Inconsistent downloads

Within no more than 5 minutes during a download, i can have the following:
Receiving from 8 hosts / 90 Kb/sec;
Waiting for busy host;
Waiting in line pos.1;
Impossible to receive;
Receiving from 1 host / 1 Kb/sec;
.............

This happens regardless to the host connection speed, file quality, initial hosts number, file size or type, day or night time.

Connection is turbocharged; uploads almost always run at the allowed top speed; about 500 files shared; cable/dsl connection; ultrapeer inactive.

My folder is full of incomplete files, and the the average dwnld times seem to be raising more and more (currently ab. 1Hr for an mp3 song and 10 days for a 650Mb movie).

Could anyone explain or hopefully help ?

[lassie]

I have similar trouble myself sometimes - others times it's nigh on perfect..I just put it down to the dynamic nature of the network - people are plugging in and unplugging all the time.

Personally, I like to leave my pc on all the time I'm awake.

My PC is on 24h..
I think LW would better (i wonder if they could) rate the users/files in terms of persistance on the net. Current quality stars, n° of sources , file size and connection speed don't mean very much to me.
Title-content mismatches are also annoying; previewing is now mandatory.
I'm trying to select the reliable sources myself, but very few can be identified (eg through a static IP or nickname in the title) and the newest stuff quite often comes from spot users.
Hope someone has new practicable ideas.

WM