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lordy
15-08-2007, 02:11
I have 4M Cable and 3M ADSL with ADSL24
Both networks are reachable from my main PC.

When I download torrents via Cable the speed is often lower than upload speed
(which I have capped to 80% bandwidth - about 27KB/s) - as soon as I switch
interface to ADSL, (ifdown eth0) the download speed jumps up significantly (like over 10 times faster) ,
often maxing out the line if using a popular torrent.
This is despite
a) having my full cable bandwidth available. (ie not hit download limits)
b) using the same upload as for cable - as my ADSL line has more upload available.

I have tested this with a number of different torrents at different times of the day. The results are always the same. Torrents via Cable barely match upload speed, but via ADSL I'm getting over 2M/s+.

I have
- about 5 upload slots/80 connections per torrent,
- only one torrent running, 20% upload free.
- Running on a high port, and
- tested with and without encryption..

My ADSL line consistently outperforms the Cable using torrents. Despite having less bandwidth.

Does anyone get good torrent performance on their cable connection these days?

My Cable router is WRT54GS running Tomato 1.07 (which is supposed to be a fast firmware).

Of course using newsgroups is a different matter after 12am :)
And I usually download via NNTP via both interfaces simultaneously.

Paul H
15-08-2007, 02:16
It is probably part of a trial that Virgin are doing?

v0id
15-08-2007, 02:20
Does anyone get good torrent performance on their cable connection these days?.

Yes, more often than not, maxing out the download capacity (900 - 1200KB/s), depending on the strength of the torrent of course

Chris W
15-08-2007, 02:49
do you see similar patterns with newsgroup downloads or is it just the torrents?

lordy
15-08-2007, 02:54
do you see similar patterns with newsgroup downloads or is it just the torrents?

Just torrents , Newsgroups are fine, I'll report back with some more precise observations when I grab my next Linux Distro :)

Mick Fisher
15-08-2007, 03:14
I rarely use torrents, but on the odd occasion that I do, I get just the speeds that I would expect to judging by the size of the swarm.

Of course if anyone was to go for those public torrents, of, lets say, extremely popular but questionable material, that seem to attract simply massive swarms then they should be aware that most of the swarm are likely to be hit and runners with the result that the speeds are usually very slow.

So I am told anyway. :)

Hugh
15-08-2007, 09:26
It is probably part of a trial that Virgin are doing?

Is this your answer to everything lately? :D

Paul H
15-08-2007, 10:06
Is this your answer to everything lately? :D

That is not fair. I get accused in another thread of not helping anybody, and when I do help I get criticised for it. He could be having the problems through Virgin doing trials on his connection like what Alex Brown said they were.

:)

7@m3 G33k
15-08-2007, 10:24
Is this your answer to everything lately? :D

How completely unfair of you to suggest this! :shocked: What about Paul H's astonishing revelations that Richard Branson is in fact an alien pod person and is planning to suck our brains out through our cable broadband connections?!

Or was the plot of Batman Forever...hmmm... What days it is? What's my name? :smokin:

Stuart
15-08-2007, 10:26
Guys, we are starting to wander a little off topic.

Paul H
15-08-2007, 10:30
How completely unfair of you to suggest this! :shocked: What about Paul H's astonishing revelations that Richard Branson is in fact an alien pod person and is planning to suck our brains out through our cable broadband connections?!

Or was the plot of Batman Forever...hmmm... What days it is? What's my name? :smokin:

:notopic::redcard:

ECW_Original
15-08-2007, 11:02
Right, after all this bitching and what-not, I feel I have to say my piece..

Why pick on Paul H for? what, cos he speaks the truth and everyone else on here just wont hear a bad word against VM?? god sakes grow up! EVERYONE is entitled to an oppinion, and just because it is not the same as your own, you feel the need to critisise and even in some cases you feel the need to bitch about that person, well that is WRONG!! Just because someone doesn't have the same oppinion as you, that dont make them wrong and you right!!

