# Torrents Hog Entire Connection



## DaveK (May 4, 2009)

Whenever I open uTorrent and download, it seems to hog the entire connection, Xbox Live is useless as is streaming music and video and browsing the net on the laptop I'm using is really bad, it's slow and every second page seems to fail to load.

20Mb downloads at approx 2,500kbps and my torrents are downloading at between 150-250kbps, so shouldn't that leave room for other devices just like on my PC? i.e if downloading torrents at 200kbps, other downloads on Firefox can use the rest of the speed.

Even with bandwidth allocation set to low, it doesn't help nor does downloading just a couple of things, it seems I can't do both, I'd like to be able to play over Xbox Live or just stream a video from my PC.

I'd prefer if I was even just able to download at like 25kbps or something if I can use my 360 properly, just as long as some progress get's done on my downloads. It's not even just playing and streaming on my Xbox, just logging in and browsing through the marketplace doesn't work properly. Browsing the net on my own PC is fine though a littler slower than usual, but anything else trying to use the net won't work or when it does it doesn't work properly.

Everything is wireless, the router is open and it's N1 so it has pretty good range meaning my cheap neighbours are probably using it, though there's no guarantee but I can pick up a router from 3 houses down the street, so there's probably 10 houses that can pickup our 20Mb connection, another person has an open connection which is 3Mb and I doubt others have as fast a connection as us.

Could it be the upload speed? My upload is a measly 1.5Mb and is approx 175kbps and my torrent upload is capped at 145kbps which doesn't leave much left.

I'm moving house on the 21st and might be able to put the modem and router in my room, would it help if I connected my 360 via ethernet?


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## Kenshai (May 4, 2009)

Yes your upload rate is what is dragging your speed down, limit it to 10-15% of your bandwidth if you want to continue doing other things.


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## CarolinaKSU (May 4, 2009)

have you tried doing the things in this thread?

lowering your net.max_halfopen to 4 is what did it for me when utorrent took over my connection too. I made everyone in my house follow that guide when they setup their utorrents so that it wont bog the network down. Now everyone can torrent 24/7 and theres no slowdown!


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## Mussels (May 4, 2009)

Lower the upload speed to less than 50% of your max upload rate.

Lower the maximum amount of connections (50 per torrent, 50 total) and set it to only run one torrent at a time.

Lower netmaxhalfopen to 4 as suggested above.


And my god put some security on there. if its open and anyone can get on, how do you know THEY arent causing this lag problem in the first palce.


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## DaveK (May 4, 2009)

Ok, I've set the maxhalfopen to 4, limited my upload to 50% @ 85kbps, lowered the maximum number of connections to 150 with 50 per torrent and have 3 torrents running, 2 are forced downloads and the other is just random but it has a very low download speed, only connected to 2 of 57 seeds and 32 of 344 peers.

Can't put a password on the router until my mam gets home tonight, will have to let her know before I do it. Do I need to do anything special or is it just like setting a password for other things?


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## Mussels (May 4, 2009)

DaveK said:


> Ok, I've set the maxhalfopen to 4, limited my upload to 50% @ 85kbps, lowered the maximum number of connections to 150 with 50 per torrent and have 3 torrents running, 2 are forced downloads and the other is just random but it has a very low download speed, only connected to 2 of 57 seeds and 32 of 344 peers.
> 
> Can't put a password on the router until my mam gets home tonight, will have to let her know before I do it. Do I need to do anything special or is it just like setting a password for other things?



just remember that you arent setting a password on the router, you're setting a password on the WIRELESS.


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## kid41212003 (May 4, 2009)

If your download/upload speed is 20Mbits/1.5Mbits

Use the SpeedGuide and choose the xxx/1Mbits setting.
Do not force downloads, unless that torrent has under 30 peers (included seeds).

Remove trackers that not online/working.
If there's is udp trackers, make sure to put them right under the http (same name, no tiers).
Disable DHT.

I'm always have my upload speed at 75%, and it' working really well for me.

And be a peer, not a leecher! Good luck!


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## Mussels (May 4, 2009)

oh and theres a setting if you're looking at the peers tab, to "resolve IP's"

All it does is give the flag of what country they're from, but it does add to the amount connections if you leave that tab open.


