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How do I get better speeds?

J

johnbro23

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 12, 2004
770
0
Pittsburgh, PA
I'm not really sure if I even want to do this, because I dont even know what a firewall really is, but my downloading speeds are really slow, and I'm trying to find the problem:

-I have broadband internet that is pretty reliable, so thats not the problem.
-I have an Airport Extreme Card linked to a linksys router in the other room, 20 feet or so away with walls in between. Could that be the problem?
-Should I mess around with this firewall thing?
-I'm downloading stuff on Bit Torrent, for the most part. I've checked the stat page that shows everyone's progress, and I'm one of the slowest, which tells me there must be something wrong with my computer. Bit Torrent uses ports 6881-6889. I don't know if they are firewalled or not, or whether that even matters.

I'm pretty frustrated at this point, it's taken 7 days to download a show (DMB concert) all the way to 80%, and right now it's going at 0.5 KiB/s :(

Well, I hope you can help, and thanks in advance!
 
Well I'm not sure how to increase your d/l speeds on bit torrent; typically the servers arent too fast as it is. If ur downloading from the web, however, I would suggest getting an application like iGetter which is a download accelerator/manager. It's improved my speeds.
 
I experienced a similar thing, despite a broadband connection. After some experimentation, I examined our AirPort Extreme Base Station and told it to forward to my computer BitTorrent's range of ports; I then added them, as well, to my computer's firewall.

The big problem with the base station configuration is that you have a linksys router. To my knowledge, the AirPort Admin Utility doesn't configure anything but Apple base stations, so you'll either need to find a graphical one for PC (if such a thing exists) or enter the dreaded Terminal to manually change each setting on the command-line—which would probably be worth it.

A firewall, you must understand, is not a 'thing' so much as a grid of locked doors—like a jail block&8212;that protects and locks the entry points, or 'ports,' that are otherwise open to the internet.

Without the firewall, all of the doors are open, and anyone can send a transmission to your computer. Normally, this won't have much of an effect, but sometimes a malicious attack occurs, sometimes triggered by something that you've unknowingly installed that has just received a signal through a particular port.

With the firewall, all doors are closed except the essentials that are specified by default—and, of course, any that you add. If some game or P2P program needs to connect with special ports, you'll have to open those up if you want the firewall.


Those more experienced than I will hopefully correct anything that I have misstated. Cheers!


johnbro23 said:
I'm not really sure if I even want to do this, because I dont even know what a firewall really is, but my downloading speeds are really slow, and I'm trying to find the problem:

-I have broadband internet that is pretty reliable, so thats not the problem.
-I have an Airport Extreme Card linked to a linksys router in the other room, 20 feet or so away with walls in between. Could that be the problem?
-Should I mess around with this firewall thing?
-I'm downloading stuff on Bit Torrent, for the most part. I've checked the stat page that shows everyone's progress, and I'm one of the slowest, which tells me there must be something wrong with my computer. Bit Torrent uses ports 6881-6889. I don't know if they are firewalled or not, or whether that even matters.

I'm pretty frustrated at this point, it's taken 7 days to download a show (DMB concert) all the way to 80%, and right now it's going at 0.5 KiB/s :(

Well, I hope you can help, and thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
 
andrewm said:
I experienced a similar thing, despite a broadband connection. After some experimentation, I examined our AirPort Extreme Base Station and told it to forward to my computer BitTorrent's range of ports; I then added them, as well, to my computer's firewall.

The big problem with the base station configuration is that you have a linksys router. To my knowledge, the AirPort Admin Utility doesn't configure anything but Apple base stations, so you'll either need to find a graphical one for PC (if such a thing exists) or enter the dreaded Terminal to manually change each setting on the command-line—which would probably be worth it.

A firewall, you must understand, is not a 'thing' so much as a grid of locked doors—like a jail block&8212;that protects and locks the entry points, or 'ports,' that are otherwise open to the internet.

