Bittorrent killing my latency

[Gurck]

I've used BT for a long time and had no problems at all with it. Lately though it's FUBARing my latency, it might take 2 seconds... 5, 10, even 20-30 to bring up a web page, etc.. Once it gets going the speed is ok though. At first I figured it was my windows install, and hoped a reinstall (which I'd been planning anyway) would fix things, but then I noticed high latency on a second PC while I had a few torrents going on my main rig. Paused them and the latency on other PC disappeared. A friend who's fairly knowledgeable reports the same thing and says it has something to do with the number of connections... but I've noticed this when running just one or two torrents with only a few seeds/leeches.

Anyone else experiencing this / know what's causing this / have a fix?

Note: I'm using the latest version of Azureus because of its safepeer plugin. While I'm not doing nor do I condone doing anything illegal, I enjoy my privacy and would like to maintain it. If it's my client at fault, is there any way to ensure privacy with other clients? Friend who reports the same phenomenon also is using Azureus.

Update: Thanks for all the helpful suggestions everyone, but it turns out it's my ISP, Optimum Online. Thanks to this thread, I now know I'm being capped to just under 20kB/s upstream. I had tried capping Azureus' upload to 16kB/s, but apparently it didn't leave me enough overhead. Lowering it to to 8kB/s speeds up my http access nicely. I understand their concerns and all and am not asking for unlimited bandwidth, I just wish they'd been honest instead of sneaky and underhanded... but I guess that's what you get from cable companies :frown:

 

[n7]

You need to lower your max upload/download speed.

If your torrents are allowed to run without limits, your available bandwidth will become completely saturated, & yeah...loading anything web-based starts to take forever (believe me, i know, since i run torrents 24/7)

Usually the best easiest way to determine your max u/d bandwidth is to let a bunch of torrents run wild & observe what you're maxing out at.
Then set Azureus's max u/d speeds to about 90% of that, or maybe 80% is you want to be really safe.

If you have already done this & are still having issues, try lowering the number of maximum connections per torrent.

Good luck

 

[Crusty]

Are you maxing out your upstream bandwidth by chance? If you are, then your computer will have a hard time telling whatever server you are connected to that it received the last packet okay and to send more. My upstream bandwidth is 384kbps, and I limit my uploads to no more then 300kbps. By doing this, I never have latency issues due to torrents this way.

 

[Gurck]

No, I'm familiar with that aspect of connectivity and so limit Azureus to well under my upload cap.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: n7

If you have already done this & are still having issues, try lowering the number of maximum connections per torrent.

And, also make sure you aren't maxing out your download too...

 

[Gurck]

Limiting my connections does nothing; like I said, this will occur if I have just one or two torrents running with a total of under 10 connections. I'm not hitting my bandwidth limits up or down; I have a 10/1 mbit cable connection and it would be pretty hard to do that if I didn't cap my speeds in Azureus

 

[luigi1]

I'm a new user to azureus as in 3 days or so. I have a good broadband isp 6md/600kup and I notice this. But turning azureus off is very easy.

 

[n7]

Well, as i just posted in another thread about BT, it may be your ISP.

They have the capability to throttle just torrent traffic if they want & allow all other traffic to run perfectly...i know, since one of the big ISPs where i am does that :|
I had to switch ISPs because i couldn't download or upload anything BT-related with any speed worth a sh!t.
The sick thing is i could download a file from any http:// site @ 800 KB/sec, but as soon as i fired up the blue froggy...my downloads (& uploads) would hit a magical max of 30 KB/sec, & my internet slowed to a crawl simultaneously.
It still enrages me, but there's nothing we can really do.

 

[Gurck]

Well, I'm able to get good torrent speeds... I just got the latest version of Knoppix at about 900kB/s via Azureus. I also get good http speeds - it's just my latency which sucks. ie. it might take 15 seconds to start loading a web page while torrents are running - but once it starts, it comes in quickly enough. Same with files via http. I don't think my ISP is to blame; I was using BT no problem with them up until about a month ago or so. Finally posted when I realized that it wasn't my PC to blame (you know how crappy windows installs get after a while; I'm at that point and the logical assumption was to blame M$ ).

 

[n7]

Yeah, seems a bit hard to pinpoint in your case.

One other thing you've likely already done, but if not:
Don't use the standard ports. Set the port Azureus uses to something between 50,000-65,000.

 

[Velk]

Are you sure it's latency ? Have you tried using ICMP commands like traceroute or ping ?

The reason I ask is that azureus and it's java2 platform are horrific cpu and IO hogs, so it may be the delay you are experiencing isn't actually network related but cpu or IO related in the programs you are using. Ping and traceroute have a low enough overhead that they should be unaffected.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Velk

Are you sure it's latency ? Have you tried using ICMP commands like traceroute or ping ?

The reason I ask is that azureus and it's java2 platform are horrific cpu and IO hogs, so it may be the delay you are experiencing isn't actually network related but cpu or IO related in the programs you are using. Ping and traceroute have a low enough overhead that they should be unaffected.

Nope, I get the same latency on a second PC on the network when running torrent(s) on the first, and it goes away when I pause the torrent(s). A google search showed me some... "unflattering" words on my router, perhaps it sucks and is to blame... it's a D-Link DI-524, latest firmware.

 

[lmaro]

BitTorrent opens up hundreds of keep-alive connections with other peers. Just turn your client off when gaming and get used to the few seconds delay on web pages (that's the price you pay for piracy

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: lmaro
BitTorrent opens up hundreds of keep-alive connections with other peers. Just turn your client off when gaming and get used to the few seconds delay on web pages (that's the price you pay for piracy

It never used to do this to me, only started in the past month or so. And it does this even with just a few connections going on a single torrent. And as I stated, I'm doing / condoning doing nothing illegal. I even gave an example of something legal (Knoppix, a cd-bootable linux distro) I downloaded.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

I've got a 4000\384 cable line. (500KB/s | 48KB/s)

I just cap the upload at 40KB/s and everything is just peachy for internet browsing.

I cap it at 30-35KB/s for gaming

 

[Gurck]

Well, I was just reminded of another problem... trying to send a friend a file, I was limited to 20kB/s from my second PC (I get this with both Apache and through an IM client). When getting this on my first PC, I sort of ignored it, figuring it too would be fixed by a reinstall. This is independant of whether torrents are running or my main rig is even on. I'm starting to think it's my router... so I may drop ~$10 on a cheap wired one for testing purposes. I should have ~125 kB/s up btw; used to get this much to friends and it's my rated speed. If that's not it, then Optimum Online is throttling me

 

[n7]

Damn, one of my guesses was correct!

ISPs are becoming so crappy lately with shady practises etc...