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Transmission problems...

6

6mt15

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 26, 2007
44
0
Kingston
I've been running transmission for my torrent needs for a while now, and have been quite pleased with how lightweight it seems, unlike Azureus which i used to use.
Recently though, when I have had transmission open, my internet has slowed to a snails pace. Some times it works, and I can be downloading at almost 1000kb/s from 50 users, with no slow down, but other times I will only have 10-20kb/s from 10 users, and I can't even load google.
I'm not too familiar with port forwarding and the likes, so I have really just left the preferences the same other than increasing the max number of connected peers, which I don't think is the problem, because I am usually in my schools library, which should have more than enough power to handle lots of connections. By default it uses port 5555 and automatically maps ports, and says that it is in stealth mode, whatever that means.
If someone could clue me in to why it would periodically affect my web browsing, that would be great, and even better, if someone could tell me how to get that port open as opposed to stealth mode, I would also appreciate it. I have an Airport Express 802.11g router at home. Thanks!!
 
You should also check and probably limit the upload rate.. This will speed up the rest.

(I'm a girl :p)
 
Check you upload speeds. Do not let them stay at unlimited. I had this same problem before. A good rule of thumb is to set download and upload speeds at 80% of your total bandwidth. Also you should google opening ports on you home router, that will most certainly help

EDIT: she beat me to it :)
 
I'll try limiting uploads, although generally they stay around the same rate as my downloads, so I'm not sure how much good it will do. Thanks for your help guys and gals:p!!
 
BTW generally your upload bandwidth is much much lower than your download bandwidth, so if they stay at similar speeds, you know you have an issue
 
Yeah. Stop down all your torrents and other Internet activity and run a Speakeasy speed test on your connection. The result for your upstream will be in kilobits per second. Divide that by 8 to get your approximate max upstream in kilobytes, then take about 80% of that and set that as your maximum upload in Transmission.
 
Lord Zedd said:
Set downloads to unlimited and uploads to no more than 8KB/s.
Click to expand...

That's bad advice, unless your upstream speed is only 10 - 12KB/s. The health of any BitTorrent network depends on the willingness of its users to reciprocate their downloading activity by uploading to other users. You should always try to use as much of your bandwidth as you can spare without significantly slowing down your other activity.

EDIT: I'm glad I only use private trackers, where needing to maintain a minimum ratio prevents douchebaggery of that sort. :p
 
i just ran the speed test, and worked out that 80% of my upstream is 1204KB/s, which is way higher thant I have ever reached...so how would that be effecting my total bandwidth usage?
 
6mt15 said:
i just ran the speed test, and worked out that 80% of my upstream is 1204KB/s, which is way higher thant I have ever reached...so how would that be effecting my total bandwidth usage?
Click to expand...

Divide that by 8 because it is in kiloBITS not kiloBYTES, then take 80% of that, which would be 120ish. BTW what internet are you using? Thats a sweet upload speed

EDIT: oops, you already did 80%, so just divide by 8
 
You probably mean 1204Kb/s which is 150KB/s.

Upload activity hurts your web browsing because your computer is trying to make too many up connections at once. Most home broadband providers are heavily biased towards download speeds over upload.
 
no, i'm pretty sure 1204KB/s is right, i'm using the upload speed result from Speakeasy, which gives me 12000+kb/s. I'm in my university library, which in my experience has legendary bandwidth! which is why its troubling me that I'm being so limited with my usage...
 
Ah university. Yes, they probably employ traffic shaping, which scans your outgoing packets to see what sort they are, and if they're P2P related it will de-prioritize them, slowing down your overall activity. This is to prevent applications that will gladly suck up all the bandwidth available from doing so. The only way you'll get decent speeds is on torrents that have a significant number of other users whose clients support traffic encryption. Encryption often prevents traffic shaping (or helps reduce its effects) by obscuring the type of traffic.
 
That makes a lot of sense, and also explains why on some torrents I can dowload almost 1000KB/s from one user, and get absolutely nothing from a torrent with 50 users. Thanks for all your help!!
 
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