Without the firewall, all of the doors are open, and anyone can send a transmission to your computer. Normally, this won't have much of an effect, but sometimes a malicious attack occurs, sometimes triggered by something that you've unknowingly installed that has just received a signal through a particular port.

With the firewall, all doors are closed except the essentials that are specified by default—and, of course, any that you add. If some game or P2P program needs to connect with special ports, you'll have to open those up if you want the firewall.


Those more experienced than I will hopefully correct anything that I have misstated. Cheers!
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "forwarding the ports"? Maybe I can configure that with linksys. Anyone know how to do that?

I wonder if getting the new Airport Express would solve my problems. At $129, it might be worth it. Plus, it's 802.11g, not 802.11b like the linksys. Thats a possibility.
 
linksys routers have their own config page. just open safari and type in "http://192.168.1.1" or whatever the address of the router is.
there should be a setting that lets you forward ports.
and for bittorrent...there are no "servers". its peer to peer, just like kazaa.
upload a lot, and you'll download a lot, thats basically the wholething about bittorrent that most people are unbelievably reluctant to do. It's like uploading is evil or something :rolleyes:
Heres a great article about bittorrent, unfortunately wikipedia servers are crapping out right now or something.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...itTorrent+bittorrent+site:wikipedia.org&hl=en

edit: reply to last post:
port forwarding is also known as port mapping. you tell the router to send all data coming to port x to a specific computer. the linksys thing should have this thing where it talks about private/public ports, specific computer IP addresses to forward it to. if there's a setting to turn on an option where it forwards any port to the computer using it, turn it on.
and 802.11b/g shouldn't make a difference, DSL and Cable speeds are honestly nowhere near 11/54mbps.
 
RTFM that came with the router. You need to enable some form of security at least so others can't use your network and take up your bandwidth. I have a linksys 802.11g router, and it is very easy to setup properly.

P.S. I use MAC (not Mac) addresses to allow access rather than WEP encryption or something similar. No need to type in a password each time, and my computer is the ONLY one that's going to work.
 
johnnowak said:
RTFM that came with the router. You need to enable some form of security at least so others can't use your network and take up your bandwidth. I have a linksys 802.11g router, and it is very easy to setup properly.

P.S. I use MAC (not Mac) addresses to allow access rather than WEP encryption or something similar. No need to type in a password each time, and my computer is the ONLY one that's going to work.
Click to expand...

Unless someone clones the MAC address on their setup.
 
johnbro23 said:
I'm not really sure if I even want to do this, because I dont even know what a firewall really is, but my downloading speeds are really slow, and I'm trying to find the problem:

-I have broadband internet that is pretty reliable, so thats not the problem.
-I have an Airport Extreme Card linked to a linksys router in the other room, 20 feet or so away with walls in between. Could that be the problem?
-Should I mess around with this firewall thing?
-I'm downloading stuff on Bit Torrent, for the most part. I've checked the stat page that shows everyone's progress, and I'm one of the slowest, which tells me there must be something wrong with my computer. Bit Torrent uses ports 6881-6889. I don't know if they are firewalled or not, or whether that even matters.

I'm pretty frustrated at this point, it's taken 7 days to download a show (DMB concert) all the way to 80%, and right now it's going at 0.5 KiB/s :(

Well, I hope you can help, and thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

OK - here's what's happening:

BitTorrent uses the ports 6881-6889 for people to upload information to your computer. Your firewall allows you to send information out, but it isn't allowing you to take information in. The computers you are connecting to only see your external IP Address ("your network's IP"). Your computer has an internal IP Address ("your computer's IP").

In order for the file to be uploaded to your computer, someone's BitTorrent client has to send information through one of the ports from 6881-6889 through the firewall with your routers permission. The router should then deliver the file to your computer.

This is done with "port forwarding." The router is directed to send all incoming data from a specified port to a specified computer. Once set up it will GREATLY increase download speeds!

