Can someone explain torrents use of bandwidth?

[Harlequinn]

Hi.

Im just curious about how torrents use bandwidth, and if the problem i have is "normal" or maybe related to the hardware i have.

I use uTorrent, and when i turn it on and start downloading I cant surf the web anymore. It basicly feels like im back on a 28k dialup modem, its that slow.

I would understand if i was downloading with 250kb's (Got a 2500 adsl connection), but even if the speeds are 10-20kb's, surfing is that slow. (I can download files from the web though (like windows updates, game patches etc) , with the normal speed).

So, why does such a low speed on torrent destroy my surfing?
I have tried other torrent clients, but the same thing happens.


Sorry if this is the wrong forum, not sure where else to put it.

 

[lotussama]

More than likely, it's saturating your upstream, so, basically, it's taking your connection a while to request whatever page you're trying to look at. Try looking at your bittorrent client settings (sorry, I'm not familiar with uTorrent) to see if you can set a max on this. 75% is probably fine.

I have the same trouble with WoW's patching application.