download speed

[toates]

sorry its the same old story about slow download speed but i couldnt find a definitive answer that worked from other topics!

my computers os is windows xp with avast! and microsoft defender running with bitcomet 0.77

internet is 2mb from a netgear wired router (tested the speed using speed test download 2060kb/s upload 192kb/s so i didnt think the problem would be the router or antivirus software)

my download speeds are maninly 5 - 15kb/s with upload speed around 20kb/s

the only time i had good download speed at 150kb/s for a long period the file stopped at 97% so was a 'dead' file from the developers etc

have been downloading several torrents at a time, when only downloading one it does not have much of an effect, still under 20kb/s

the health of a file im downloading at the moment is 3000% + which im guessing is good but not really sure what it means?

and could you tell me what seeds, leeches and peers are as im sure alot of people dont really no either?

Thanks for the help if u do lol !

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Hi,

First of all, you don't have enough upload speed to be running multiple torrents. Please only run one at a time.

I will give you a couple pointers, but you really should go through the settings guide throughly.

Since your ISP measures in "b" bits, and Bit Comet uses "B" Bytes, I will translate your figures.

Your isp gives you 2060kb/s or 257kB/s download and 192kb/s or 24kB/s upload

Since bit torrent gives more download to those that upload the most, the idea is to get as much upload as possible. However, you are maxing out your connection with upload, which will slow things down, so you need to set you max upload a bit lower. I would recommend somewhere around 16-18kB/s Global max upload.

Also, I would disable DHT (distributed hash table), as it will use bandwidth, and is not needed. The only time you might need this, is if the tracker is down, and you wanted to continue the download by bypassing the tracker.

Be sure to shut down and restart Bit Comet after turning off DHT.

Now, try this torrent...

http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/index.html

this will give you an idea how fast your client can run under ideal conditions.

Suspect

[toates]

First thanks for the tips i set the max upload to 18KB/s and disabled DHT and download speeds raised to 30 - 60KB/s with only those changes.

i just downloaded openoffice.org 2.0.4 as it would not let me dowload 2.0.4rc3 which downloaded at a speed about 150KB/s.

thanks again

[kluelos]

No, the download is the test.

But you might want to check out Open Office, which is a freeware alternative to Microsoft Office and the other proprietary word processors, spread sheets, presentation software, &c.

[toates]

yep i relised n ive tried to download it before dont no how i forgot

since changing the max upload (18KB/S) my download speeds have dropped again to around 20KB/s and only changed my listen port from 9000 to 50000.

anyway hopefully this is my last question but after thouroughly reading the setup guide i only found 1 possible problem with my setup which was the listen port. looking at the peers tab i found i only had local initiations. i then did a port test to check (How to Set up Portforwarding & Static IP Reply thread., Tips on how to speed up your downloads as well. https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

And click Proceed --> Type the Port you're using in BitComet, and click 'User Specified Custom Port Probe'. In the results, if it says that the port is Open, then you're all set! )

where it said the port was 'stealth', im guessing means open but hidden so is that alright?

and as that was step 3 A on 'Up to date BitComet Speed Guide, ^Completed^' i did not want to proceed to step 3 B as bitcomet is already an exception on the windows firewall?

Any more help will be greatly appreciated

[kluelos]

Your chosen listen port number is sent to the tracker, which includes it in a list it sends to all of the other peers. Some of them, having gotten that list, will attempt to initiate contact with your client, on the designated listen port. Alas, your router's firewall blocks them, so they can't set up a connection with you. That means you miss many connections that are probably faster than the ones your client has tried so far, and your speed will be much lower than it could be.

Get your router to stop blocking those connection attempts. This is what port-forwarding is all about. Be aware that any/every firewall you have needs to be open on that listen port: it only takes one of them to block it completely, no matter whether the others are open or not.

[toates]

thanks for replying...

so a firewall is still blocking letting other people initiate as my port is 'stealth'. The windows firewall has bitcomet on the exceptions list (including the listen port number for TCP an UDP), so it must be the built in firewall in the router.

i have found several faqs on how to portforward so that it can be initiated with which shouldnt be a problem but wasnt sure because does that not make the port susceptable to hackers, which shields up! port probe test talks about if the port is not 'stealth'?

so is it safe to portforward?

thanks again for all the help

[kluelos]

An open port, just by itself, is not a problem merely because it's open. There must also be some application listening to that port and responding to the correct sort of message (the sort it is expecting and can handle). If that program is malicious or can be made to do evil things, then you finally have a problem.

Applications must register ports they want to listen on, with the WinSock implementation. When they do, traffic on that port is sent by WinSock to the registering app. If there is no registered app, that traffic is dropped. If an app tries to register for a port that is already registered by another app, the registration is refused. (To see this in action, try starting up a second instance of BitComet. It will tell you that it can't listen on that port. This is because the first instance already grabbed the port.)

So the concern is for open ports with applications you don't know about, that are listening. One good example is the messenger service, which was intended for messages from, say, the network admin to tell you that the net is going down in 15 minutes, and suchlike. Somebody figured out how to misuse it to send ads to your desktop. After due consideration, it turned out that a firewall was the best answer.

You do have an app listening on the port in question: BitComet itself. That means that it will handle traffic that is in the proper form, and reject traffic that isn't. Since BC's got the port, no other app can also listen on it, so can't get the malicious traffic.

For every open port you want to make sure you have an app that you intend to be listening to that port and handling incoming unsolicited traffic. Otherwise the port should be closed. For most people, that means all ports should be closed. For typical bittorrent users, only the bittorrent listen port(s) should be open. If you were running a web server, or an ftp server, or a mail server, you'd want those ports to be open, otherwise not.

[toates]

well i think thats all of my problems solved now! thanks again for all the help, im sure it may have been simple to you but it meant alot that you wanted to help (especially kleulos)

thanks again