How do you do it? That's where the problem comes - I know nothing about Apple's base stations. In a Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, etc. you would go to the configuration page (accessed by heading to the IP of the router) and look for "port forwarding" or "virtual servers." With the Airport stuff, I have no idea what to do. I was considering this problem while showing my friend BitTorrent. However, when I opened Azureus (my BitTorrent client) and checked the port range, they were already open. So, I can't help you. Hopefully someone else can, though.
 
Thanks to everyone for your help, you guys are way better than Apple Support on the phone :)

ubergeek, are you sure thats the address for my linksys router? Or is it a different address for my specific one? If so, how do I find out what my address is?

Do you think walls being between my Airport Card and Linksys router are effecting anything?
 
johnbro23 said:
Thanks to everyone for your help, you guys are way better than Apple Support on the phone :)

ubergeek, are you sure thats the address for my linksys router? Or is it a different address for my specific one? If so, how do I find out what my address is?

Do you think walls being between my Airport Card and Linksys router are effecting anything?
Click to expand...

The walls shouldn't do anything. Check your manual to find out the IP for your router. However, if you're lazy, try these first:

192.168.254.1
192.168.1.1
192.168.0.1

The password is usually "admin" with no username. If that doesn't work, try username "admin" with no password.
 
guyute said:
This website will show you how to forward your ports. If you forward your ports your speed will greatly increase. It is surely because the bittorent ports are firewalled. You just need to open them. Check the site, it is pretty thorough.


http://userpages.umbc.edu/~hamilton/btclientconfig.html
Click to expand...


You are amazing. I read that article (it was an interesting read) and it fixed all my problems! I'm now averaging 30 or 40 KiB/s compared with my dismal 0.5 KiB/s! Truely amazing. Thank you so much! :D
 
Sounds like johnbro23's problems are solved, but I thought I'd add one more bittorrent warning that I didn't see mentioned here:

The bittorrent tracker uses a port seperate from the 6881+ range to do it's thing; originally this was port 6969, though some use port 8000 and others now. Although in theory this port only needs to be open on the tracker machine (the machine organizing the swarm), for whatever reason I've seen extremely slow downloads when I didn't open that port on my firewall (the built-in OSX one).

Anybody know why this is? Do other peer machines talk directly to yours through 6969 or something?
 
Is it OK to forward ports for Poisoned (Fastrack-1214 and Gnutella-3385)? Do you think it would have the same effect as it did for BitTorrent?
 
not sure, i am not familiar with that setup. The reason why you are getting greater speeds is because the seeders are able to connect with you now. When you close those ports, you are only connected to peers that you have initiated contact with. When they are open then the seeders (the ones with large bandwidth) are able to initiate the contact and connect with you. If that program works like the bittorent does then yes that will change how you connect.
 
I have also noticed that downloads in general have been much slower for me on my Powerbook with an airport extreme card.
My upload speeds are much faster than my download...
download is only 228 and upload is 886. this information is coming from a speakeasy broadband speed test...
I have a linksys router and WEP 128 mbit encryption running and have a strong signal everywhere in my house....
any idea why my download is so slow?
 
TreeHugger said:
I have also noticed that downloads in general have been much slower for me on my Powerbook with an airport extreme card.
My upload speeds are much faster than my download...
download is only 228 and upload is 886. this information is coming from a speakeasy broadband speed test...
I have a linksys router and WEP 128 mbit encryption running and have a strong signal everywhere in my house....
any idea why my download is so slow?
Click to expand...

its not your local network...try taking this speed test and comparing it to speakeasy:
http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html
 
similar results.
download of 223.5 :-(
all the other wireless computers on my network run faster downloads...
might it be the wep encryption slowing me down? (doesnt seem to slow down other computers)
 
turns out that it was the wep encryption. After I went into the the linksys setup and disabled and reabled WEP encryption I got my fast speed back.
any ideas on this phenomenon?
 
WEP sucks bandwith because you are encrypting everything you send. It takes alot of processor power. Turn off your SSID and do some MAC filtering. It's not perfect, but serves the purpose.

BEN
 
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