Triple Torrent Download Speed

// Yep…with price reductions and increased speed on broadband and Orange My.T in Mauritius, its  time to accelerate your download speed. This is a step by step guide on how to configure uTorrent to triple your download speed. I recommend uTorrent(the number one choice) as BitTorrent client. If you are new to torrent world then you should first check this tutorial for port forwarding. 

Note: I assume that you have done the port forwarding stuff. If not, here is a step by step tutorial(made by myself) for forwarding a port in the router(myT livebox). You can still go by without port forwarding, but speeds will not be optimal. 

              

Disclaimer: Proceed at your own risk! I will not be held responsible if this document causes your computer to explode or burst into flames. In real serious terms, if any corruption of data, hardware damage or any other kind of damage/losses/etc. arises from the use of this tutorial, I will not be responsible for it. 

Step 1: Increase the number of Max Half Open TCP connections

Let’s starts, Windows XP limits the number of connections a Bittorrent client can attempt to establish simultaneously at any given time. The default limit in Windows XP is 10, its a barrier against virus multiplication(to slow the propogation of worms) but its also drop torrent speeds considerably, as torrent needs a large number of simultaneous connnections.

What is Half Open TCP Connection? 

A half-open connection is when your computer has requested a connection to a remote computer, but has not received an acknowledgment back. If the remote computer is overloaded, it can take some time for it to acknowledge the request, during which time your local connection sits there, half open. Eventually it will time out.

 

To change this limit:

• First you have to download that patch.

                             For Winblows XP Service Pack 2: Download Patch Here

                             For Winblows XP Service Pack 3: Download Patch Here

• After that you need to disable your Internet connection/Unplug your Internet cable and restart your computer.
• Then run the patch to set the connection number, set it to 200.  (Some said that 500 to 600 is better).

• Click ‘Apply’ and Restart the computer again.  

Note: This patch modifies the TCPIP.sys file in Windows to allow a higher number of TCP connections.

 

Step 2: Set the number of TCP connection in uTorrent

• Open uTorrent, go to Options > Preferences > Advanced.
• In the right hand side pane, browse for “net.max_halfopen” and set to “190”, as shown in the picture below.
• Click “Set” and finally “Apply”.

Note: The number of “net.max_halfopen” is set lower than the value set in TCPIP.sys.

 

After these two steps, you should notice a considerable increase in speed(of course if you are downloading a file with with a good number of seeders).

 

Step 3: Changing the Protocol Encryption in uTorrent

When enabling protocol encryption, ISPs find it difficult if not impossible to detect that the traffic is coming from BitTorrent. I’ve enabled it but I don’t know if this setting has contributed to the increase in speed. Yep, logically you should get better speeds with encryption disabled.

 

• Open uTorrent, go to Options > Preferences > BitTorrent.
• Select “Enabled” from the list and click “Apply”.

 

Step 4: Don’t forget to change the “Connection Type”

• Open uTorrent, go to  Options > Speed Guide. 
• In the “Connection Type” zone.
• Set it to xx/512k (depending on your broadband connection).

 

Conclusion

After running through each of the above steps, you should get a nice juicy download speeds. If you don’t see the green icon(as shown in the picture below), then something is wrong with “Port Forwarding”, check out the steps again in the tutorial to try solve this problem.