I can't surf after some time of idling

[paugie]

I regularly download some files by Flashget (FireFox Flashgot plug-in). And I have some files queued on BitComet. I can usually surf while all that is going on at speeds roughly equal to or even faster than my old dial-up connection (~2.3 kBps) But after I stop surfing let's say for an hour or two then I try to surf again, I can't get a connection. Just "not available" error messages on any site I try. If I really have to surf some page, I have to reboot. What is wrong? The downloads continue, though. I just can't surf.

I am on some kind of wireless internet connection which uses cellphone sites to transmit data. The company placed an antenna on my roof with line-of-site wireless connection to the nearest mobile phone transmitter.

Advertised speed is "twice the speed of dial-up". I am getting 14kBps upload and download as measured by a web-based service. And that speed is pretty constant.

 

[paugie]

I have checked for spyware and adware, comes up clean. Using adaware, spybot S&D and spyware blaster. I don't think I have a virus. AVG is updated almost every day.

 

[Mercutio]

BitComet is a bandwidth pig like no other. Try running your torrents through BitTornado and see if your life becomes better.

 

[paugie]

ahhhh! ok, will try that.
you know, this is somewhat your fault... In one other thread I read that you preferred BitComet.
anyway, you're on a lot faster connection. I didn't think it would matter, being that I've not experienced anything more than 3.2kPbs until the 13th of this month.

 

[paugie]

not to sound ungrateful in the last post, mercutio.

I really am a newbie when it comes to networking and the Web. Really appreciate your (and the whole lot of SF regulars) quick and knowledgeable responses to my queries.

 

[timwhit]

BitComet is a bandwidth pig like no other. Try running your torrents through BitTornado and see if your life becomes better.

How about Azureus? Is it as big of a bandwidth hog as BitComet? I have a similar problem where I cannot get any kind of website to load until I kill the download. Then I can immediately start loading webpages after the download is stopped.

 

[Mercutio]

I really like BitComet's download manager. Love it, in fact.
But I have noticed, as the obnoxious bandwidth whore at my day job, that only maybe a single 50k down/50k up hoses our 6/1Mbit internet connection to the point that the clerical types in my office start complaining that their Internet Streaming Country Radio isn't working right and that "the internet is slow" - my BOFHish opinion is that I'll stop using BitComet when they stop listening to Country music in places where I can hear it.

If I wasn't a lazy jerk, I'd probably investigate the throttling options in BitComet (if there are any), but I'm lazy and I'm a jerk, so I started a half-dozen torrents before I walked out the door this evening.

Now if only BitComet could keep them from forwarding that goddamned diabetes-inducing "CuppyCake" song to me.

This is an observation I've only made recently, paugie. BitTornado is fast seems to EAT memory, and doesn't have a download manager (on PCs where I use it, I just save the torrents to a folder and open them later). BitComet has the DL manager and his pretty lightweight for local resources, but it just seems to kill available bandwidth.

I haven't tried Azureus. It has kind of a bad reputation, from my reading on the subject.

 

[time]

Paugie, it sounds like your provider has a problem providing continuous service - perhaps not surprising seeing it's really a form of dialup.

I suggest you dig up a 'keep alive' utility that pings a web address at regular intervals.

 

[paugie]

am looking into those solutions. will post soon as I find out if anything works/tanks

thanks again

 

[timwhit]

Well I had been using BitTornado for the last 6 months or so, but when I installed Win2k3 it wouldn't work. So I installed Azureus which is a piece of crap.

I reinstalled BitTornado and it works perfectly. Doesn't kill my connection and also transfers a lot faster as well.

 

[Handruin]

What about Azureus is a piece of crap? I've had no problems with it...just curious what part you dislike?

 

[timwhit]

I get slower download speeds, in the neighborhood of 1/4 of what I get with Bittornado.

It also kills my connection somehow, to the point where the download will continue, but I am unable to load a website or ping anything.

 

[timwhit]

It also has been crashing on me continually. Everytime I try to exit the program Javaw.exe which is the executable that runs behind Azureus hits 100% CPU usage and does not close until I manually end the task.

 

[timwhit]

Do yourself a favor and at least try Bittornado to see if you get faster speeds.

