Hello there,

I am a disgruntled limewire user that is offering a reward for anybody who can succesfully solve my problem or can link me to a solution than solves my it.

Now I am not an enourmously technical person, but I will try my best:

I have been a limewire user for quite some time now, but about 6 months ago my downloads became painstakingly slow (0-2 kb/sec) and searches became erattic and often returned nothing at all.

I am using the latest mac version of limewire on OS X 10.3.9 and I have had no problems with internet or email (even downloading from the itunes music store!), but unfortunately I come across similar problems with any p2p programme i use.

My internet connection comes through a wireless LAN router in another room in the house.

If there is any other technical information you need to know, i will try my best to source it out.

I have tried absolutely everything in my technically limited power and have achieved nothing. So please help out, you won't regret it

Yours frustratedly,
Iwantmydownloadsback

It seems likely that you wireless connection and/or router are giving the problem Please give as much detail about the router as you can .. serial no . make etc. Also please give details of your firewall(s)

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My router is a Wireless-G ADSL gateway (WAG54G).
Like this:
http://www1.linksys.com/internationa...id=19&ipid=667

We also have another PC in the house that uses the same router, and that PC might have a firewall, but as far as I'm aware I'm not running one on my mac.

PS. thanks for responding.

Have you read the manual for the router thoroughly, particularly with regard to configuring it. I've a feeling that somewhere something may not be correctly set up.

I'm not an expert on routers , but the lure of a cash prize wasd too much to resist

__________________
To get Phex Click on the Fox

Check this Connection problems? Check here first! as it has important info for OSX firewall & Linksys setting up.

However, I've a suspicion your problem is your ISP. Can you tell us who is your ISP (Internet Service Provider)?

Try an experiment, downld a magnet link file from here & tell us what speeds you get: http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml

And do a speed test whilst LW is closed here http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/speedtest/ (choose nearest location)

Thanks, lord of the rings, the links you gave look promising. I have to go to sleep now , but I'll check out your links more thoroughly in morning and report back in due course.

Thanks again,
Iwantmydownloadsback.

My internet service provider is talktalk.net, they're a fairly well established provider in the UK. The magnet link file reached about 20KB/sec after a couple of minutes which is a hell of a lot higher than anything i've got for the last few months.

Here are my speed test results:

Direction Actual Speed True Speed (estimated)

Downstream 918 Kbps (114.8 KB/sec) 991 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 228 Kbps (28.5 KB/sec) 246 Kbps (inc. overheads)

I hope this helps you a bit, and i will keep trying other tips from your first link.

Thanks,
Ben

Well you should be getting faster speeds. But TalkTalk "is" the problem. Have a look here ISP's known to BLOCK or Filter p2p or specifically Limewire, there was a no. of people using TalkTalk who were having the same problem. Answer? Look around for other isp's. There's a link in the above link which is a guideline for those isp's known to either block or shape bandwidth for p2p use in the UK (at the bottom of the 1st post.)

eg: Another member on the forum posted a snapshot of his speeds from the same magnet link site & he was getting over 200 KB/s from memory. You 'should' be getting up around the 100 KB/s I should imagine.

It could well be that talktalk is part of the problem, but would they really slow my downloads without stopping them? I mean, after manually forwarding a port, i started getting downloads of up to about 10kb/sec, and although this is a lot slower than the used to be, downloads are still eventually successful and searches return results. I don't see why talktalk would place such sanctions on my downloads without completely stopping them. But again, judging by the link you sent me, they do seem to be a troubling company for the p2p community.

Well there are different categories of P2P's. Those that block & those that shape. TalkTalk shape bandwidth. Probably by using a program such as http://www.sandvine.com/products/p2p_element.asp or http://www.ipp2p.org/docu_en.html here's an example of how gnutella can be shaped: Bandwidth Shaper Sample - typical of how some ISP's use it (click on link) ie: giving priority to net surfing & low priorities to p2p sharing.

So why do they shape it? 1. So they can give most of it to business which is where they get most of their money. 2. Because in some areas, the population of users means the bandwidth traffic is high, so to maintain a reasonable speed for those who only browse, then ... as they sometimes aim only to attract people who want fast browse speeds, ... not for heavy use such as games or p2p, etc.