Is there a way to speed up torrent downloads when using dial-up?

Question

First off, don't say get a faster connection. Not an option where I live. I've resigned myself to the fact that it will take 3-6 days to download a 350MB file. I'm cool with that. But I was wondering if someone could explain the whole connection speeds and such to me. I want to optimize my settings so that I *can* get that lovely 5kbs DL speed. I've been using Azureus, but am going to try uTorrent now. Testing shows my upload speed to be 27 kb/s and DL speed at 42 kb/s. If you can help me, please either answer here, or email me directly ([e-mail]). Any help will be much appreciated!!!

Answer 1

56k is a theoritical maximum that is nearly never attained, there are just too many things that affect your speed. The easiest explanation of the internet that I could find is here: http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm/printable
Here is a nice internet speedometer: http://us.mcafee.com/root/speedometer/default.asp , if you run it, after it measures your speed, it explains some of the things that can slow it down. This site measures the speed the internet is running at in different locations throughout the world: http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

When you use utorrent, try to find files with many trackers. more trackers is more people to download from. i find http://www.isohunt.com has the most trackers, so every torrent i get, i search and see if they have a copy there. dial-up is a pain. I use utorrent also, if you press CTRL+G, you will get a speed guide page that let's you test your connection and change settings to maximize your settings. I'd try this tool: http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp or the tcp optimizer: http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php and get recommended settings for those tools here: http://www.speedguide.net/analyzer.php If you have win XP, it is made slower as a safety measure to prevent rapidly spreading worms, but there is a tweak for that which changes some limits in tcpip.sys here: http://www.lvllord.de/

Answer 2

Viruses and spyware which those sites may have, may slow your net speed down a bit so you need to:

1. Keep your anti-virus upadated and run it once a week at least, this will also prevent spyware from affecting your computer too. This is important. Don't neglect this regular routine and the updates.

2. Make sure you have sufficient Ram, you can add the extra hardware for more memory at one of your local stores.