Who here knows about BitTorrent?

[brentspeak]

I finally got DSL. So now I am able to -- or am supposed to be able to -- download bittorrents. Only thing is, after one succesful attempt at DLing a large file, no downloads seem to work properly.

Some of my downloads will start at something like 25 KB/sec, then the upload speed with surpass that, and eventually I'll be stuck with like 50% of file as DL speed is 2 KB/sec and UL speed is 50 KB/sec.

How are people able to download these large gigabyte files in the first place? Or, more simply: What am I doing wrong?



:banghead: :argh: :dunce:

[tjdee]

1. I've found it takes longer than you think it will--because of seeds,etc.

You're focusing on up/down speeds on your end, which may be a factor, but it took me a very, *very* long time to download something--and I have a cable connection.

BitTorrent, if I'm thinking correctly, depends on seeds/leeches (or peers). Seeds are the people who have the file and are giving it to the leeches (you, LOL). If no one is, or just a few people are seeding, it will take longer because so many people are trying to download from so few sources. I once tried to download something that had 1 seed and over 1000 leechers. Forgot about it. I've also seen people have problems where they are stuck at 50% (or the more annoying 98%) for that reason I think.

If you've got a good number of seeders, you should be okay. But it still takes a looonnnnnnngggggg timmmme. A friend of mine downloads movies and she'll wait for like 2/3/4 days for it to finish.

[DS1]

3. Yep, sometimes the wait can be maddeningly long, without

any sort of progress bar to indicate where you are in line - and some never show up at all - but when they do it's all good :-)

[ghostsofgiants]

4. Depends on your connection and the seeders, as well as the tracker

For example I downloaded a 700mb movie in 45 minutes before. Right now, I'm downloading the first season of lost (for a second time) and it hasn't gone over 15kb/sec despite approx. 400 seeders. So it can be a guessing game sometimes.

[ghostsofgiants]

2. What client are you using?

You'll want to set it to operate on certain ports, especially if you're behind any kind of a firewall.

http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/25.html

Most clients you can set which port(s) you want it to use.

[brentspeak]

5. I'm using ABC

Before that, I tried just plain ol' Bittorrent (the original).

Under my Windows XP firewall, I clicked "allow" for ABC, though I have no idea which ports to manipulate and how to do so.

(Thanks for the link. I'll read that, and see if it will help).

[ghostsofgiants]

6. I know you can designate the ports in ABC

Though I haven't used it in a while, so I forget how, haha.