We all know by now of VM's underhanded tactics & the way they do things without even awknowledging it, as far as the customers go, we are all wrong, it is ALWAYS OUR equipment that is at fault, NOT a problem their end, Im so sick and fed up with it... then you have the blatant lies from them, IMHO, that IS NOT how to run a sucessful business, and the reason they have more customers than they deserve is because of these "attractive, money saving offers" which in reality, the discounted price they are charging is STILL over the top for this subsidised product(s).

Now, as I said, everyone is entitled to their own oppinion, as above you will see mine, but I would not even dream about having a go at someone or bitch about them just because they see things differently than me, so PLEASE treat other users here how you would like to be treater yourselves!

rant over :)

Back on topic; I only download from torrents in the morning, and it is mostly wrestling related, I see this as LEGAL, as I pay for Sky Sports, but as some may know, some of the shows get aired erarlier in America & Canada, so I grab them earlier so I can get them watched before I have to work, and once they have downloaded, I DO give back to the private community that allowed me to be a member, as I think its only fair!
But on the odd occasion when I download a wrestling torrent after morning, yes it does go slow, even though there are seeders with more than 3MB/s upload speeds (gotta love them other countries ISP's!!) I only get a lowly 300KB/s max, so something is going on there!

AbyssUnderground
15-08-2007, 11:07
Whenever I torrent I never seem to get much over 250KB/s on my 4Mbps connection. When the STM comes into play, I don't get much over 120KB/s, so something is being limited the VM end. Its roughly half the connection speed.

Stuart
15-08-2007, 11:15
Ok. Seeing as certain people have ignored my polite comment, I'll make it a little more serious. The thread topic is whether VM are throttling bittorrent or not. Discussion of the way other members express their opinion of VM is off topic and irrelevant.

Off topic posts will be dealt with appropriately.

xspeedyx
15-08-2007, 11:32
Not that I am aware of try a different torrent client and have you patched your half open connections to 50 that if you have windows xp sp2

brundles
15-08-2007, 13:36
I
My Cable router is WRT54GS running Tomato 1.07 (which is supposed to be a fast firmware).
What type of ADSL modem do you have?

I'm wondering if you could stick the WRT54GS between the cable modem and PC to rule it in or out as the culprit. Depends on what type of mechanism the ADSL modem uses though as to test it properly you'd want the WRT54GS to still act as a gateway so it might not be possible.

stu8975
15-08-2007, 14:19
On the odd occasion when i use torrents i only use reliable sites (2 of them) most others are crap regardless of seeders/leechers on that particular torrent..from the 2 sites i use i normally get 450 - 490 kb/s..im on 4 meg also...best sites ive found use ratio systems..ie hit and run= your banned, this makes sure its got a decent health on the torrent..im using an NTL 250 modem..and you will be throttled during certain times (4pm-12am) if you go over the download limits

Hugh
15-08-2007, 14:21
That is not fair. I get accused in another thread of not helping anybody, and when I do help I get criticised for it. He could be having the problems through Virgin doing trials on his connection like what Alex Brown said they were.

:)

My apologies, Paul, if I have upset you - it's just that my definition of help may differ from yours.

My definition of help would be to suggest basic 1st line fault finding - identify the components in the problem
PC
Software
Cables
Router
ISP

Check each of these, to make sure they are on optimal settings, doing such things as:-
Is it connected by cable or wireless to the router?
If cable, ensure seated properly, or try another cable.
If wireless, are the settings correct?
Is the cable router set up properly (lots of info on CF about Linksys), as in are any default restrictions set up? Such as (imho) here (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/87/33617487-routers-causing-20mb-speed-problems.html)
Has the OP checked the Linksys forums to see if anyone else is having the same problem?
Is the slowdown just on torrents, or is it on other downloads?
Have you optimised the torrent settings for XP2?
Is it still slow if another torrent client is used?
Has this specific issue been reported on any VM discussion groups?

punky
15-08-2007, 14:32
There have been whispers that VM are throttling torrents, but I don't think anyone in the know has said it publicly yet.

