Usually about the speed of dial up I live in a hick town with slow internet (generally 60kbps)
CAbi
July 11, 2006 at 4:12 am
WOW my speed just jumped to OVER 400 Kbps!
Why is this happening???
videogirl
July 12, 2006 at 5:22 am
I followed all your advice about utorrent and - Hello! - my speed is going thru the roof - WOW!
Thank you so much for your advice. I also followed your other instructions regarding tweaking my computer to make it run smoother and faster and by God it works toooooo!!!!
My only suggestion would be to clearly specify if tweaking and other advice is clearly for XP users and Windows 2000 users. I know you have put info regarding that, however, I found it a bit vague.
My firefox is faster as well. To say I am happy is an understatement.
Is there a free version of the diskeeper? I downloaded the software and it works great. I was just wondering if there is any comparable software that is free.
Thanks so much,
Videogirl
david5
July 14, 2006 at 8:26 am
hello. just like to say thanks for this, it really helped my download speeds. one problem though, i get an intermittent 100% CPU usage where my computer slows down for a few seconds. not sure if this is actually caused by me watching video files in media player or watching embeded “youtube” movies in firefox, or whether i just notice it easier as the playback screws up
windows task manager seems to suggest at these times that it’s firefox and WMP taking up all the CPU
does anyone know how to fix this?
protovision
July 14, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Another tip for router people:
I was having a hard time surfing while utorrent was running on another PC on my lan. I went into utorrent (about?) and saw that I had 480 connections. (WRT54g, dd-wrt firmware I think)
I went to my router admin screen, and saw that it defaulted to 512 max connections, which is reasonable when not torrenting, but was very close to the 480 utorrent was already using.
I bumped it up to 2048 (or max 4096, cant remem), and played a bit with my QOS settings, and now surfing and torrenting are smoother.
protovision
July 14, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Another tip (david5):
I’ve had Firefox go up over 100mB ram in the task manager (currently 137mB) due to number of tabs open, etc.
One thing to watch out for is flash pages. I’ve seen badly written flash take up 100% of my CPU when doing almost nothing.
Moral: close tabs/flash pages you are not viewing.
Carlo
July 17, 2006 at 8:11 am
excellent guide! minutes after changing my settings, my download speeds nearly tripled. easy to follow, well done.
Diego
July 21, 2006 at 2:06 pm
i have followed your tutorial for increasing the download speed but found no gain…i’ve also forwarded my ports on my router and firewall.
i have ZoneAlarm & have allowed the incoming set ports - are there any other tweaks needed in zone alarm to acheive faster download speeds?? My torrent has a large number of seeders and leechers-
383/2448, my download & upload speed is 8mb/1mb…
can you please tell me if there is anything else i can do?
Dr. Rodney McKay of the Pegasus Galaxy
August 2, 2006 at 4:33 am
You ROCK, those tweaks REALLY HELP !
Dr. Rodney McKay of the Pegasus Galaxy
August 2, 2006 at 4:36 am
as for those behind a router, if you can’t get a benefit from the tweaks, then it’s conceivable that it might be beneficial for you to try (only temporarily when downloading something large) connecting your PC directly to our internet provider (i.e. modem)
good luck all
Dr. Rodney McKay of the Pegasus Galaxy
August 2, 2006 at 4:38 am
or then again, for you Diego, your connection sounds like you were just already getting the most out of it, ….geez, that’s nice on it’s own to start wit already, phew
abeer
August 2, 2006 at 9:47 pm
i have the dl speed of only 42 kbps (5 KB/S) and ul speed of 32 kbps (4 KB/S) but i cant download even at 4 KB/s. what settings should i apply to use my full speed?
mike
August 7, 2006 at 11:58 am
I have a sprint modem. How do I port forward with it? I’m running at about 20 down and 10 up. I just have the windows firewall and it is turned off.
bongbong
August 10, 2006 at 4:45 am
hey hey,
my download speed was more than fine when i was using utorrent 1.5 with all the tweaks and hacks. then i upgraded it to 1.6 recently and i’ve wanted to die ever since… the download speed has hardly gone over 50kbs. even now, i am downloading a file that has 117 seeds and 726 peers, the download speed is only 30kbs!!!
with 1.5, it could easily be close to 200kbs with a good torrent file. my connection speed is 2meg (telewest broadband) running through Linksys WRT54GL.
please help me, the wise one!!!
laurence
August 12, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Hey there john, I just found your site and used the tips. I have improved my speeds but not with the increase I thought it would have. I have a 2mps dl rate and an approx 256kps upload rate yet my my max dl rate on utorrent is about 60kb/s at the mo. With the file i’m dl, i’m connected to 40 of the 86 seeds and 69 of the 468 peers. i’ve got a green light on connections. I am new at this. So is it my settings or is it just the file thats given me the slow dl. Befor i was getting around 30-40kB/s dl.
