Arch Linux

sensory

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2010-05-01

Posts: 40

rtorrent and wireless slows down a lot

Hi all,

Whenever I have a few torrents running in rtorrent the download speed will peak at around 1MB/s and then, slowly but surely, dip to around 300kb/s. This is ONLY on my wireless connection because I've tried the same torrents on my wired connection and it stays at max speed without any problems at all.

A couple of torrents usually isn't a problem, so I tried lowering the maximum peers in rtorrent but that doesn't make a difference.

Both connections are using OpenDNS and don't have any problems when downloading large files outside of torrents at max speed from servers like rapidshare.

# Maximum and minimum number of peers to connect to per torrent.
#min_peers = 40
max_peers = 40

# Same as above but for seeding completed torrents (-1 = same as downloading)
#min_peers_seed = 10
#max_peers_seed = 10

# Maximum number of simultanious uploads per torrent.
max_uploads = 5

# Global upload and download rate in KiB. "0" for unlimited.
download_rate = 0
upload_rate = 30

# Default directory to save the downloaded torrents.
directory = ~/Downloads/Torrents/temp

# Default session directory. Make sure you don't run multiple instance
# of rtorrent using the same session directory. Perhaps using a
# relative path?
session = ~/Downloads/Torrents/session

# Watch a directory for new torrents, and stop those that have been
# deleted.
schedule = watch_directory,5,5,load_start=~/Downloads/Torrents/watch/*.torrent
schedule = untied_directory,5,5,"remove_untied="

# When torrent finishes, removes .torrent file and moves completed to directory
system.method.set_key = event.download.finished,move_complete,"execute=mv,-u,$d.get_base_path=,~/Downloads/Torrents/co$

# Port range to use for listening.
port_range = 40500-40599

# Start opening ports at a random position within the port range.
port_random = yes

# Check hash for finished torrents. Might be usefull until the bug is
# fixed that causes lack of diskspace not to be properly reported.
check_hash = no

# Set whetever the client should try to connect to UDP trackers.
use_udp_trackers = yes

# Encryption options, set to none (default) or any combination of the following:
# allow_incoming, try_outgoing, require, require_RC4, enable_retry, prefer_plaintext
#
# The example value allows incoming encrypted connections, starts unencrypted
# outgoing connections but retries with encryption if they fail, preferring
# plaintext to RC4 encryption after the encrypted handshake
#
encryption = allow_incoming,enable_retry,prefer_plaintext

# Enable DHT support for trackerless torrents or when all trackers are down.
# May be set to "disable" (completely disable DHT), "off" (do not start DHT),
# "auto" (start and stop DHT as needed), or "on" (start DHT immediately).
# The default is "off". For DHT to work, a session directory must be defined.
#
dht = auto

# UDP port to use for DHT.
#
dht_port = 6881

# Enable peer exchange (for torrents not marked private)
#
peer_exchange = yes

I'm using a Broadcom wireless card which is known for having issues in Linux, but if it was the fault of my wireless card then I would have the same problems downloading over http, not only over torrents.

empthollow

Member

Registered: 2009-09-26

Posts: 168

Re: rtorrent and wireless slows down a lot

Try dropping your max_peers down even farther.  I had problems when with slow internet in general and I have mine set at 11.  I'm not sure if your problem is related at all but it may be worth a shot.

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--empthollow
Check out my Arch based live distro http://fluxcapacity.99k.org

sensory

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2010-05-01

Posts: 40

Re: rtorrent and wireless slows down a lot

Thanks, I'll give that a shot. My only concern is that with so few peers I'll never be able to max out my connection, but I'll attempt it with a few well seeded torrents.