WOW Birdy you are slow ... but that's a very good link about the ISP you researched.

Avabraun'sb*tch and StormWPB’s problem sound very similar to mine.
I believe that up until aprox Sunday, or Saturday, earlier this week, my downloads were transferring at more then 100 Kbps each. Over all I would be pulling 800-900 kbps total download, and maybe 50-100 kbps upload. That is, if I was actually downloading that many files. Now I get either 2-5 kbps, 0 kbps, or it tells me immediately “more sources needed”

I read through some of the topics in this forum looking for an answer to this problem before I decided to speak up. But to no avail.

I am a Comcast cable user, in the Chicago area. i downloaded maybe 3 or 4 different magnet links, and each one downloaded separately at over 350 kbps, a few of them two at a time. I visited several speed testing sites, and got an average bandwidth speed of 6mbps-7mbps. (this actually surprises me, because as far as I know, my plan is limited to only 3 mbps. But I suppose I was wrong, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?)

I run under windows XP professional. And I can guarantee that I have absolutely nothing blocking my connection to the gnutella network. Not a firewall, not a router, not an anti virus program. And my connection is always every bar highlighted.

At first, I was worried that my problem could involve a bandwidth cap. But that fear was assuaged quickly enough as I can run file transfers via a messaging program, such as aol instant messenger at a speed that, provided the receiving computer has a fast connection, is slightly less then 100 kbps. I can download files at nearly 100 kbps from various websites. And also I am getting worse results from lime wire the farther away from peak hours I go. What I mean by that is I get almost absolutely no bandwidth from downloading on limewire at 3-5 am, compared to about 10-15 kbps during 5 pm.

One thing that concerns me however, is that my uploads are transferring at over ten times the speed of my downloads. It seems to me that if my ISP has put me under a bandwidth cap, then I would be forced to reduce my total bandwidth usage. Not just my downloading.

Here is my info
Windows xp professional
Java 1.5.0_06
I connect from Home
I do share my connection with another computer, but I doubt that that could be the cause for this. 70% of the time the other computer is not in use, and when it is its very light weight usage.
Ive been using limewire for nearly a year.
I do not have a brickwall

The latest link you gave me didn't work, birdy. it said that an error occured or something.
This is what i did recently
-i turned off my windows firewall completely for a few minutes and restarted limewire and it still had a brick wall in front of the globe icon so does that meant that i might have another firewall that i dont know about?
-as with the speed i think it has something to do with my antennae because i checked it last night and their is supposed to be like 5 green lights for full connection but i only saw 3. also in limewire my connections steps goes to like 3-4 green bars and then drops down to 1 and sometimes none at all do you think that it could be my connection hardware that is causeing the problem if so i should consult my isp.
and as for my other firewall if i even have one what do you think I should do? I've only had 1 firewall on this computer ever since i got it

but i dont get it cause right now i am at full connection with the network and i am downloading an audio file that is 4,380 kb and i'm 50% done with it and it says 10 minutes to go is that a normal speed for a 400mbps connection?

when i download free songs off of like download.com or another place where people can share their music it takes me like 20 seconds to download a 4 minute song but on limewire it takes me like 10 or sometimes 20 minutes but when i am having real trouble with it it says it will take like 5 hours

p.s. how do i raise my kb per second for each download because i cannot get it past 5 or 6 kbps

I think you accidentally skipped one or 2 of birdy's questions. Such as what brand & model of modem & routers are you using? You're obviously using wireless. All wireless connection devices have internal NAT firewalls. The question is does yours support UPnP or not. If not then you'll need to forward a port. If it does support UPnP then you'll need to enable it. Without knowing the answer to this question, the best I can do is direct you to the UPnP section here Connection problems? Check here first! (click on link) or else look further down the page at manual port forwarding.

Downld speeds depend upon your sources/hosts. But sharing improves access to more search results & thus improved performance. Remember also some people are very fussy so they wrongly think if they can't browse you then they think you aren't sharing, etc. & so won't share with you. That is a poor attitude but unfortunately it's a fact amongst some users. Even if they confuse lack of ability to browse & firewalls & available bandwidth & what they're trying to find out.