You could try enabling encryption which has been known to bypass torrent throttling in the US. Also you could try using port 8080 instead for your torrents.

Paul H
15-08-2007, 14:40
My apologies, Paul,

Apology accepted :)

---------- Post added at 13:40 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------

There have been whispers that VM are throttling torrents, but I don't think anyone in the know has said it publicly yet.

Where did you hear the whispers. in the virgin usenet groups?

punky
15-08-2007, 14:45
Apology accepted :)

---------- Post added at 13:40 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------



Where did you hear the whispers. in the virgin usenet groups?

No. Other forums mainly.

Paul H
15-08-2007, 14:53
No. Other forums mainly.

DS is my favourite. there's some good threads going on in there lately. I need more hours in the day! :shocked:

piggy
15-08-2007, 19:13
if you do a google search you will see that many,many people are up in arms about bittorrent speeds not just on virgin ,bt are getting a pasting also ive just been reading that 40-50% of internet traffic is p2p torrent related imo things can only get worse!!

lordy
15-08-2007, 20:31
A reply to a few different posts :)

re Patching XP: I use Linux, and at one point (whilst experimenting) had 488 connections open :) Although I reduced this back down to a sensible number afterwards.

re Encryption. It didnt seem to make any difference but I will retest on my next popular torrent.

re Putting WRT54G on ADSL, crossed my mind briefly but that introduces double NAT fun. I'd probably try another Cable router/firmware before trying that.

However my initial post I may have underestimated my upload percentage, so I'll re-test under stricter conditions and report back when I get the chance.

lordy
16-08-2007, 00:50
Here I've tried a 'typical' torrent with 4(161) seeds and about 24(1031) peers.
Not a super in demand torrent but fairly new.

I had upload slots per torrent = 5
connections per torrent = 50
Upload rate locked on 25 KB/s

I tried various combinations of Encryption, with/without fallback.

The first half of the graph is my ADSL connection (currently on 2.5Mb profile :( )
The upload speed was maxed out within a few seconds.. Only about 10% of the ADSL graph is missing from a cold start.

The second half of the graph is my Cable connection (trickling along). This is typical of almost every torrent I've started recently.

The purple line is the swarm average, based on connected peers.

Note NNTP downloads are fine. I get full rate on Cable.

I guess I'll try another router, and power cycle my equipment soon, but all indications are the Tomato 1.07 firmware rocks, and I've not seen any reported issues with it.

PS The swarm average is also lower on cable which may suggest its something to do with the quality/quantity of peers I'm reaching. (or of course *may be* throttling.) Hmmm.

PPS In Bromley FWIW

lordy
16-08-2007, 01:32
Just for a fuller picture - here is a very heavily seeded small file 44M ,
about 48(330) seeds and 2(6) leechers .
this time the first blip is Cable and the second is ADSL. This shows time to grab the entire file.

To close to be conclusive in this case, however this shows (I think) that my hardware is OK.

Speculating, it may be peers getting throttled more than seeds? That is, If there is any throttling at all and it's not some other variable causing the discrepancy.

lordy
16-08-2007, 01:49
OK Last one. This was done after 12am (the previous one was bet 10pm and 12am)

This was a 90M file. Again Very well seeded. 44(471) seeds vs 6(246) peers.
Same Connection & upload slot settings as before..

4M Cable is the first blip, 2.5M ADSL is the second. Both show the entire download/upload.
In this one the Cable could have been 'just getting warmed up', but my experience would be a fair bit of yo-yoing. Also look at the upload!

If I was on my 3M profile the ADSL would have been even quicker, but thats the downside of ADSL :(

lordy
16-08-2007, 02:16
Did I say last one? That last graph made me curious?