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## mrhuggles (May 4, 2009)

use openWRT + X-Wrt, set QoS, the ports that uTorrent is useing to Bulk, problem solved. [uses UDP and TCP both btw]

yes i know it doesn't work on incoming data, it doesn't have to, using QoS on outgoing data will obviously affect incoming data plus everybody has 10 times the incoming bandwidth as they do outgoing...

by it will affect incoming data i mean, these are not unsolicited packets


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## Fitseries3 (May 4, 2009)

the one and only thing you need to do is limit your upload speed to 10kb


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## Mussels (May 4, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> the one and only thing you need to do is limit your upload speed to 10kb



which then defeats the entire purpose of torrents.


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## Fitseries3 (May 4, 2009)

hey... its on utorrents setup instructions.


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## kyle2020 (May 4, 2009)

Im so glad I stumbled across this thread, usually I have to set my torrents running when im going out or having a shower etc as my internet slows way too much whilst downloading. Plus I cant play games whilst utorrent is grinding away either.

Going to try the suggestions now, cheers 

*edit*

OMGOSH.

Yep this works. Im able to browse the web and torrent at the same time with no slow down. Limited my upload to 10kb, did the max.net trick, IP resolving, yadda yadda yadda - not only can I browse the web smoothly my download rate has almost doubled. Yeah, im pretty impressed right now 

Trying games now. Online games I mean, such as TF:2.


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## Gzero (May 4, 2009)

Wow amazing that people eat up their own upload bandwidth and then wonder why nothing is working...

If you want to see a bad example of a p2p downloader, go look at the wow patching downloader (ghastly).


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## kyle2020 (May 4, 2009)

I agree haha. Its not worth it, even when doing it to play free servers. *shudders*


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## DaveK (May 4, 2009)

Well, I couldn't sign into Xbox Live but I'm able to stream video which is a big plus because there isn't a couch in my bedroom lol, but it's a start. Thanks for the tips guys.


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## wiak (May 11, 2009)

if you got 12/1mbit connection then just set torrents to download at 1050 kb/s
and upload on 60 kb/s

that way you got 40 kb/s left up and around 200 kb/s left down for other things


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## Geofrancis (May 11, 2009)

most people don't realise to download you also need upload for the confirmation of a received packet so if you have no upload you cant send a packet saying you received the one they sent to they wont send another until the packet gets through. find a program that monitors the raw bandwidth going through your network connection and start downloading and watch your upload being choked. a good program is samurize it can monitor anything almost on your computer and it can be set as part of the desktop like the windows sidebar.


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## Easy Rhino (May 11, 2009)

this thread reminds me that perhaps we should put together a networking 101 article.


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## Gzero (May 12, 2009)

Geo, what chance does a user have with samurize if they don't understand how to config their p2p client accordingly? lol.


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## Geofrancis (May 12, 2009)

good point 

is there a more user friendly program that does the same thing?


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## Deleted member 24505 (May 12, 2009)

I use the mac address access list method to secure my router,basicly if their mac address is not on the list,it does not let them connect.Its much simpler than wep etc,and theres no way anyone can hack it.


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## Easy Rhino (May 12, 2009)

tigger said:


> I use the mac address access list method to secure my router,basicly if their mac address is not on the list,it does not let them connect.Its much simpler than wep etc,and theres no way anyone can hack it.



yea MAC addressing is very solid but it can be hacked. everything can be hacked. granted you have to be incredibly good at it.


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## Darren (May 12, 2009)

tigger said:


> I use the mac address access list method to secure my router,basicly if their mac address is not on the list,it does not let them connect.Its much simpler than wep etc,and theres no way anyone can hack it.



That is extremely dangerous. Mac Addresses can be cloned, you can download a freeware application that can edit and clone a wireless network or physical network's address with a quick few presses. 


You need the WEP encryption or some other form of encryption.

Edit:



Easy Rhino said:


> WEP can also be hacked fairly easily. on the other hand, WPA2 would take a powerful supercomputer years and year to hack.



I'm not recommending WEP, he can use whatever encryption method he wants, but he would be better off with encryption than relying on some "MAC address matching" feature.


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## Easy Rhino (May 12, 2009)

Darren said:


> That is extremely dangerous. Mac Addresses can be cloned, you can download a freeware application that can edit and clone a wireless network or physical network's address with a quick few presses.
> 
> 
> You need the WEP encryption or some other form of encryption.



