download speed issues past couple days

[grangerjw]

1) What version of BitComet are you using?

1.36

2) What type of Internet connection do you have (ADSL, etc.)?

20mb down/2mb up cable internet from twc

3) Do you have a modem? Do you use a router? What make and model are each one of them? Have you forwarded your port?

linksys wrt120n wireless, ports are forwarded, WAN is green

5) What version of Windows, Firewall and Antivirus do you use? Is your Windows 32 bit or 64 bit?

win7 home premium 64bit sp1

avg 2013 business edition

ive done speed tests at both speedtest.net and using the twc site and both come out at an average of between 18mb-20mb download and 2 mb upload

llas for my issue, its come up the past few days where i cannot get any torrent speeds over 500ish kb/s. it could be for a single torrent that can get up to 500, if i turn it off and start another it might get up to 500 as well, but i run them both together or add a few more,the total of all of them stays around 500kb/sec. this is well short of the 2000kb/sec average im used to.

ive tried reinstalling bitcomet, ive tried using utorrent (hate it), new drivers , wired/wireless connections...nothing seems to get the speed back up. if i go and direct download something i get 2000-2500kb/s speeds consistant with what im used to. now granted twc is a crap company and im always having issues, like having to restart cable modem, its just weird that bitcomet seems to be throttled at around 500-600kb/sec while everything else tells me connections are fine. its not related to specific torrents either ive tried with many files of all different sizes and seeders/peer amounts.

im at a loss of what to do or try next.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Just to be clear, you are seeing this issue with all bittorrent clients?

Also for the sake of clarity please be sure you understand the difference between "b" (bits) and "B" (Bytes) and use the terms correctly. Your ISP measures in bits but bittorrent protocol measures in Bytes. 8b=1B so the numbers can get confused if they aren't represented properly.

In general with bittorrent downloading your speed will reflect your ability to upload and with your maximum advertised upload speed being 2000kb/s or 250kB/s (measured in Bytes), you would expect to see download speeds closer to this limit than your max download speed which is advertised at 20,000kb/s or 2,500kB/s, so your observed speed of 500kB/s sounds about right, however in cases of torrents that are exceptionally well seeded, both in number of seeders as well as the speed of such seeders you would expect to see some tasks download much faster, but the average torrent is seeded by users just like yourself that have limited upload that is often spread across many tasks, often more than should be run concurrently. I'd suggest (as a test) that you try downloading a torrent for one of the more popular Linux distributions, they are usually seeded by high speed servers and should get you max speed. Try ubuntu.com and get the latest stable version. You can try it for just a couple mins and see if your speed appears to be throttled, if so, then you may have an ISP that is throttling your bittorrent connections. This can sometimes be helped by using protocol encryption, but that can have drawbacks too and to be honest, the speed of 500kB/s is pretty good by most standards and an unattainably high speed for many users.

[grangerjw]

yes i understand the differences between bits and Bytes, even if the exact math isnt correct. my problem isnt in the exact math but rather in my overall download speeds are about 25% of what they normally are...but just with torrent downloads. its a strange problem though and i dont think im accurately conveying my issues.

you see all my speed tests come back normal and speeds are fine. direct downloads are also fine, no speed issues there. it seems to be a problem related only to torrent downloads. admittedly i only use bitcomet, because it was the first i tried and just got used to its layout and features, and trying a new downloader is just confusing and frustrating to find what and where each button does.

so heres an example of my problem:

torrent A downloading all by itself, gets up to an average speed of 500 kB/s, with a +/- of 100kB/s or so

torrent B downloading all by itself, gets up to an average speed of 400kB/s, +/- 100kB/s or so

torrent C downloading all by iteself, gets 300kB/s and so on

previously what would happen is if things were running correctly, if i ran all 3 torrents at the same time, they would just download as if by themselves for a total average download at the sum of all 3, so itd be 500+400+300kB/s and things would go fine, even if the speeds arent capped i understand it comes down to the actual seeds.

what im experiencing currently is if i run all 3 at the same time, they seem to all share a 500kb/s invisible limit. so instead of it being 500+400+300, its more like 500 divided by # torrents open. so if its 3 theyd average 150 ish, but if i cancel them out and run 1 again its back up to 500.

i understand that seeds and whatnot factor into alot of these processes, but it really doesnt matter what torrent it is, or seeds amounts. its fairly consistant across the board, where it seems as though im sharing a limit, like its throttled somehow.

yeah i know 500/s is better than some but its 25% of what im used to. im used to combined download speeds of closer to 2000/s (dependant on seeds of course) not them sharing an artificial cap. its just very strange because it happens sometimes, but not all the time, but the past 4 days its been constant. usually the way i fix it has just been to unplug by router and modem and power cycle them and speeds get fixed and its back to normal. that hasnt been working these past few days though.

Edited December 21, 2013 by grangerjw (see edit history)