I grabbed the 90M file again using the Cable connection, but this time I left it to seed..

The upload shoots up to my seeding limit (20KB/s) as soon as the downloading has stopped. I know this isnt the client because on ADSL it's fine.
If I were a betting man, I'd say this looks like upload throttling that kicks in if you are downloading torrents at the same time?

(Ignore the first dip , that was me capping the download rate to see if it affected the upload).

jona_b
16-08-2007, 20:06
nothing wrong here 490kb's on 4mb connection btw try a private tracker u will get your speed trust me oh and about not uploading during downloading all depends on how many peers lots = you will start to max out uplaod speed is seconds even while downlaoding low peers you won't uplaod untill probably finished well thats teh case with me

lordy
16-08-2007, 22:07
Out of interest, Is your upload maxed out on these private torrents whilst downloading?

Although the main point I'm making is that the same public torrents via the same client perform better on my ADSL line than on Cable. I'm not comparing one type of torrent against another. This is why I also tested with well seeded torrents.

ECW_Original
16-08-2007, 22:14
When Im downloading through uTorrent, I have my upload speed at a maximum of 6KB/s untill it finishes, and then I let it upload at full speed (sometimes hitting 124KB/s) and I find this normally gets a pretty decent speed (when VM aint capping download speed)

lordy
16-08-2007, 23:06
Yup. as in my last graph, uploading on its own is not an issue. But my upload is not hitting 25KB/s whilst downloading. If uploads are being throttled it can affect download speed, esp if there are not many seeds.

ECW_Original
17-08-2007, 13:59
If can ONLY affect your download speed in 2 cases:

1) you limit your upload speed to 5KB/s or under and

2) if your uploading at a high speed, your download speed will be affected as it has been started before and EVERYONE should know this, cable was originally meant to be a 1-way path at once, there is NO WAY at all to be uploading at high speeds AND maintaining high download speeds, the higher the upload speed, the lower the download speed will be if uploading at the same time as downloading, when downloading, I have my upload speed set at no more than 6KB/s, which goes fine, and then when it completes and strats seeding, it goes full speed.

lordy
17-08-2007, 15:12
If can ONLY affect your download speed in 2 cases:

1) you limit your upload speed to 5KB/s or under and

2) if your uploading at a high speed, your download speed will be affected as it has been started before and EVERYONE should know this,.

Exaclty. And I was not maxing out either uploads or download as indicated in my graphs. Thats the point I'm trying (and apparently failing ) to make.
Please review the graphs and the settings, I've gone into enough detail not to be covering basics like this, I think.

a) 25KB/s upload limit leaves plenty of room for download ACK packets on a 4M connection.
b) Whilst downloading my upload was not climbing to anywhere near my limit of 25KB/s , however on ADSL it does.
c) Cable connection magically hits my upload limit within seconds of the downloading completing.

I'm not talking about "how to do bit torrent", I'm comparing my ADSL line with my cable line.
ADSL is behaving as I expect. Whilst downloading, Cable (for unknown reason), is throttling my upload even lower than I would like. (You probably dont notice because you have yours low anyway)

Although you set a very low upload whilst downloading, the general advice is to set it at 70-80% upload bandwidth. This makes peers see you has a faster uploader, and in turn they may give you more bandwidth.

The only thing for me to check now is to use the same NIC for both connections.

PS Look again at

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=14552&d=1187221792

Cable is the first half, ADSL the second.

Cable upload appears throttled whilst downloading. ADSL is maxed out. Thats my point.
See how the Cable upload started climbing of its own accord as soon as the torrent finished.

With a higheer upload, whilst downloading, it means that I hit my share ratios faster, and dont have to spend extra time and electricity seeding, but can move on to the next torrent faster.

Uke
17-08-2007, 21:47
Use the DD-WRT Micro firmware for your cable router, it's stable like it's bigger brothers but a lot more cut down so it's faster.