WEP can also be hacked fairly easily. on the other hand, WPA2 would take a powerful supercomputer years and year to hack.


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## Mussels (May 12, 2009)

Easy Rhino said:


> this thread reminds me that perhaps we should put together a networking 101 article.



i already have but it needs updating pretty badly. feel free to send me updates, and i'll add em in.


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## Gzero (May 12, 2009)

Simple bandwidth monitors:
Wireless adapters: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=86656dc5-b0fe-489d-b115-44a76e050f63&bt=1&pl=1

Wired adapters: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=89fc6d27-0fe9-4c40-b1f4-e1c393415bff&bt=1&pl=1

These are both for vista sidebar.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 12, 2009)

I used Gamefuel on my D-Link DGL-4500 to force Torrent activity to the lowest priority.  That worked for me.

http://img.techpowerup.org/090512/gamefuel.png


I also limit bandwidth in the torrent client to about 75% of my internet maximum.


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## ChaoticAtmosphere (May 12, 2009)

Darren said:


> That is extremely dangerous. Mac Addresses can be cloned, you can download a freeware application that can edit and clone a wireless network or physical network's address with a quick few presses.
> 
> 
> You need the WEP encryption or some other form of encryption.
> ...



I use both. So right now there Network Access list is turned on however no MAC id's are entered so 1. There is nothing to match, No MAC ID entered = No device can access my wireless - you simply can't get on and 2. If someone managed to hack that (good luck!!) They still need my WPA passphrase.

Personally, wireless is not my preferred method of connection for obvious security risk reasons...but I do have a wireless router for my friends who come over with their laptops who want to access the internet.


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## Mussels (May 12, 2009)

MAC is easy to crack. takes 30 seconds to see your MAC ID with a wifi sniffer and clone it under certain linux distos.


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## Darren (May 12, 2009)

Mussels said:


> MAC is easy to crack. takes 30 seconds to see your MAC ID with a wifi sniffer and clone it under certain linux distos.



Indeed,

Also the standard software that comes with a wireless card can reveal the MAC address as standard. I know using the software that is equipped with my sisters Netgear WG111 54 MB wireless card our neighbours MAC addresses are revealed through a regular scan.


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## Ptep (May 20, 2009)

Easy Rhino said:


> WEP can also be hacked fairly easily. on the other hand, WPA2 would take a powerful supercomputer years and year to hack.



Not true, WPA2 can be cracked in a realistic time frame using Elcomsoft's Distributed Password Recovery - this software utilizes CUDA* to recover WPA2 password very quickly, and it can also be scaled to upto 10,000(!!!) computers, unfortunately the cost isnt exactly realistic! I myself have a copy of their Wireless Security Auditor which can also recover passwords for WPA (its true use is actually for testing the strength of the password used on a WPA encrypted network), although not quite as quickly as a room full of machines running Teslas would do! 

Link:
http://www.elcomsoft.com/

*I should infact here say GPU processing, this software supports ATI cards too


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## FordGT90Concept (May 20, 2009)

Never, ever use WEP.  WEP can be broken in a matter of seconds if there is enough traffic and you don't even have to try to find applications that will do it for you.

At bare miniumum, use WPA w/ TKIP.  If all your devices support it, definitely go for WPA2 w/ AES.


"Very quickly" meaning?  Seconds?  Minutes? Days?  Weeks?  Months?  Years?


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## Studabaker (May 20, 2009)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I also limit bandwidth in the torrent client to about 75% of my internet maximum.



This is exactly what most people who use any sort of file sharing get stumped about when they have an upstream going--"why has everything else slowed to a crawl?!?"

Simple fact of having to cap the bandwidth for both the downstream and the upstream speeds allowed by your torrent client.

For example, my limits for D/U are somewhere around ~800-850K/s and ~60K/s respectively.  My default caps are always 750 and somewhere under 45K if I want to be able to do anything else with the internet.

In uTorrent I select 'Show speed limits in the status bar' and right-click on the status bar upstream/downstream displays and from there it gives me instant access to change the caps on either to fit whatever I happen to be doing at the time.  So when I'm downloading something at 750K and I am about to go play COD4, I can set the download cap to about 300K and the upload cap to 30K and I won't see much of a performance hit.


