Slower torrent speeds on Vista?

[Unfocused]

I noticed that my torrent speeds seem to be generally lower after I switched my previous PC with Windows XP for another one with Windows Vista. I thought maybe it's temporary, so I gave it some time, but now, a few weeks later, I'm still experiencing issues.

On Windows XP, the download speed of torrents would generally reach over 100kB/s (~124kB/s being my maximum) quickly. We're talking about popular torrents here.

On Windows Vista I get good speeds only on torrents such as those of official patches for games/mods, but torrents on sites made specifically to host them, such as demonoid, are often slow (like 30-40kB/s) and fluctuate (they may go up to 100kB/s, but quickly drop to 20kB/s). Again, talking about popular torrents.

I have the same settings in utorrent on Vista, as I used on Windows XP. The port I'm using is forwarded correctly.

Googling the issue brings up topic from a few years ago and from what I understand quite a lot has changed with all the updates for Vista (such as the limit for half-open connections is higher etc.)

Any ideas why this is happening?

 

[DreamThrall]

Are you limiting your upstream at all? I always noticed that if you drop your upstream below 10 KB/s it seems to limit your downstream. I think trackers can limit you based on your ratio too. I haven't had any problems with uTorrent on Vista... I've been able to saturate my upstream (~1MB/s) and I've seen 1MB/s+ downstream when a torrent had enough peers to support it.

 

[swan_song1973]

i think its slow everything on vista.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

I can't say i've noticed any difference in speed on Utorrent on vista. XP has the same limitation on connections as Vista.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Works perfectly fine for me the majority of the time, usually with better speeds, in fact.

 

[Laivasse]

I would use those faster sites as your yardstick. If you are getting maximum speeds anywhere else, then it is the slow torrents from Demonoid, etc. that are the problem. The fact that a torrent came from Demonoid is no indication that you'll get good speeds from it. Using Vista myself, I get impeccable speeds from, say, UKnova, but I never expect the same kind of speeds from Demonoid since it's full of slower seeders, choked torrents, users who configure their clients badly, etc...

 

[Unfocused]

Are you limiting your upstream at all? I always noticed that if you drop your upstream below 10 KB/s it seems to limit your downstream. I think trackers can limit you based on your ratio too. I haven't had any problems with uTorrent on Vista... I've been able to saturate my upstream (~1MB/s) and I've seen 1MB/s+ downstream when a torrent had enough peers to support it.

I do limit my upstream to 10kB/s as I once found out it gave me the best results. I could probably have it higher now (as I set it to this when I had a slower connection), but on XP I was getting max speeds with it set to this, so I don't see why it would vary on Vista.

I would use those faster sites as your yardstick. If you are getting maximum speeds anywhere else, then it is the slow torrents from Demonoid, etc. that are the problem. The fact that a torrent came from Demonoid is no indication that you'll get good speeds from it. Using Vista myself, I get impeccable speeds from, say, UKnova, but I never expect the same kind of speeds from Demonoid since it's full of slower seeders, choked torrents, users who configure their clients badly, etc...

Actually, I made a mistake by saying Demonoid, since I hadn't used it when I was on XP. But torrents from Piratebay and Mininova, which I used on both PC's are slower generally and/or accelerate slower.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

Public torrents especially those from Pirate Bay and Mininova which use the same trackers are a poor way to judge speed. Public torrents are usually slow because to many people hit and run or are simply to congested.. Use a private tracker and see if you get better results. When i use Pirate Bay i get the same problem as you, and Utorrent can show what speed your peers are downloading at and hey have the same problem.

 

[Laivasse]

I likewise get unreliable/poor speeds when I use places like Piratebay. If anything I would expect speeds to be even lower than Demonoid, which I suppose is technically a private tracker except that it's still used by millions of people. If you have a UKnova account, try downloading a show from their first few pages - if you don't max out your download within a few minutes, then that would be a much firmer indication that you have a problem.

You might just have a small case of rose-tinted specs while thinking about torrenting in the past... If you are genuinely getting worse speeds, then I would suggest that it might just be bad luck - or alternatively, you had some good luck on certain public torrents before you switched OS.

 

[G(ordon)-man]

I am fine on Vista with utorrent.


YOU HEAR ME? FINE WITH VISTA.

 

[TheValveNinja]

I use both uTorrent and The Pirate Bay for downloading torrents on vista and on average I get up to 115kb/s.

 

[Laivasse]

...on average I get up to 115kb/s.

That is confusing. 115kb/s is your average, or your maximum, or your average maximum...?

Anyways, I'm downloading LINUX DISTROS OLOL right now, via a torrent from Demonoid with about 250 seeders and 260 leechers. I'm getting 120kb/s, down to 70kb/s, chugging along at 40kb/s for a while, back up, and down again... it's all over the place, and that's pretty standard in my experience. In fact this is about as good as I feel I can expect.

That isn't really any use without a comparison to performance on XP, but although I suppose I could fire up my dusty old desktop machine and run a comparison, I'm reasonably assured that there will be no difference. If I can get a solid 250+kb/s on torrents from UKnova then IMO the problem is with the huge numbers of people swamping the demonoid and piratebay trackers.

 

[DreamThrall]

Everyone, please note the difference between kB/s and kb/s... 8 kb/s = 1kB/s.

 

[Laivasse]

Just assume I meant kilobytes, can't be arsed capitalising that stupid B.

 

[powell]

thats why I torrent on my ubuntu
==
over 9000 mbs