 

[Handruin]

I'll give Bittornado a try. What version of Azureus are you running and which version of JRE is being loaded (I'm using 2.3.04 with JRE 1.5.0_02 b9)? I haven't (yet) had any of the problems you described. My downloads speeds fluctuate, but given the nature of torrents, I expected that.

 

[timwhit]

I'm running Azureus 2.3.04. JRE is build 1.5.0_04-b05. So both are quite new.

What kind of download speeds do you get?

 

[Handruin]

I usually get betwee 100KB - 300KB p/s on average. I downloaded serious sam II at 350KB/s the other day...

 

[timwhit]

Doesn't sound too bad at all. If it works for you, then keep on using it.

 

[Mercutio]

OK, I just did a little bit of testing regarding BitComet the Bandwidth pig.

I ifdown'd or disconnected all of the computers but the one I'm sitting in front of. I turned off all network activity on this machine as well. I ran a bandwidth test from Speakeasy's Seattle, WA servers using the dslreports.com Bandwidth testing doohickey, from Firefox.

Speakeasy in Seattle says my internet connection is 5.7Mbit down, 960kbit up, which is close to the advertised value of the service (6M/1M).

I grabbed a very well seeded torrent from mininova.org (Lost season 2 episode 1, which has 6000 seeeders vs. 3800 leechers).

I opened that torrent with BitTornado .3.10 (I also set everything to "default" for testing) and let it run for 5 minutes.
Then I opened Internet Explorer (used a different browser, in case the test can be cached somehow), connected to the dslreports.com Speakeasy bandwidth test, and ran it.

Speakeasy reported my internet connection as 3.1Mbit/210kbit.
BitTornado was downloading at 168k and uploading at 61k when it finished.
netstat (Windows command line program) showed 21 active connections.

Then I reset my cable modem a couple times, until it came up with a different IP, rebooted my router and briefly disabled my NIC, waited around 15 minutes, re-enabled, and opened the same torrent with a newly-installed and utterly untweaked Bitcomet .60, waited another 5 minutes and ran my test, this time using my Firefox 1.5b install.

It took two and a half minutes for the test page to load. Subjectively, browsing while 'Comet was running was MUCH slower.

And that was borne out by test results:
Speakeasy told me my internet connection was a mere 305k/44k.
BitComet, at the time I finished the bandwidth test, was downloading at 112k and uploading at 74k.
netstat showed 56 active connections.


I think that I don't like BitComet any more.

 

[timwhit]

Can you try Azureus?

 

[Mercutio]

The dslreports thing says I've done the Speakeasy test too many times today.

 

[timwhit]

Dang. Well, I am back using Bittornado after about 3 days of Azureus.

Maybe you can try again tomorrow for Handruin's sake.

 

[Mercutio]

We'll see. Of course, there are huge *'s next to all of this, since there's literally no way to have a control for any of this. I can't control what anyone else is doing with a torrent or what anyone else might be doing on my cable segment.

 

[paugie]

It also kills my connection somehow, to the point where the download will continue, but I am unable to load a website or ping anything.

Hey! Sounds very familiar to me.

Meanwhile, I have downloaded BitTornado this morning. And am using it now. Will try to find out if I can continue to browse. Click back in an hour or two.

 

[paugie]

Success!

pure BitTornado, that's what works. I can surf even after an hour of idle time.

yesterday, I had BitComet on for a while. Then I paused all my downloads on it and exited. But it still cut off my surfing. I won't bother about it anymore. I've got my solution. And, Mercution, you are right again. You should "hate" BitComet. :lol:

 

[Mercutio]

Azureus is teh slow.

Same torrent I used last time. The number of seeders and leechers were both down from last time, but still about 50% more seeders than leechers.

Used the same default settings and the most recent client.

download speed was 38.1k/sec, upload was 22.4k/sec.
Bandwidth "after" result was found to be 4100kbps, up was found to be 880kbps.

Netstat shows 51 open connections on my machine.

In other words: Azureus had the lowest impact on my other internet activities, but seems to download at a fraction of the speed of BitComet or BitTornado.

Again, all this has to be taken with a grain of salt, since I have basically zero control over what's happening on my cable segment or with the other people using that particular tracker.