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## Ptep (May 20, 2009)

FordGT90Concept said:


> "Very quickly" meaning?  Seconds?  Minutes? Days?  Weeks?  Months?  Years?



That depends on the complexity of the password, bear in mind that its using what is effectively a brute force attack, and a single machine running a Tesla S1070 will attempt around 52,400 passwords per second.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 20, 2009)

AES 128-bit keys: ~340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000 possibilities

At 52,400 passwords per second, it would take you many years to break it.  For all intensive purposes, it is unbreakable at this time, at least from brute force.


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## Wile E (May 20, 2009)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I used Gamefuel on my D-Link DGL-4500 to force Torrent activity to the lowest priority.  That worked for me.
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/090512/gamefuel.png
> 
> ...



That's pretty much what I do as well.


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## Mussels (May 21, 2009)

i dont consider it 'fast' to crack, unless someone can do it with a laptop outside your house in <4 hours. any more than that and you're gunna notice em trying to hack your password.


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## ChaoticAtmosphere (May 21, 2009)

Mussels said:


> i dont consider it 'fast' to crack, unless someone can do it with a laptop outside your house in <4 hours. any more than that and you're gunna notice em trying to hack your password.



Yep. That's why I use both WPA and MAC reservation. More secure than the average NoOb.


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## Mussels (May 21, 2009)

ChaoticAtmosphere said:


> Yep. That's why I use both WPA and MAC reservation. More secure than the average NoOb.



even my mums using WPA2, MAC restrictions and a passkey using letters and numbers 

she just learned what tabs are in firefox. blew her mind.


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## ChaoticAtmosphere (May 21, 2009)

Mussels said:


> even my mums using WPA2, MAC restrictions and a passkey using letters and numbers
> 
> she just learned what tabs are in firefox. blew her mind.



Ctrl+t....Kapow!!!


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## Gzero (May 21, 2009)

Mussels said:


> i dont consider it 'fast' to crack, unless someone can do it with a laptop outside your house in <4 hours. any more than that and you're gunna notice em trying to hack your password.



You only to need to cap a handshake for WPA-PSK. So you could hang around when the person gets back from work, nab the handshake and go home to a 3ghz pc and start bruteforcing/large dictionary. Although...


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## Mussels (May 21, 2009)

Gzero said:


> You only to need to cap a handshake for WPA-PSK. So you could hang around when the person gets back from work, nab the handshake and go home to a 3ghz pc and start bruteforcing/large dictionary. Although...



although it requires extra time and effort, which 99% of wardrivers arent going to bother with. i turn my wireless off when its not in use anyway.


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## Ptep (May 21, 2009)

FordGT90Concept said:


> AES 128-bit keys: ~340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000 possibilities
> 
> At 52,400 passwords per second, it would take you many years to break it.  For all intensive purposes, it is unbreakable at this time, at least from brute force.



Absolutely, but forgive me if im wrong here, the strength of WPA2 no matter how many possibilities of the keys there are, is still dependant on the complexity of the original password, therefore if some uses a password like dog123 as opposed to a much more complex random password the person attempting to break that stands in a much better position of doing it in a sensible time frame, I think the point that this software makes is not that WPA2 is easily crackable moreover that a complex network passkey is very necessary.


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## Mussels (May 21, 2009)

Ptep said:


> Absolutely, but forgive me if im wrong here, the strength of WPA2 no matter how many possibilities of the keys there are, is still dependant on the complexity of the original password, therefore if some uses a password like dog123 as opposed to a much more complex random password the person attempting to break that stands in a much better position of doing it in a sensible time frame, I think the point that this software makes is not that WPA2 is easily crackable moreover that a complex network passkey is very necessary.



do what i do. bang your head on your keyboard for 30S, and see what you get 
(i'm kidding. but it'll be funny if people try)


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## Ptep (May 21, 2009)

Mussels said:


> do what i do. bang your head on your keyboard for 30S, and see what you get
> (i'm kidding. but it'll be funny if people try)



Stars and a slight headache?


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## Mussels (May 21, 2009)

Ptep said:


> Stars and a slight headache?



and theres your WPA password!


