Topic: WTF: BT d/l at 0KB, u/l at 20KB/s

[Brian Skalinder]

Alright, so I'm dowloading for the first time using BitTorrent.  Here's the problem:

When I started off, I was the only leecher, downloader, whatever you call them in BT, getting d/l speeds of around 10KB/s.  BUT, ever since people started d/l-ing from me, my d/l speed has dropped to 0KB/s with an occasional, rare flare up to 3 KB/s.

PC / Network / Software Info

• 1.6 GHz PC, 512MB RAM, Win2K
• aDSL (1500kbps dl/128kbps ul)
• static IP home network over router
• port forwarding 6881-6999 (the default port range used by Shadow BT) to the machine on which I'm using BT
• Shadow BT version S-5.8.7 (tried BT version 3.3 with the same results)

Shadow BT Config and Stats

• Unlimited upload speeds
• max of 4 upload connections
• connected to 1 peer with an average of 38.5% completed
• connected to 0 seeds*; also seeing 0.450 distributed copies
• Shadow BT Status light is yellow (but the fact that someone is connected to me and d/l-ing directly contradicts the status light description offered by Shadow BT  that no one is connected to me);  Update: my status light has now changed to blue, sooo...the original seed must be gone or offline and no other client has the complete torrent, now - at least that's how I read this

* Does this mean I'm no longer pulling data from the seed but only from my peer, and as such have to wait for my peer to d/l from the seed before I can d/l from my peer?

So, my questions:

[1] Why have my speeds dropped to damn near zero?
[2] How do I config so I can continue u/l to others while I d/l without the d/l performance turning to crap?
[3] Am I hosed now that there isn't a complete seed out there anywhere?

[mfh2014]

Brian...you need to limit your upload speed to about 17K or so...you're using up all your u/l bandwith...to d/l at a good speed leave a few KB/s of upload bandwith available...whenever you d/l something, you recieve the data and your computer sends a message back to server saying which bits were recieved correctly...if you don't have any u/l bandiwth availble, this cannot happen....

hope this helps

matt

[Brian Skalinder]

Fast response...thanks, Matt!  +T

I changed my u/l speed to 10KB/s (the SBT client is optimistic listing 20KB/s, the actual u/l speed is probably closer to 15KB/s).  

But according to SBT, while I continue to u/l to my peer at at 10KB/s, my d/l speeds remain at 0KB/s.  Hmmmmmmmmm.  

I'm guessing since I'm no longer connected to the seed (not sure what happened to it?), and assuming my peer doesn't have any data I don't already have, that there's simply nothing for SBT to d/l - hence the 0KB/s d/l speed.  I could be wrong, though, wouldn't be the first time!

[mfh2014]

Sounds like you're right about the seed dissappearing....but in any case, you will have trouble d/l at a good speed with your upload speed set to unlimited..you say you have 128kbps u/l...so this is 16KB/sec...so setting your u/l limit somewhere around 12 or 13 KB/sec should be okay once the seed comes back...

[Brian Skalinder]

Sounds like you're right about the seed dissappearing....but in any case, you will have trouble d/l at a good speed with your upload speed set to unlimited..you say you have 128kbps u/l...so this is 16KB/sec...so setting your u/l limit somewhere around 12 or 13 KB/sec should be okay once the seed comes back...

Yup, makes sense about the unlimited u/l speed being a problem, should've thought of that one myself!  Thanks, Matt.

[kkaye]

When using Shawdow there are default configs you can choose from, as you noted you are using "unlimited"

Play around and switch it with one of the others in that drop down menu, it helped me out alot doing that.

lower your u/l rate

[Sean Gallemore]

increase your upload connections