Help: How do I increase # of connections/sockets in XP?

[Kurgan]

I recently upgraded my bandwidth, since I do a lot of downloading via P2P software (I collect TV shows via BitTorrent), and I've been unable to take advantage of it. I'm told that Windows has a built-in limit on the # of connections it "likes," so to speak, and that, when I start getting hundreds of connections coming in at the same time, they bog things down and I end up only getting a trickle of speed. I'm lucky if I can make use of 10-20% of my existing bandwidth. Additionally, other computers connected to my router have trouble even browsing the web, which is odd, because of my 3 mbps connection, the main PC is usually only using a small fraction of it. There should be plenty of bandwidth to go around for all machines connected. I know that's a secondary problem, but since it's related, I'm mentioning it, too. More than anything I simply want to be able to tell Windows (I'm using XP) to allow as many incoming and outgoing connections as are needed for the jobs I'm running. 500-600 connections would probably be closer to what I need, not the 100 I'm told is set by default. (Don't know if that's actually the case, just what I've been told.) Although the primary problem is most important, I am boggled that a second computer (specifically my laptop) has trouble accessing the web, since it's running its own OS (Win2K) and connecting to the DSL modem directly (built-in router). Even when the majority of the bandwidth is still unused, the fact that I've got so many connections on the XP machine somehow congests the main connection, or something like that, on the modem, so the laptop has trouble. Very strange, at least by my understanding.

If anyone can offer advice as to how I can resolved either or both of these issues, I would greatly appreciated the help.

Thank you.

 

[Didou]

Search Feature is your friend.

• New warning I get from SP2

Welcome to TechSpot. Hope you enjoy your stay.:wave:

 

[Kurgan]

Thanks, but that link doesn't help in this instance. My registry doesn't have the folder/key mentioned in that post. Looks like it's talking about the same thing, though, so we're on the right track. Maybe it's a SP2 thing, so I'm still looking at how to do it in SP1. I'm not going to mess with SP2 quite yet. Planning on a full re-install soon, and will deal with it then, but can't do that until I've finished off some other things I'm in the middle of. Not to mention I'm hearing some things about SP2 that don't sound good, and want to see how it goes for those trying it out.

 

[Didou]

Well you can tweak your connection by downloading a tweak-utility such as the Tweaknow Powerpack ( I believe it has a 30-day trial period ) or you can do all the changes in the registry manually by looking up which settings to change here -> Winguides.

Have fun.

 

[Nic]

Too many connections will actually slow down your PC,due the overhead of managing them. If you get fast download speeds when downloading things such as SP2 (winxp) from Microsoft, but get slow download speeds at other times (P2P), then your problem is probably due to poor routing, or poor speeds at the source. There may not be much you can do in this case, other than moving to another ISP and keeping your fingers crossed. Maybe connecting via a transparent proxy located in some other country will help.