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## Ptep (May 21, 2009)

Oh well, all this assumes that people do use any form of encryption at all, on the walk from where i park my car to where i work there is around 20 unsecured wireless networks! And id bet any money that almost every one of those routers is admin/admin or admin/password.....



Mussels said:


> and theres your WPA password!



Nice methodology there, I'm going to have to start recommending this one to some of my clients


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## DaveK (May 30, 2009)

Ok guys, a little off topic here but there's 2 things. First is my torrents keep hogging my upload, I had it set to 10kbps so I could play some online on my Xbox (which works much better with ethernet than wireless with torrents going) and it just ignores it, and is taking pretty much my whole upload. I can't even block that peer, as usually the 150kbps or so is going to 1 person.












How can I stop this?

And, for setting simple security do I just type a password in that box and it's set?


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## Geofrancis (May 30, 2009)

yea best way to make a password is open a txt document and mash your hand on the keyboard while pressing shift alot then copy and paste it in


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## ChaoticAtmosphere (May 30, 2009)

Geofrancis said:


> yea best way to make a password is open a txt document and mash your hand on the keyboard while pressing shift alot then copy and paste it in



Haha...but don't forget to save it or write it down or you won't be able to connect your friends laptop wirelessly! 

Definitely do set a wpa passphrase though DaveK. Not sure about that one hog peer thing though.


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## Geofrancis (May 30, 2009)

what about "YoUrNeVeRgOnNaGeTiT"


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## dr emulator (madmax) (May 30, 2009)

DaveK said:


> And, for setting simple security do I just type a password in that box and it's set?
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/090530/Image3.jpg



i think so my uncle has 1 and they are pretty simple to setup what password are you going to use
only joking yes it should be set when you press apply changes.
send me a copy of your password when your done


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## DaveK (May 30, 2009)

Ok now on the situation of uTorrent upload limit not working, I have it set to 10kbps so I can play on Xbox Live but uTorrent is taking 178kbps, which is pretty much maxing out my 1.5Mb upload. Not to mention hours at those speeds eats into my bandwidth and the guy is only giving me like 20kbps. It's a SOLID speed, it never drops, wtf. When I download over 100kbps from 1 person it never lasts more than 30 seconds yet I've been upping roughly 150kbps for over 24 hours straight...


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## Studabaker (May 30, 2009)

I've never had a limit simply be ignored uTorrent, that's just plain weird.  Re-check to make sure you really have the limit set program-wide.  I say re-install or upgrade to a beta or something...


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## Studabaker (May 30, 2009)

Also you might have it accidentally set to use more bandwidth in the event that there are no downloads going on.


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## ChaoticAtmosphere (May 30, 2009)

DaveK said:


> Ok now on the situation of uTorrent upload limit not working, I have it set to 10kbps so I can play on Xbox Live but uTorrent is taking 178kbps, which is pretty much maxing out my 1.5Mb upload. Not to mention hours at those speeds eats into my bandwidth and the guy is only giving me like 20kbps. It's a SOLID speed, it never drops, wtf. When I download over 100kbps from 1 person it never lasts more than 30 seconds yet I've been upping roughly 150kbps for over 24 hours straight...




I think there's an option where you can ban a leecher or peer in uTorrent.

EDIT: Just checked, I'm worng.


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## Mussels (May 31, 2009)

if utorrent doesnt have  working upload limit, you're either on a dodgy beta version ,or your client is broken.

did you set the upload limit on the TORRENT, or the GLOBAL setting?


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## FordGT90Concept (May 31, 2009)

Geofrancis said:


> yea best way to make a password is open a txt document and mash your hand on the keyboard while pressing shift alot then copy and paste it in


That's what I usually do.  I type something like...

BBTfc6c68cvyb89Vc6rcTRvboPkmInuB786f77659870y9ug8658g89o7yuh

Then I go through and backspace...

Bfc68cyb89c6rTRvoPkInuB86f765970y9g868g8o7yh

And again...

Bfc6cy89c6TvokInB8f76970986g87y

And again...

fccy8c6voknBf767096g7

Then remove duplicates...

fcy86voknB709g

Viola, a password a dictionary will never break and will meet all except the most strict of password rules.


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## mrhuggles (May 31, 2009)

get a router that can run openWRT whiterussian, install it with X-WRT[web interface thats good], set up QoS, then you will be good to go.


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