This is a walkthrough on how to setup µtorrent to your specific internet connection. This is neither a tweaking guide nor a customisation guide. It is solely meant to get you going properly. It is recommended that you follow these steps in order as it is assumed that previous settings have been enabled. This is not a troubleshooting guide; please refer to the FAQ or the other guides for help if this procedure does not work for you. NOTE: These instructions are for µTorrent 1.5.1 build 464 and later.
Since you will always be uploading at your maximum speed, torrent clients need to be configured according to maximum upload speed in order to avoid choking your connection. So you will need to test your connection:
The speedguide is great for setting up a variaty of variables but it does fall short if you're test speed fall half way between two of the possible speed listed.
Some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are actively interfering with p2p activities in order to reduce their bandwidth requirements. This causes µtorrent and other file sharing download speeds to become slow. To avoid this, µtorrent and other clients have introduces an encryption protocol to prevent ISPs from identifying BitTorrent traffic.
Goto µTORRENT MENU > OPTIONS > PREFERENCES > BITTORRENT : PROTOCOL ENCRYPTION Set outgoing to enable,"allow incoming" checked.
Some ISPs have extremely aggressive throttling methods and for those users it might be necessary to set outgoing to Forced; however this will greatly reduce the number of peers you can connect to. Enable is sufficient for most users.
People using the Microsoft
Windows XP firewall:
Goto µTORRENT MENU > OPTIONS > PREFERENCES
> CONNECTION :
Listening port : "add µtorrent to Windows Firewall
…" check.
People using other firewalls:
You will need to refer to your software's own documentation. By
default, the µtorrent listening port is randomised each time
you start
µtorrent. If needed, it can be locked to a specific port by:
Goto µTORRENT MENU > OPTIONS > PREFERENCES
> CONNECTIONS : Listening port : "Randomize port …"
uncheck
µTorrent should now be set properly for your connection. You can test your speed with any torrent of your choice. But here are a couple of torrents you can use:
You don't need do download the entire torrent. You can leave it running just long enough to reach your maximum download speed.
Note: Most users will not need to follow this section, as this problem occurs only for someone with a router.
At the bottom of the µtorrent window toward the middle of the status bar you will see a coloured dot. If the coloured dot is RED you most likely have a NAT problem (assuming you have properly opened the port in the firewall, if not, go back and do it properly).
For the most part, NAT problems are caused by the router blocking traffic to un-authorised ports, this is a safety measure but on occasion it interferes with legitimate traffic.This is not a µtorrent problem as this will occur with any BitTorrent client and the resolution will be the same for all of them (This problem also occurs with other network applications that do not use standard ports, so remembering this procedure may prove usefull in the future). Some people who do not have a router may find that their modem serves as both modem and router, this procedure will also apply.
The NAT indicator should turn from yellow to green next time you make an outgoing connection. IF it turns to red, or if you get a UPnP error message in the logger, turn off UPnP and forward your port manually.
If UPnP is not available or does not work, it will be necessary to forward the port manually.
Since we want to forward a single port, we need to set the listen port for µtorrent.
Routers work by attributing a "dynamic IP" to each computer when it connects to the router. Since this IP is dynamic it can, and often does change each time. The router selects which IP to attribute from a list of available IPs called the DHCP range. This range is expressed as either: Starting IP / ending IP, or Starting IP and number of IPs. (192.154.10.1 to 192.154.10.100 , or 192.154.10.1 with 100 IPs available).In order to setup a static IP for your computer it is important to select one outside of this range in order to avoid it being attributed to another computer by the router.Finding out what the DHCP range can be hard work since I have no router specific instructions to direct you to the correct menu. You'll have to find it on your own (you may refer to your router's manual for more information).
To enter the router configuration screens : Windows start button ; > run : type this command line "cmd /k; ipconfig /all"
The procedure for forwarding a port in the router varies with each make and model of router.
Check your router's label for its manufacturer and model number and select the appropriate model here: Portforward Router Guide, you will be given router specific instructions on how to forward your port.