Bittorrent slow!

Hello,

I have a new intel core duo macbook that I use wirelessly about 20 feet away from my airport/cable modem.

Whenever I try to download a torrent via bittorrent, it's really slow, say around 5-20 kbps tops.

Is there any way to speed this up? I tested my speed wirelessly at speakeasy.net and here are the results:

Download Speed: 7178 kbps (897.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 467 kbps (58.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

stlboi said:

Hello,

I have a new intel core duo macbook that I use wirelessly about 20 feet away from my airport/cable modem.

Whenever I try to download a torrent via bittorrent, it's really slow, say around 5-20 kbps tops.

Is there any way to speed this up? I tested my speed wirelessly at speakeasy.net and here are the results:

Download Speed: 7178 kbps (897.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 467 kbps (58.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

Click to expand...

Bittorrent is a give and take system. The more you give, the more you can take. If you're not sharing anything from your system and/or you don't have anything to share, you will not be given bandwidth in return.

See this thread for more detail.

Hmm, is there one that's not so based on give and take for the mac?

cwa107 said:

Bittorrent is a give and take system. The more you give, the more you can take. If you're not sharing anything from your system and/or you don't have anything to share, you will not be given bandwidth in return.

See this thread for more detail.

Click to expand...

That's pretty much it. I can speak from personal experience that once you've started sharing or seeding the torrent, the download rate will increase.

stlboi said:

Hmm, is there one that's not so based on give and take for the mac?

Click to expand...

The Bittorrent protocol is designed around keeping people from being "leeches". It doesn't matter what client you use, as long as you're downloading from the Bittorrent network, you must give in order to take. This protection is inherent to the protocol.

You could try your luck with a Gnutella client or Usenet, but it really depends on what you're trying to download and how much patience you have in finding it.

Now when I take my macbook off the wireless airport network and connect it to the hardline, the downloading speed increases a lot, even with the same file.

I would basically start downloading the file wirelessly and it's slow. I disconnect the airport and connect the hard line. I restart the download and the speed increases almost 20 fold.

BTW, I really appreciate all the help. And the muppet pic is really freaking me out.

stlboi said:

Now when I take my macbook off the wireless airport network and connect it to the hardline, the downloading speed increases a lot, even with the same file.

I would basically start downloading the file wirelessly and it's slow. I disconnect the airport and connect the hard line. I restart the download and the speed increases almost 20 fold.

Click to expand...

Do you experience slow downloads from other services besides Bittorrent? I can't understand what the difference would be. The average broadband connection is generally between 1-10Mb. Even the slowest wireless network (802.11b) is around 11Mb. So generally, your wireless bandwidth is greater than the maximum throughput from the internet. Even though you usually have 100Mb via Ethernet, you're still only as fast as your weakest link, which would be the speed of your Internet service.

So, unless you're experiencing very slow performance in general over wireless, I can't understand why is would be significantly faster over Ethernet - unless it's some sort of a fluke.

BTW, the avatar is me playing with my iSight camera and my 2-year-old's Cookie Monster puppet.

Wirelessly, I have no problems on the internet at all besides downloading a torrent. Limewire, for instance, is completely fine. :-/

stlboi said:

Wirelessly, I have no problems on the internet at all besides downloading a torrent. Limewire, for instance, is completely fine. :-/

Click to expand...

My only guess would be that your router has port-forwarding or uPnP turned on to allow sharing from the address your Ethernet card acquires when it's connected.

Other than that possibility, I'm just not sure what the difference would be.

In my case, is my airport considered my router?

EDIT: Basically my setup is cable modem > airport > macbook (wirelessly)

stlboi said:

In my case, is my airport considered my router?

EDIT: Basically my setup is cable modem > airport > macbook (wirelessly)

Click to expand...

Yep, Apple uses the term "Airport" to refer to a number of different devices, including the wireless card in your Mac. In this case, what you're referring to as your "airport" is your wireless router.

Okay, we're probably getting closer here but I still need a couple of things clarified, as I am kinda new to this. What settings should I fool around with in my airport admin utility? I have discovered a section dealing with "port mapping" that is completely empty. There are also tabs like Airport, Internet, Network, Port Mapping, Access Control, WDS, Music. <pulls hair out>

stlboi said:

Okay, we're probably getting closer here but I still need a couple of things clarified, as I am kinda new to this. What settings should I fool around with in my airport admin utility? I have discovered a section dealing with "port mapping" that is completely empty. There are also tabs like Airport, Internet, Network, Port Mapping, Access Control, WDS, Music. <pulls hair out>

Click to expand...

I'm not terribly familiar with the Apple router / wireless nomenclature , I'll have to defer to someone else's expertise. I posted a link earlier that had several other links to different Bittorrent configuration guides. These should be able to get you started.

I will take a look, thank you!

Okay, I completed this:

http://www.blueskyis.com/bittorrent/airportforwarding.php

And it still didn't increase in speed. Anyone with an airport please help me!

Thank you.

Okay, I did this:

http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Apple/AirPortExtreame/BitTorrent.htm

And it worked for me. I am now downloading faster. Went up to 200 kbps. Thanks for the guidance!