PCA Forums

I need to open the ports on my computer for bitorrent. They are stealth, I think that means they are firewalled, but I do not have any firewalls or routers. How do I open these ports? Please help. And are there any tricks to get faster download speeds for bitorrent?
Have windows xp home edition SP1

is the windows firewall on?

Welcome to PCA!

Are you CERTAIN you don't have a router? Most DSL modems and some cable modems nowadays have a built in router. Post the model and make of your modem.

If you really don't have a router then you should have a firewall running - it would be foolish not to have a firewall if you're not behind a router. As Dopey said you may have Window's Firewall running. Try temporarily disabling Windows Firewall and see if that fixes it. If it does then you need to set a permission exception in the firewall settings to allow bittorrent.

I turned off the windows firewall. Actually I have the zonealarm free version firewall, but I turned it off to run the port tests, tests say that my ports are stealth, I think that means firewalled. My cable modem is motorola sb5120, I do not think that it is doing anything.

It doesn't look like that modem has a firewall built in. A stealth port is one that doesn't respond in anyway to requests. Are you just checking the standard bittorrent ports? Most bittorrent clients have the option of setting the ports to anything you want. I would try that because depending on your ISP they may be blocking the standard bittorrent ports. What ISP is it anyway?

The port test is for the first 1000 ports. My ISP is comcast. I called comcast, they said that they do not block any ports. Bitorrent works but I heard that if my ports are not stealth than my downloads will be much faster. I run the port tests at https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Comcast doesn't block any ports.

Which ports Bittorrent uses entirely depends on your bittorrent client - check the settings or the documentation for your client.

Traditional bit torrent clients use ports 6881 - 6889. However, newer client apps use random ports within a much larger range in order to spoof your ISP so they can't tell you're using Bittorrent. ABC Bittorrent which I use uses ports 10000 - 11000 for instance.

Then go to GRC.COM and do a port test on those ports. All firewalls must be disabled. In the case of Zone Alarm you must specifically unlock the firewall. Just closing the icon in the taskbar DOES NOT disable the firewall.

What problems are you having with bittorrent? Does it work at all?

If you're just getting slow downloads welcome to the club. The MPAA and RIAA are poisoning trackers and seeders now which is slowing down the network. I can rarely download anything popular (like star trek tv shows) at anything over 5 KB/s where I used to get 50.

I get good download speeds most of the time, but I read that if my ports are open than my download speeds will be much faster.