Speed up your torrents

Written by Ernesto on November 30, 2005 

Help! BitTorrent is slow… This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions I get about BitTorrent. Unfortunately there’s not some kind of magic trick that makes your torrents go through the roof. But you could take some simple steps to optimize your speeds.

1. Cap your upload (most important)

Limit your upload speed to approximately 80 percent of your maximum upload rate. You can check your upload speed over here (never trust your isp). Once you know your maximum upload speed, change the max upload (to 80%) speed in your torrent client’s preferences.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone should share as much as possible, but if your upload rate reached it’s max, your download rate suffers significantly.

2. Hack the max TCP connections

If you’re on XP sp2, your TCP connections are limited to a maximum of 10. This seriously hurts your downloading speed because it wont let you connect to a high amount of ip numbers. It is supposed to slow down viruses because their spreading strategy is to connect to a high amount of ip numbers, but it also cripples your torrent downloads.
A nice way to fix this is to download this patch, it allows you to set the maximum allowed connections to any number you want. Any number between 50 and 100 is ok (more on this).

3. Check seeds and peers

A simple tip, but o so important. Always look for torrents with the best seed/peer ratio. The more seeds (compared to peers) the better (in general). So 50 seeds and 50 peers is better than 500 seeds and 1000 peers. So, be selective.

4. Change the default port.

By default, BitTorrent uses a port 6881-6999. BitTorrent accounts for a lot of the total internet traffic (1/3), so isp’s like to limit the connection offered on the these ports. So, you should change these to another range. Good clients allow you to do this, just choose anything you like. If you’re behind a router, make sure you have the ports forwarded or UPnP enabled.

5. Disable Windows Firewall

It sucks. Windows Firewall hates P2P and often leads a life of it’s own. So disable it and get yourself a decent firewall, Kerio or Zone Alarm for example.

Last but not least… Buy a faster connection…

Read more on optimizing your BitTorrent Speed.

  • Optimize Your BitTorrent Download Speed
  • How to Solve Slow BitTorrent Downloads

    • Here’s a list of 20 BitTorrent tips and tricks.

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    239 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)

    Pages: « 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 » Show All

    26 Dec 26, 2005 at 15:05 by marc

    is there any tweaks i can download to help my torrent speed

    27 Dec 27, 2005 at 13:53 by owned

    Oh it is. Just use the google: BitComet speed guides, Azureus speed guides etc. :D

    28 Jan 01, 2006 at 15:11 by kiro

    how do i change to the another range port? It’s in OS port or torrent software port?

    (Refer : 4. Change the default port.)

    29 Jan 01, 2006 at 15:58 by Ernesto

    you should change the port in your torrent software

    30 Jan 02, 2006 at 00:54 by IguanaNed

    Your ISP may be throttling your BitTorrent

    Here is a mep of other users which are experiencing Torrent Throttling by their ISP’s

    http://www.frappr.com/broadbandusersagainstbittorrentthrottle

    Try changing your Clients port to 1720

    http://digg.com/users/iguananed

    31 Jan 02, 2006 at 03:21 by Evan

    Your link to the patch listed in Hack the max TCP connections (this patch), is broken. Is there another place or way I can get this patch?

    32 Jan 02, 2006 at 15:46 by jez

    Indeed. If you can’t find a new link could you at least give us the name of the file so we might be able to look for it ourselves.

    33 Jan 02, 2006 at 16:34 by Ernesto

    here ya go

    http://torrentfreak.com/evid4226patch223d-enzip/

    original site is back up btw

    http://lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads

    34 Jan 07, 2006 at 18:15 by bantoni

    Ya’ll may wanna try speeding up your connections as well. Best place to do it is at http://www.cablenut.com
    Install the program and the Update, a great freebie

    35 Jan 07, 2006 at 18:21 by Kimi

    Hey, thanks mate for your help, can u suggest a way to hide the ip when using p2p..

    36 Jan 07, 2006 at 20:51 by Ernesto

    hiding your ip is nearly impossible. You can block the bad guys though

    http://torrentfreak.com/keep-the-bad-guys-out/

    37 Jan 15, 2006 at 00:33 by Johnboy8078

    Thanks for the helpful tips above I have done everything and still dont get any improvments. can you suggest anything else…
    My ISP is tiscali… in the uk… i have an unlimided dsl line.. never exceed the speen fo 23kbs.. its not good. I hear of people getting half a meg.. what am i do wrong.. or what am i not doing???

    Thanks.. I lookforward to hearing for you …

    38 Jan 15, 2006 at 00:35 by Johnboy8078

    Sorry hear is my URL link…..

    39 Jan 16, 2006 at 20:11 by Skidmarkdundies

    I have the same prob, I’m on BT in the Uk and can reach up to 150 on limewire but when it come to bitcomet my download speeds are as low as 6kbs but uploads hit 50/60kbs. Any one help? I’ve tried all of the above, some of which made things worse!!!
    cheers

    40 Jan 16, 2006 at 20:15 by Skidmarkdundies

    Oh, i’m on a wireless net work does this affect the speeds? None of the other computers were in use when the above speeds were recorded! I’ve been downloading SWAT 4 for 17h33min and counting……HELP ME PLEASE!!!!

    41 Jan 17, 2006 at 22:30 by lalaman

    hmmm i’ve tried patching the lvllord.de patch but the max half-open connections continues to go bACK to 10….this is very frustrating…thanks for the help

    42 Jan 20, 2006 at 06:48 by jupe

    Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro is far superior to anything else i’ve tried and that includes Zone Alarm, Sygate and NIS, its highly customisable and it has plug-ins which you can disable if you don’t need them so as to use less resources.

    43 Jan 20, 2006 at 15:56 by Hassan

    I have 877 kb/s in download speed and 118 upload speed, I checked that out in one of the speedcheckers websites, but when I’m downloading in utorrent, can’t go pass 2 kB/s which is absolutely absurd, can anyone help me? I don’t have firewall, chose right port… anythin else?

    44 Jan 20, 2006 at 21:10 by Ernesto

    hassan.. who’s your isp?

    45 Jan 21, 2006 at 18:15 by JohnJ

    Good information here folks…

    46 Jan 22, 2006 at 14:38 by Chris

    Everytime i download torrents using Azureus my pc does not shut down it sticks on “saving your settings” anyone know about this problem??

    47 Jan 22, 2006 at 16:49 by Mr. Flatulence

    This seems a common problem. I use charter. I can get HTTP downloads around 3mb…but Bittorrent and Azureus are down to around 3kb. This is even after changing ports and handling port forwarding and enabling a ping on my router.

    I feel your pain!

    48 Jan 24, 2006 at 13:40 by andre

    please could somebody explained
    if it is possible and how bittorrent
    can run from a linux box (i am superuser in this) which is in a windows network and
    sits behind a firewall over which I have no administrative privilege?
    I can ssh from my linux box and I can surf the web.
    Bittorrent says NAT error when trying to verify connection via the 68** ports.

    I tried to set ports 22 (ssh) or 80 but to no avail.

    any solution?

    49 Feb 02, 2006 at 15:44 by BungleX

    andre - Sorry i dont know anyway u can run it without admin access. U need to open your ports in NAT’ed router

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