Torrenting slows down entire network

[Canai]

Ok so I use Azureus and have the dl/ul capped at 250/40, and am on 1500/256 cable. when I'm downloading anything with bt, even at low speeds (40k down and 10 up) the internet connections from all computers in my network slow to an unusable speed. I'm used to bt slowing my computer down a bit, but never the rest of the comps on the network.

Also when I dl from websites / steam and get 100k dl it cuts my available bandwidth down to ~400k from 1500k (according to charter's speed test thing) is this normal or is Charter fscking me around? I'm on their business line, which is supposed to be more reliable and faster than their standard cable.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[skrewler2]

first off, your cable is probably 1500/256 kiloBITS/s not kiloBYTES.

in azureus, lower your speed limits to about 100kb/down 20kb/up. also change the number of simultaneous connections to like 200, or scale down as needed. theres also a plugin to automatically adjust your speed based on what kind of pings youre getting to an external site, like google. its called bandwidth monitor or osmething

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: skrewler2
first off, your cable is probably 1500/256 kiloBITS/s not kiloBYTES.

in azureus, lower your speed limits to about 100kb/down 20kb/up. also change the number of simultaneous connections to like 200, or scale down as needed. theres also a plugin to automatically adjust your speed based on what kind of pings youre getting to an external site, like google. its called bandwidth monitor or osmething

thx for correcting me on somethin I didn't say (or is one rated in bits and the other in bytes? )

Those speeds just seem really really slow to me, considering that I can download from the web at 500k+ and not get any slowdown.... is it the multiple connections that cause it?

edit: would switching to utorrent help at all? also is bandwidth monitor or whatever it is a plugin for azureus or a standalone program?

 

[skrewler2]

your numbers are just not adding up

you say your cable is 1500/256. I said it's probably 1500kiloBITS and 256 kiloBITS, as thats how ISPs usually rate their connections. just to make it easy, we can say you'd get 150kBytes down and 25kb up maximum (even though it would be a little lower than that). if you had 1500kbytes downstream and 256kb upstream that's one insane cable connection and i'm sure a lot of people are envying your epee'

you say you can download from the web at 500kb/s ...

so, whatever, besides the fact that you have no clue how fast your cable connection really is, try my advice on limiting the number of simultaneous connections.

whatever your max upload speed is, subtract about 10-20% from that as your max upload limit in azureus.

 

[Canai]

Yes I can get sustained downloads of 500k or more, but of course only from certain servers. the overall average is prolly around 220k or so.

TCP/Web100 Network Diagnostic Tool v5.3.3e
click START to begin
Preparing Speedtest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 246.35Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 1.47Mb/s

Does that tell you anything? You're right, I really have no idea how fast the connection is, as I have never run into a problem before now.

So if the isp rates it in bits, does windows ( and it's programs) rate it in bytes?

Thanks for the help btw, I really am lost when it comes to internet speed and anything beyond my little lan.

edit: I lowered the connections to 200, will know tomorrow if that helped

 

[InlineFive]

Because of "seeding" the file to other peers (right terminology?) your upload connection is being swamped. And that will bring the rest of the network to a standstill.

Which is why skrewler2 suggested that you cut your maximum upload by 20% of your upload speed.

 

[Canai]

So then the upload should be set at clost to 200k? That's close to five times what it's set at now... Am I missing something here?

edit: should it be 20k instead of 200? I'm really fscking confused here.

 

[KoolAidKid]

Set the max upload bandwidth in Azureus to (256/8) * 0.8 = ~25. I would probably set it even lower (say, 20), but then again I am not very community-friendly when it comes to Bittorrent.

 

[Canai]

OK so it should be 20% of the max upload, not max upload -20%?

edit: well my upload was set at 20k, which is under 20% of the max upload speed. So I should lower it even more to not kill the entire network?

Just one more question: why does any more than 20% of the total upload speed make everything slow down? shouldn't I be able to use almost all the total upload speed (or at least like 75%) before it slows to a crawl? or are you saying that 25k upload = 256k rated upload speed?

 

[KoolAidKid]

Originally posted by: Canai
OK so it should be 20% of the max upload, not max upload -20%?

Your cable connection allows a max upload speed of 256 kilobits per second. This is equivalent to 256/8 = 32 kilobytes per second. Set your max upload speed in Azureus to 80% of this value: 80% of 32 = 25.6. If you are still experiencing unacceptable network slowdowns with this setting set it even lower, for example at 20.

 

[Canai]

oooook so they are rated differently. Thanks for clarifying that.

wait... So I assume that applies to the 1500 too, why can I get more than 187.5 (1500/8) download speeds?

 

[KoolAidKid]

Originally posted by: Canai
oooook so they are rated differently. Thanks for clarifying that.

wait... So I assume that applies to the 1500 too, why can I get more than 187.5 (1500/8) download speeds?

That is correct. If your connection's downloads are actually rated at 1500 kilobits per second you have a theoretical maximum download speed of 1500/8 = ~187 kilobytes per second.

 

[duragezic]

Yeah I'm on Charter too. They pretty much suck. We have their 5Mbps/512kbps.

I thought the conversion would be 1500000/1024/8 = 183 k/s? Well close either way. Your Charter speed test reflects your connection speed.

But remember, the ~25k/s your upload is rated for is the absolute BEST it can be. With cable connections, the actual speed varies depending on who else is on the same "network" (say your neighborhood is one "network" so the ISP allocates a certain amount of bandwidth to this, calculating that under most conditions, every user can get near their rated speed), which is kinda why a lot of ISPs don't like BT or p2p, because they normally didn't account for the massive bandwidth required if all of their users are using BT. So I would set your upload to 10-15k/s (this is kiloBYTES) max. Again, consider that during peak times, you might only get ~20 k/s upload. I don't recommend using over 75% of this for a BT upload (and even moreso if other people/roommates are on this connection). You can break 100-200 k/s downloads with BT with only a 6 k/s upload, so again 10 or 15 k/s max is probably ok IF you are the only one using the connection. Otherwise I'd go 6-8 k/s.

Cable connections and some DSL connections absolutely choke when you start maxing your upload speed. Thus using BT and getting anywhere near it slows down your whole connection (upload and download). So again, set that upload cap LOW, I really don't think a simple HIGHEST rated upload * .8 is a good idea at all. Also, your maximum number of connections plays a role, depending on your router. If you notice an extremely slow connection while using BT, drop your upload greatly. If you notice this as well as an internet that frequently disconnects (and may require your router to be reset), lower upload AND lower the maximum number of connections made by your BT client. Again since I share with other people, my settings are very low, but I only make ~65 connections max, with ~40 for peers. Even with this and 6 k/s upload, I can get 100-200 k/s on some torrents.

The reason you probably see more than 187 k/s download speeds is the way web browsers calculate download speed. Even when I had Charter's utterly useless 384kbps/128kbps connection, I'd see downloads start or peak at 60 k/s or so, but they always were actually/sustained at around 30-35 k/s max. Well I did manage some sustained high 30s and 40 k/s in BT somehow. So I'm not sure how ISPs throttle their connections, but consider a lot of filters aren't precise on the dot (kinda like how you can get extra channels from cable TV that come in fuzzy, towards the start/end of the frequency spectrum), but generally you probably won't see any sustained downloads above 190 k/s, but if you frequently do and hit over 200 k/s, well keep your mouth shut and enjoy it.

 

[Canai]

Thanks for the more in-depth explanation, duragezic! I dropped the upload down to 10 and everything is running smoothly now!