Slow Internet Speed Problem

Need help!

My info:

ISP: Comcast
Download Speed: 8mbps (1000 kb/s max)
Upload Speed: 768kbps (96 kb/s max)
Router: LinkSys WRT54G [with newest firmware update]

Currently one torrent going at a decent 100 kb/s and 30 kb/s upload. When the torrent stays on for many hours and eventually I am connected to more "peers", my internet surfing speed drops down bad. Horrible speed to surf. The immediate cure is to kill the torrent. When the torrent is dead I can surf again at regular speed. How can one torrent only going at 100 (when im capable of 1000) ruin my internet surfing horribly? I told the router to only open ports 6881 to 6999 for torrents.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

High upload kills your download with most connections. Surfing will suffer too. Try capping upload to ~70 or something and try again.

Some torrent programs may eat ram when they're alone for a while.. but that's another thing.

EDIT: You could try limiting max connections too, of course..

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I have no idea if yours is one of the LinkSys routers with this problem, but certain models of linksys routers keep a log of connections or something similar like that for up to five days. Do of course a torrent open, making hundreds of connections, will undoubtedly clog up the router. There's a fix somewhere. Sorry I can't link you, I have no idea where I found out about all this, but you should find it after a little searching =).

How ya doing, buddy?

I suppose the fix would be to disable logging.

If you open a web browser and input the IP address for your router into the address bar {by default on linksys it should be 192.168.1.1 but if this doesn't work, go Start > Run > "cmd" {without the quotes} > then when the command prompt comes up, type "ipconfig" without the quotes and your router's IP address will be what is shown in the default gateway field}. When you get to the router's webpage, click the Administrator tab. Then click the Log tab. Then select Disable and click Save Changes. Logging is disabled. I think it is disabled by default though.

I think that your problem is that your upload is killing your speed.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Honestly though, we are paying for more speed (96 kb/s total upload) and it gets like that when I cap my torrent at 20 or 30. I'll try your ideas now; thanks!

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Borg1982

Honestly though, we are paying for more speed (96 kb/s total upload) and it gets like that when I cap my torrent at 20 or 30.

If you're using a torrent client that allows you to change the port which it uses--I'm not sure if the mainline client will--you might want to change it to another port; there have been some cases in which ISPs cap the speed on those ports which could slow your internet connection down. (There's a chance, anyway.)
Also, it could be the sheer number of connections being made; see if you can limit your torrent client to 100 or so connections. (That's about all that should be needed anyway.)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?