Not able to surf with uTorrent open

[The Flying Cow]

Ever since I made the alterations to my uTorrent so it would be faster, it's hard to surf the net when I have it open. If I close my uTorrent client, I can surf fast and fly about, but if I have it open my browser takes 20 minutes to load a page.

Please don't tell me to switch to FF as I won't. I believe in IE, and it is faster than these other options (Opera, FF, and that Jungle/Safari/wtv browser).

So, how can I remedy this? I just want to be able to surf without having to shut off my bittorrent client.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[dunson]

I think this is pretty well known so I don't know if I'm just stating the obvious here, but you really have to make sure your UL is limited to 75-85% of the max if you want normal browsing speeds (assuming my or someone else's seedbox isn't completely maxing your DL too). I think 90/85% is a good combo to make sure you're using your bandwith efficiently.

[`Dr. Nick Riviera`]

Or by giving the browsing port (80) higher priority in you're router settings...

[The Flying Cow]

But it's strange coz I don't have such a fast upstream speed. Is that irrelevant? No matter the speeds, if it's set to 100% uTorrent will ruin my browsing then?

[dunson]

I'm sure it applies to all connections. When you're UL or DL is almost maxed, They begin to effect the other, though I think UL really effects DL and browsing speeds. I've noticed when I max out my home connections UL and then reduce it to 80% or so my DL jumps significantly, even doubles. Browsing was the biggest pain in the ass though, I can wait for my torrents, but not a webpage.

[mbucari1]

Are you using a router, and what kind. I'm guessing you increased the number of connections that utorrent is allowed to make. You may be overloading your router. Also, linksys has problems with a lot of connections.

[slimdogp]

When you browse, you system needs to send acknowledgement packets to the website saying that you've received the data OK, and are ready for more. If you upstream is being clogged with torrent data, its tough for these packets to get through.

As stated, many people choose to set their max upstream to 80% of capacity. What I've always done, and it works pretty good *for me*, is to watch carefully the number of upload slots per torrent. If your upstream is maxing out and you have it set to 5 upload slots per torrent, try dropping down to 1 or 2 upload slots per torrent. I've always found its not the full use of upload speed, but rather excess connections that cause this problem.

So, if you're browsing slow and you notice you are uploading at max speed, drop your "Number of upload slots per torrent:" to 1. It should fix your browsing. If you find you're not using all of your upload anymore, try bumping it up to 2 and continue higher as long as your browsing stays in good shape. Try to find the number that allows you to max out your upload (as to make good buffers and ratio) but that stays as low as possible as to not mess with your browsing.

Good Luck :)

slim-

[legom]

This used to be a problem for me when I had a slower connection. I just capped my UL at about 90%. I was able to get about 40 KB/s, so I capped it at 36 KB/s and everything was fine.

[Ghostbusters]

Ever since I made the alterations to my uTorrent so it would be faster, it's hard to surf the net when I have it open. If I close my uTorrent client, I can surf fast and fly about, but if I have it open my browser takes 20 minutes to load a page.

Please don't tell me to switch to FF as I won't. I believe in IE, and it is faster than these other options (Opera, FF, and that Jungle/Safari/wtv browser).

So, how can I remedy this? I just want to be able to surf without having to shut off my bittorrent client.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Hi buddy I know you specifically said don't suggest using FF but seriously it's a fantastic browser on the surface it makes IE look clumsy and as if it's made of Lego and when you begin to look into a bit deeper it offers some amazing features which personally I don't us, anyway not attempting to start a browser flame war but try this:

1. Open Firefox
2. Type About:Config in the Address bar
3. Type Network in the Filter bar
4. Search for network.http.pipelineing and set it to true
5. Double Click Pipelining.maxrequests and set it to 10
6. Browse the Internet at lightning speed!

Instantly noticeable improvement when FF opens and log's into around 20 tabbed pages that combined with a good router should make a big difference, IE simply isn't the best browser anymore in terms of performance, now I think this has always been the case but with today's bandwidth hungry applications the difference is more noticable than ever.

What you got to lose if it doesn't work for you then just uninstall :)

[The Flying Cow]

Thanks for the wealth of replies. The trouble, slim, is that I'm not maxing out either UL or DL speeds, and am using very little of my capacity on both. Even in that situation, my browsing is pathetic (56K-modem style, if some of you can remember those days).

I do have a router mbucari, and it is a HuaWei EchoLife HG510. And I did increase the number of connections uTorrent is allowed to make. Maybe I should change this back?

[Ghostbusters]

Switch back first and if that doesn't work:

How many files are you seeding in utorrent, roughly how many connected peers do you have, whats your max global connection settings, & connections per torrent limit, what is your connection speed, what o/s are you using, whats your half open connection limit in your o/s ?

With all this I'm sure you'd get a pretty accurate idea of whats happening

[The Flying Cow]

I changed net.max_halfopen from *100 to *50, and so far browsing has smoothened out a bit. I can surf FST for example, which I was practically unable to do before.

I guess mbucari hit the nail on the sack. Let's see if I have to do any more alterations, or if this is enough.

I'll post back if I return to Browsing Hell (http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/pd_hell_070706_ms.jpg)

[slimdogp]

Good luck tweaking... If you do end up throwing some money away in the near future may I suggest a wrt54gL router with the dd-wrt 3rd party firmware. My p2p experience has been much more pleasant since I got mine..

[SenorBubbz]

Thanks for the wealth of replies. The trouble, slim, is that I'm not maxing out either UL or DL speeds, and am using very little of my capacity on both. Even in that situation, my browsing is pathetic (56K-modem style, if some of you can remember those days).

I do have a router mbucari, and it is a HuaWei EchoLife HG510. And I did increase the number of connections uTorrent is allowed to make. Maybe I should change this back?

YES.

Certain routers can only handle a certain number of connections.
When I had my number of connections set higher than they should be, my router would crash every 10 minutes.

I suggest finding out how many connections your router can handle and changing it in uTorrent.

[The Flying Cow]

Good luck tweaking... If you do end up throwing some money away in the near future may I suggest a wrt54gL router with the dd-wrt 3rd party firmware. My p2p experience has been much more pleasant since I got mine..

Can you buy different routers to the ones the ISP suggests you to buy? Shouldn't I keep the one the company told us to purchase?

Meanwhile, while I had a few minutes of relaxation yesterday, later on in the night and today we return to the same bullshit. After tweaking 2 settings on uTorrent to make it less demanding, I'm still unable to browse absolutely anything with it open.

I wonder, does it have anything to do with the fact I'm seeding 43 torrents ATM? Is that what's killing things?

Let us know amigos, because browsing hell sure sucks donkey bawls. :(