P.S. my upload rate has stayed the same, around the 25-29 kb/s
SKluse
August 17, 2006 at 1:09 am
Hi JohnTP. I just started using uTorrent. It started of fast then it went slow and I haven’t been able 2 get it fast again.ive tried using the tips on making it faster but when I go to preferences I dont see the network option please help me
andreas
August 18, 2006 at 1:38 am
Hello!
Even if i’ve got 150 seeds in a swarm i only get connected with around 14 seed’s!I followed all your instructions but can’t get more than 7-11 kb/s download speed!!What do i have to do??
Help please!!
Thank’s,
ANDREAS
Bongbong
August 19, 2006 at 2:00 am
SKluse,
it’s called Connection rather than Network in utorrent 1.6.
it’s always good to check whether it’s a slow torrent that you are downloading (ie low DL speed) or not by testing with downloading a fast torrent file. Some torrents may have a lot of seeds or peers (as in my case mentioned above) but the DL speed is low as it’s just a “slow” torrent.
as i was having the low DL speed problem shown in my last post, someone on irc gave me another torrent file to check and it was downloading at 170+kbs and he told me although the file i wanted to get had many seeds and peers, it was just a slow torrent, he said it was caused by the file being something like “top heavy”or “bottom heavy” (whatever that means).
anyway, just try to check with some fast torrent file first. the low DL speed problem may not be due to your settings. Good luck, everyone.
Takuyar
August 19, 2006 at 5:05 am
But how do you exactly know a slow file from a fast file?
andreas
August 19, 2006 at 5:32 am
Hi,
how can i increase the number of connected seed’s??I’ve got 150 in a swarm but get never more than 12-16 connected!What do i have to do??
ANDREAS
Bongbong
August 19, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Hey Takuyar,
maybe you try to download some very popular and common software where many people want to get or something for testing. think think think.
Hey Andreas,
it doesn’t really matter whether you are connected to many seeds. seeds don’t guarantee fast speed, they only guarantee that you can get 100% of the file. sometimes the files i wanted to get only had 1 or 2 seeds and their use was just to complete my downloaded file at the end. I always kept my fingers crossed hoping that these precious seeds didn’t remove seeding before i finished downloading or i would really be in trouble, probably getting stuck at 99.8% or something.
anyway, utorrent will knows what to do about connecting to seeds and peers. sometimes you may need to give it some time (eg 30 min to 1 hour) before you can get connected to high speed users in the swamp.
Wolfie0908
August 21, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Thank you so much for the tweaks and stuff. I read some about trojans and nothing came up on my pc about anything. Before i started tweaking with your help, i had a max download speed of something like 40kbps with LOADS of peers. Now, i get over 200kbps every time with healthy files. I think my lowest speed so far has been 50kbps, which is still a good speed for some people. Im greatful for all your help. Keep up the good work dude, you rock =)
crossover
August 28, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Great tutorial! Unfortunately, I’m behind a proxy, so all those port settings don’t improve my speeds. I’m on a 512k conection, and I can can rarely get speeds over 15k/s (max is 60 k/s). Any ideas?
oocon
September 1, 2006 at 12:58 am
You guys seem to be receiving very high download speeds at a 256kbits/s. My broadband speed is almost 8mbits/s and my maximum download speed is around 100kbytes/s. I have taken some advice from above and still remaining around the 50kbytes/s. Any ideas?
Jaspreet
September 1, 2006 at 5:29 am
Help Me Calculate The Download Speeds I Am To Use!
Jaspar
September 1, 2006 at 10:24 am
ooon said:
“You guys seem to be receiving very high download speeds at a 256kbits/s. My broadband speed is almost 8mbits/s and my maximum download speed is around 100kbytes/s.”
2 answers. Either you have set up BT very wrong, or you are downloading files that dont have a lot of people sharing at high speeds.
Im on an uncapped ADSL account so I connect at about 8mbits and can download at around 750KB.
Jaspreet
September 2, 2006 at 11:46 pm
I Found Out My Speed But I Don’t What Number I Should Multiply It By Or Divide It By. Please Help Me!
oocon
September 3, 2006 at 4:25 pm
I’m pretty sure it’s not others connection speed. Perhaps it has something to do with my Netgear wireless router.
JErry
September 4, 2006 at 7:11 am
WORKS AMAZINGLY
Daniel
September 9, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Hi! i have some problems with the speed. first of all the images there are of u torrent are not like my utorrent.and where can u find the default browser because i dont know where to type the default gateway. PLZ, HELP!!!!!!!!