Why is bitorrent causing my internet connection to fail?

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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When I'm downloading a torrent suddenly the upload/download will drop slowly to zero and my internet connection is gone. This seems worse when I am connected to AIM or BNET. I can fix it by restarting my computer but it still happens a few minutes later which causing me to reboot multiple times to finish downloading a file. Anyone know how I can fix this?
 

Cheetah8799

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2001
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76
Have you isolated this problem to your PC doing the download, or your cable/dsl model, or anything else? Maybe if you have a 2nd rig, see if the internet connection is dead for that as well when it stops working for your bittorrent system..
 

warcrow

Lifer
Jan 12, 2004
11,078
11
81
I don't think its your actual system, but more so you're DSL modem or router. Instead of rebooting your comp, have you tried bouncing the router/modem?
 

mboy

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2001
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Guarenteed they are using a router. The problem is too many concurrent connections (usually limited to 1028 on SOHO based routers) causing your router to lock up (or deny any sessions basically). Cut down on the total # of server connects you allow (not sure of the exact setting as I don'tr use bitorrent).
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,101
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Thanks for the responses guys. Just got back from out of town. No I am not on cable/dsl and using a router. (sorry mboy) I'm using the campus network at my college. Torrents work fine on my desktop. The motherboard went out so I'm using my laptop lately. So I seriously doubt it has anything to do with my connection. As for bad NIC driver is there any way to confirm this? It works for everything else 100% fine from Bnet to internet to aim. I've also tried a different program called Personal Torrent Collector but the same thing ends up happening. So given the above info. Can anyone else think of what the problem is? I've googled and found several similar issues to mine but noone seems to be able to solve it.
 

drag

Elite Member
Jul 4, 2002
8,708
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It's either a software or hardware problem.

Lots of consumer level nic cards are cheap pieces of doo-doo. Not great, but good enough to do what most desktop users need them to do. Namly fetch email, browse the web, instant messaging and the occasional download.

Or it could be a driver issue. Sometimes the manufactures just don't expect to have juggle dozens of connections at once on a desktop computer, so it's not suprising that the thing will keel over and die from the workload.

Try installing the newest drivers you can from your manufacturer's website. If that doesn't help, maybe you can borrow a different PCMCIA nic to try out in your laptop and see if you run into the same problems. That way you can isolate the problem. (your using regular cat5 eithernet, right?)

If it's fixed buy new drivers, then it was a driver issue. If it's fixed buy different hardware, then it was your nic itself. If it's fixed buy neither then it's either your OS (or just both nic cards you tried out suck) or the campus network. If it's working on a different computer just fine, then it's probably not your campus's network.

So this is happening with your Laptop, right? What chipset is it using? Onboard or PCMCIA....
 

skriefal

Golden Member
Apr 10, 2000
1,424
3
81
What type of NIC card? What you're describing is a known issue with most revisions of Realtek's driver for the 8139 NIC chipset. That's the chip that's on most cheap/budget NICs, so you may be getting hit by their crappy drivers.

If you do have an 8139-based NIC, then try dropping back to the old 2001-dated drivers that shipped with XP. That's apparently the only driver revision that doesn't have this problem.
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,101
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I have a compaq x1000 with onboard realtek nic.
Realtek 8139C + Fast Ethernet. :eek: Erf looks like this may be the cause of the problem. skriefal
How would I drop back to this older driver? Would there be any downsides to doing so? Also how do I uninstall the current and where do I find the older one? The one at compaq's website seems to be from late 03.
 

skriefal

Golden Member
Apr 10, 2000
1,424
3
81
I too have an X1000 -- well, actually an HP ZT3000, but it's the same as an X1000. I heard about the Realtek driver problem with BitTorrent at X1000 Forums.

The 2001 driver is the one that shipped with Windows XP; there should be no need to download it. You should be able to roll back the driver via Device Manager, but I haven't tried this myself since I don't use BitTorrent from my laptop. If that doesn't work, then check out X1000 Forums for more information.
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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71
Thanks again. Is this the thread you're talking about? I''ve been reading it and testing the "family" driver I just rolled back to. Text
 

skriefal

Golden Member
Apr 10, 2000
1,424
3
81
Yes, that's one of the threads that I've seen that discussed the BT/8139 problems. Let me know if the driver rollback works. If it does then I might roll back the driver on my laptop, too.
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,101
0
71
Been downloading torrents for the past 2 hours. So far so good. It appears that the problem has been solved. I just hope there weren't any of the newer driver tweaks that I'm missing. I use bittorrent alot fo I think I'll stick with this one.
 

Cheetah8799

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2001
4,508
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You could check with your college's IT folks and ask about any special restrictions on bittorrent downloads. You may need to go directly to the network admin, since management might not know what the heck you are talking about. ;)
 

justinmann

Member
May 27, 2004
27
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I couldn't help but notice that you said you were going to give ZA a try. The 5.0 client is said to have issues with both BitTorrent and eMule. Anyway, you might want to turn off the firewall and see if that fixes the problem. ZA should have a fix fairly soon.

Justin
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,101
0
71
oh heh i just installed zonealarm after i fixed the bittorrent issue? which was solved by a driver rollback to an earlier driver from o1 :eek:. justinman do you know if zonelarm auto updates?
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,101
0
71
ehh just went around zonealarm forums...yea i got the bittorrent issue now..bah...what should i do now..decision decisions....do you know how long it iwll take for them to fix this issue?
 

Sid59

Lifer
Sep 2, 2002
11,879
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Originally posted by: FearoftheNight
ehh just went around zonealarm forums...yea i got the bittorrent issue now..bah...what should i do now..decision decisions....do you know how long it iwll take for them to fix this issue?

yeah. switch from stupid zonealarm.
 

justinmann

Member
May 27, 2004
27
0
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>>>yeah. switch from stupid zonealarm.<<<

Probably not a bad idea...
They've really inconvenienced a lot of people with this release, shows a lack of concern for their customers. Anyway, if you want it, they should have 4.5 up on their servers too, which is of reasonable quality.

Justin
 

FearoftheNight

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,101
0
71
Originally posted by: Sid59
Originally posted by: FearoftheNight
ehh just went around zonealarm forums...yea i got the bittorrent issue now..bah...what should i do now..decision decisions....do you know how long it iwll take for them to fix this issue?

yeah. switch from stupid zonealarm.

lol when did there arise so much hatred for ZA?
 

BespinReactorShaft

Diamond Member
Jun 9, 2004
3,190
0
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Been using ZA 4.5 with BT. ABC, Azureus all work fine. Only the Windows Personal Firewall gave me problems (which has since been disabled). My NIC is on-board my Abit IS7 mobo, not sure if that's a Realtek device.