Problem with torrent download speed.

[Acid_death69]

Hey,
I've recently moved home and as such my internet has changed as well. It's a slightly higher speed than what I was use to, so I thought downloading would be a little bit easier, wrong. When I start any torrent off the download speed is tiny. I thought this might just be the torrent I'm downloading, I tried quite a few different torrents even ones that I knew are very popular and getting a high speed off them would be no problem. Each torrent I get won't go over speeds on 20Kbs. I've checked through the settings and I can't find anything wrong, I've got no limiter set or anything.
Can anyone offer me any suggestions of what it might be or what I can do about it?

Thanks.

[whatcdfan]

1 uninstall your client
2 clear your cache
3 re-install.

[a7x]

Port Forwarding?

[anon]

1. what client are you using?
2. what are your maximum connection, speed limit and encryption settings?
3. have you checked if your new provider is known to shape or mangle torrent traffic?

[Acid_death69]

Sorry for the late reply fellas been busy. I've used a few different type a couple of examples would be bit torrent and also Utorrent both give me the same speed. I also tried downloading the same torrent on my netbook got the same speed (tried different and more popular torrents and got the same result.
Global maximum connections is 800, i haven't set an speed limit and I'm not all that sure about my encryption settings.
As far as i am aware my ISP doesn't shape or mangle torrent traffic, I've been with this provider before a few years ago and had no problems then.

[anon]

Global maximum connections is 800, i haven't set an speed limit and I'm not all that sure about my encryption settings.

Preferences -> BitTorrent -> Protocol Encryption. Set it to "forced" and untick the legacy connections checkbox. If that doesn't work, go to Preferences -> Advanced -> locate the bt.transp_disposition in the right panel, set it to 10 and restart uTorrent. Let us know what happened.

By the way, any chances you're seeing "disk overloaded" in the status bar?

[Acid_death69]

Well i did what you asked ad ive had some progress. One of the torrents im downloading the speed of it went up dramatically but then fell. It keeps spiking irregularly going from 1.0kbs to 90.0kbs The other torrent is still going at a pretty rubbish speed.
Also im not seeing any 'disk overloaded' in the status bar.

[anon]

One of the torrents im downloading the speed of it went up dramatically but then fell. It keeps spiking irregularly going from 1.0kbs to 90.0kbs

It does sound like traffic shaping to me. I'd suggest you use the speed guide (Ctrl+G) and follow the steps there. Checking port forwarding and using a direct connection (if you have a router) would also be good. Then try snatching the following Linux torrent:

http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/file?info_hash=%A3%8D%02%C2%87%898B%A3%28%25%AA%86n%00%82%8A1%8F%07

If you don't hit full speed, you're most likely shaped.

[Acid_death69]

Looks like you were right that torrent that you gave me is not hitting the full speed that it should. Looks like BT are now shaping torrent traffic. I wasn't aware they could actually do that.
On a good note though it's not like im getting a constant low speed, with the spiking of high speed my average has significantly improved, cheers for your help anon.

[anon]

Glad I could help, and sorry to hear that. As I said, I've also been shaped by my provider in the past, and since I only used torrents at the time, this was particularly painful. But at least upload wasn't shaped. :)

What setting bt.transp_disposition to 10 achieved is putting uTorrent in uTP-only mode - that's a different transport protocol which has the side effect of evading shaping to some degree. It is, however, a workaround, like fishing with an old sock - it works, but it's not truly efficient. I'd advice changing to a different ISP if possible.

[ItsFixed]

I think whatcdfan is right. If you remove your client, clear cache and re-install it then there will be its speed up. This problem may be due to overloading of caches.

[anon]

I'd be delighted to know what caches you're referring to and why clearing them helps. uTorrent only has two that I know of, the dlimagecache and disk one. The former is App-related and can't affect your speeds, the latter would only do so if deliberately screwed up for that purpose.