---------- Post added at 20:47 ---------- Previous post was at 20:46 ----------

If can ONLY affect your download speed in 2 cases:

1) you limit your upload speed to 5KB/s or under and

2) if your uploading at a high speed, your download speed will be affected as it has been started before and EVERYONE should know this, cable was originally meant to be a 1-way path at once, there is NO WAY at all to be uploading at high speeds AND maintaining high download speeds, the higher the upload speed, the lower the download speed will be if uploading at the same time as downloading, when downloading, I have my upload speed set at no more than 6KB/s, which goes fine, and then when it completes and strats seeding, it goes full speed.
I've had many occasions when I'm using private trackers of downloading at 1.0-1.1MB/s and uploading at 45KB/s

lordy
17-08-2007, 23:45
I started out with DD-WRT , then OpenWRT then Tomato. By all reports (mostly subjective) Tomato is faster than DD-WRT. My main reason for moving was because of ddWrts reported GPL abuse.

However, I suspect firmware is not the issue, otherwise a LOT of people would be slagging off Tomato publically if it was throttling back torrent upload is shown in my graphs.

I personally find the Tomato interface a lot nicer and more responsive.
As far as upload download speed they are probably much of a muchness.

OpenWrt is powerful, and the package management is nice (also in ddWrt) but the Web Interface is Dog Slow. And it doesnt load WPA stuff by default. I don't want to start having to lean the finer points of my Cable router just to use the thing normally!

So is it only me experiencing "throttled uploads" whilst downloading. Maybe I will take a look at my NIC first!

---------- Post added at 22:38 ---------- Previous post was at 21:24 ----------

False Alarm!

I tried a wireless connection to the router and upload seems fine.
An apology from me. (and begrudgingly to VM)
Something is wrong with my ethernet connection.

Maybe on half-duplex or something, I'll try swapping out cables and ports first though.


Mods you may want to lock this thread if it doesnt die away on its own anyway!

piggy
18-08-2007, 17:29
at least you admitted your mistake thats nice to see ;)

lordy
19-08-2007, 01:13
We all make mistakes ;)

Though from the start I did pose it as a question, and never ruled out the possibility of it being due to something else (in this case some part of my ethernet connection seems suboptimal. It does appear to be on full-duplex. I've tried different firmware, a different port on the router, now I have to try using my laptop, changing cables, drivers for my NIC or the router itself (I have a few more early WRT54GS's in the loft ) until I find the culprit.

lordy
19-08-2007, 04:30
I found the source of the problem. For some reason, that now eludes me, I had set my MTU to 1458 on my ethernet interface. (I might have been trying to optimise my VPN connection or something..) Setting it back to 1500 fixed things right up! The difference is amazing! Not sure what I was thinking when I made that change!

It's interesting that the 1458 MTU didn't noticeably affect speedtests when testing download or upload independently.

No prizes for guessing at which point I corrected my mistake in the attached pic :)

janipewter
19-08-2007, 07:56
Strangely, of everything I do on my VM connection, Bittorrent is the only one I never have problems with.

lordy
19-08-2007, 08:25
1.37G fedora6 iso eh ;)

Begize
19-08-2007, 11:03
One simple thing to do that massively increased the speeds I get on torrents was to change the default ports in my client (and obviously firewall / router).

I just picked some random high port numbers (55555 or something) and all suddenly started to work a lot faster.

I don't know if this implies that VM throttle the default ports but it works for me.

lordy
19-08-2007, 13:15
Hi,
As I mentioned in my first post I was running on a high port. All my torrent set up was fine as far as I can see, it was my MTU setting that was causing the weirdness.
Cheers.

Begize
19-08-2007, 13:33
Hi,
As I mentioned in my first post I was running on a high port. All my torrent set up was fine as far as I can see, it was my MTU setting that was causing the weirdness.
Cheers.

My apologies, you did indeed.