bittorrentutorrent
I am downloading the new Ubuntu release, and the speed fluctuates a lot. By a lot, I mean it is 500 kB/s one minute, and 1 kB/s the other (not exaggerating). It seems to have slow and fast "periods".
I am using the latest uTorrent on Windows XP, currently there are 41 seed connections and 9 peer connections.
Any idea what might be causing this?
Actually, µTorrent can indeed be instructed to prefer parts at the beginning and end of a file. It has a specific option just for that purpose, and has had this for quite a few versions.
To inform µTorrent to do so, open up the Options menu on the main µTorrent window and select Preferences. There's a shortcut key for this step; simply press Ctrl+P instead, if you like.
In the Preferences window, select the title "Advanced" in the left-hand side pane. Then scroll down on the list of Name-Value pairs until you find one named "bt.prio_first_last_piece". Select it, and choose True for the value. Click OK.
There, you're done. Now µTorrent will favour the pieces at the beginning and ending of a file whenever it can do so, and you'll often find that files being downloaded will get their first and last parts before the other pieces.
A bit late for the original asker, I guess, but I hope any wandering readers might appreciate the information.
This can also be used by bittorent.
For your first question:
Options → Preferences → Queuing → Max. number of active downloads = 1
For the second one, under seeding goals, keep it as zero and if required, put a limit on the upload rate.
Best Answer
Since you are using XP, have a look at your System Event Log for Event ID 4226 "TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts". Microsoft introduced a limit on the number of concurrent half-open TCP connections in SP2 of XP and this can often be hit with torrents.
For more information see How to adjust your Windows XP TCP Connection to boost your BT download speed? which includes a link for adjusting the number of TCP connections.
It would also be worth looking at some of the TCP Tuning tools, such as SpeedGuide TCP Optimizer as XP doesn't have a well tuned TCP/IP stack as the ones in Vista or Windows 7.