I definitely don't want to bother them if it's not necessary.

I'm a little familiar with TCP/IP protocol, but not enough to make an educated guess on what you did, or what the page instructed you to do...

Here is the <Wiki> page.

The even more astonishing thing (not to mention lucky, for me) is that this page is now out of date.

The latest <vuze> software allows you to change your <TCP Listening Port> almost totally automatically.

From the <vuze> interface:

1. click tools
2. click options
3. click connection

And then a little box appears telling you what your current TCP port is.

Then what I did was to manually change this number to random numbers within the range advocated by the Wiki page.

The first time, and several times after that, a little pop up comes on screen and says <that port is not available>.

But after a few tries, then suddenly my Internet connection was severed.

(here I panicked)

Afer about a minute, however, my PC reconnected itself and then I checked the bit rate on my current torrent downloads.

It had been averaging maybe 17 kb/s- sometimes going lower than 1kb/s for long periods.

Now it was raging.

It immediately shot up to the 150-180 kb/s range.

Now, after several hours, I've deduced (from my torrent download percentage) that it's averaging around 90 kb/s, all told.

It's faster or slower depending on how many "seeder" Puters are available etc.-

But then like I said I checked out other sites and functions and every thing is noticeably faster.

Anything to do with loading a page or uploading streaming videos is much, much faster than it was.

Ok here is the Wiki page- notice that before, when <vuze> was called <azeureus>, you had to do a bunch more stuff manually in order to change the port.

And I still don't know what a <TCP Listening Port> is in the first place.

Just to be totally clear--

Steps 5-8 on the <Wiki> instructions occurred AUTOMATICALLY in my case.

I just checked my download bitrate a second ago and it's robust- busting up over 200 kb/s.

The <vuze> interface is set so that a maximum download bitrate of 300 kb/s cannot be exceeded.

Maybe that's so too much of your Puter power or RAM or what the heck isn't gobbled up.

Although you know I don't know what any of that means.

Usually I just search stuff on the interweb and follow the instructions.

When something bad happens, you always know because I post here.

You are the only person I know in the world who knows lots about Computers, especially from the "user" end.

The 300 kb/s "cap" on my Vuze interface is no longer there.

At this moment it is currently downloading <1.2 MEGABYTES> per second...

I am downloading two torrents-- each consisting of around 20 one hour TV shows each- a total of 14 Gigabytes in size.

My plan is to burn the content to disc after they download, so I can watch two whole seasons of my favorite Cop TV show (Homicide) when it's all done.

This is unbelievable to me.

What is a TCP Listening port?

And why doesn't everyone check to make sure they have one that lets in a lotta bites per second?

I know that the more RAM a pc has, the faster it will run.

And I know that the router/modem and IP service affects internet speed on a PC.

But I had no idea that there was such a thing as a <TCP Port>, or that it could have such an astonishing effect on download/upload internet speed.

Since you seem to be a techie here I was wondering if you could help me...:)

Any port number that I insert is unavailable for connection including the 6881 to 6999 port numbers that was stated in the links you posted at <JFQ>'s forum...

And are you using a physical router/firewall? Or a software XP/Vista built-in firewall? Or both?

If you can give me your set-up and what error (message, anything to help) would be greatly appreciated... (Just give me as much info as you can, it's okay to give me too much info)

I just managed to find a port but my speed hasn't increased spectacularly...

I'm using a BitTorrent client..uTorrent

I have a 256 kb/s connection and I have a download speed of 30 kB/s.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm asking too much of my connection plan...

<MannBee>

I've been going to links from the links you gave me-

I don't know how you do it but you're obviusly very good at finding things.

That's got to be the best beginner's guide to torrenting I ever read.

<Trig> !!!! Go to my forum and click on both of the links <MannBee> left for me there.

And Go here and scroll half way down the page to find the guide- it is outstanding

http://shrinathmukund.blogspot.com/...

<Trig> the key factor is not the TCP port- it's the ratio of <seeders> to <leechers>-

Also, 30 kb/s is actually a decent average download speed "in general" for torrenting.

I've been reading and experimenting now for a week and the more research and practice I do the more I see that the quality of the torrent itself (lots of seeders, few leachers) is the major determinant of download speed.

Also crucial is that you leave your torrent client-interface running every time you have your computer on.

A good one like <Vuze> is "low profile" and is not intrusive on your Puter. No malware, no slow downs with this most amazing application.

Step two here is not to delete all the torrent files from your hard drive once you finish burning/watching them.

Unless the other torrenters see that you are willing to share back with your downloads, they will eventually brand you as a "leecher" and deliberately refuse to allow you to have access to <their> torrents.

So- as far as I've discovered so far-

1. Seeder to Leecher rate

2. Keeping some downloads on your hardrive and keeping your torrent client running when you Puter is on

Are both more crucial than your TCP port.

Although for sure in my case the port change was in fact huge- but it isn't always, as I read further about this issue.

I got the .ico file and I've visited at least a dozen how-to web-sites and still getting no where!

I've emptied out my cache of IE8 and viewed a dozen sources page (Yes, even CG.com's and still am not getting anywhere...)

If so, what is the max. diff. allowed?>

Hey you know what- remember when I panicked about the logo of the chessgames link turning into a yahoo logo?

Well now almost all the logos on my IE7 "favorites" list have gone bonkers.

At first, I assumed that my computer had been taken over by bad people, or my hard drive was screwed.

But a brief inquiry on the web revealed that- despite the vociferous denials of a microsoft engineer/blogger-

Thousands of people have the same problem.

I learned that in IE6 almost every user had the "favicons" getting mysterioulsy shuffled on a regular basis.

This was a "bug" in the program code.

And the "bug" in the IE7 code was not in fact "fixed" adequately for all users.

In IE8 the bug has now been fixed once and for all.

Ok just reporting on what I learned.

I promise to do proper research next time before running to you in a panic.