gasman Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 Hi all, To start off please allow me to state that I am a BIG bitcomet fan and have used it for many years. Stats Dual boot win 7 and XP MCE both 32 bit Cable connection 30 down /3 up (consistant) Using Mcafee total protection antivirus / firewall. Bitcomet 1.37 Both green lights are on and I get plenty of remote and LT seeds connections I consider myself an experienced Bitcomet user and fairly computer savvy. I would be interested to learn if anyone else experiences the following. I start a torrent that has an extensive peer list and as expected the download is slow to begin with but then very rapidly rises to say 4000kB/s (dependent on the torrent) but then it will almost as rapidly drop to about 10 or 20 kB/s for 10 or 20 secs. It will then once again start to climb into the thousands before once again falling off the cliff. This goes on ad infinitum until the download is complete. As in my title it is like a roller coaster. I have set my upload speed as per your recommendations and spent many hours trying various tweaks to the settings with no perceivable difference. Other things I have tried. Connecting direct to the modem Disabling The firewall Re-installing Bitcomet. It is my suspicion that I am experiencing ISP Throttling but how can I confirm this? I have even gone as far as to run speedtest.net whilst such a torrent is running with no appreciable depreciation in BC or speedtests performance. This peculiarity occurs in both XP and Win7. As I said, I am generally very pleased with Bitcomet but I have that nagging feeling that something is holding it back. Best regards and many thanks to the admins for your excellent work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The UnUsual Suspect Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 Have you adjusted your global max upload so it only uses 80% of your actual tested upload? This can make a huge difference in an otherwise healthy torrent on a healthy connection that is asymmetrical . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted October 20, 2014 Author Share Posted October 20, 2014 Hi TuuS, Yes I have done that (and tried varying it up and down a little with no effect). I do not recall this happening in th early days (v 0,94) but that might have been just that I didn't notice it. It is the roller coaster effect that confuses me. It does not really give me a problem since I usually get the download fairly quickly anyway, Just that I feel that something is intermittently holding things back , probably my ISP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted October 20, 2014 Author Share Posted October 20, 2014 Hi TuuS, Yes I have done that (and tried varying it up and down a little with no effect). I do not recall this happening in th early days (v 0,94) but that might have been just that I didn't notice it. It is the roller coaster effect that confuses me. It does not really give me a problem since I usually get the download fairly quickly anyway, Just that I feel that something is intermittently holding things back , probably my ISP Just to elaborate my tested upload is generally a consistent 3Mb/s "Mb/s but can drop to 2 MB/s at peak times. As such I have set the bitcomet max global upload to 200 Kb/s (2Mb/s= 230Kb/s, 80% of that = 200 Kb/s) Just hope my Maths are correct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The UnUsual Suspect Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 It's hard to tell if your math is correct because you are interchanging "b" (bit) and "B" (byte) symbols but they are very different measurements. The cause of your problem could be overload of your hardware, your router, modem, or even harddrive. If it's the harddrive it may help if you increase your disc cache, if it's your modem or router you could try reducing the max number of connections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted October 21, 2014 Author Share Posted October 21, 2014 Sorry about that TUUS, just keep forgetting to use the shift key.Trust me I know the difference between b and B, anyways I think I have proved it to be as suspected (throttling) I visited my daughter who uses a different ISP and with no changes in hardware or settings (except of course the network settings.) the problem disappeared. guess its time to change my ISP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The UnUsual Suspect Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Throttling is possible, or perhaps disc overload. As internet speeds have increased it's becoming common to see drives unable to write the data fast enough while concurrently re-reading blocks to send data to peers. Your disc cache can help with this so you might want to try increasing the size. This will consume more ram memory, but can reduce wear on your harddrive as well as improve performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 As usual, very helpful advice, but following on with the result at my daughters house I did the rounds of a few friends with my laptop and guess what? the problem only appears when using connections with the same ISP that I have. Have written them a letter of complaint but I know they are just going to reply with a "tut tut torrenting is naughty". On a totally different subject I have sent you a PM, please reply. Many thanks for your help and diligent support Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 UPDATE I was amazed that my ISP contacted me by phone to apologise for the problem. The excuse was " We accidentally forgot to remove your hourly bandwidth cap when you upgraded, you will find all is OK now". Hmm Firstly I was not aware of this cap and secondly I know of other customers with the same problem. It's my guess that they are purposely restricting usage and only opening it up to those that complain. (I guess the majority of users would not realise that they are being limited and not getting what they pay for, thus reducing the load on the server) The lesson is " It pays off to complain" . End result is the Roller Coaster is now morphed into an Express train. I am guessing that what they were actually doing was capping the upload, which of course will limit the download since most protocols use some sort of "handshake" but with Bitcomet, this was causing me to appear as a "bad customer" insomuch that I was appearing to be greedy, all take and no give. Happy days now, All is working 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The UnUsual Suspect Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 This is the type of information that should be shared so people know about their poor service and can fight back with their wallets. I'd post this everywhere possible, forums, torrent sites, train stations, social media, underwater shipwrecks, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 (edited) Not Finished yet TUUS, Am now going to send another email asking what they are going to do to recompense me for a) the poor service they provided (by their own admission) and B) The time I spent diagnosing the problem, Should at least get a few months free rental from them. Apologies for the smily, it just automayically occurs if I type a b followed by a ) Edited October 31, 2014 by gasman (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The UnUsual Suspect Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Keep in mind that the equitable thing for them to do would be to make up to all their customers not just bribe the few that catch them which is what they hope will happen. Most people Compensating a single user wouldn't change my opinion of them even if I was the one being compensated, public awareness is the only fitting response to an isp cheating their customers. Comcast Cable was doing similar throttling here in usa and denied it but were busted by one of our former support team members and sued in a class action suit and lost, a similar class action suit would be a fair response to this so keep a copy of all your communications and talk to other customers and see if you can find a lawyer looking to make a name for himself. That would be the proper response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasman Posted November 1, 2014 Author Share Posted November 1, 2014 I get your drift but consumer law in the states is much stronger than that in Europe. For instance the Sony Bravia tv range has a manufacturing fault that causes the screen to go haywire (usualy just outside the warranty period). In the States, no problem " here is your new tv sir". Over here in Ireland " sorry sir your warranty has expired". I am well aware of this because I have developed a fix (although only temporary, it will go again) for many friends and family. Similarly I am the proud owner of a Honda S2000. They have a synchro problem when shifting from 1st to second, again a design/manufacturing fault. You lucky stateside guys get a new gearbox. Rest of the world "sorry your warranty has expired". It all comes down to numbers and attitude, I would find it difficult to get enough support to challenge my ISP because the majority of people will shy away from the legal system. There is however light at the end of the tunnel. My ISP (a major international) was the only source of fiber broadband until now. There are now at least two more starting up so the competition generated should shake things up a little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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