Do I need to forward a port on wireless router (for torrent) ?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Do I need to forward a port on wireless router (for torrent) ?

fergs

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#24590 28-Jul-2008 20:00

Hi all. First time poster and not very technical sorry.

I spent a solid 7 hours trying to get my new SMC wireless router to allow my PC to connect to the net using my Dynalink RTA1320 modem. I figured out after losing a lot of my hair and yelling expetives throughout the house that I could bridge(?) the two together and voila! my internet suddenly worked.

Now my problem (amongst others) is that my torrent speed is dead. A slightly geeky mate of mine reckons that this is common with the addition of a wireless router, and utorrent tells me that I have some kind of network problem that is preventing me from achieving decent download speeds.

I have a port forwarded just for utorrrent through the modem but I'm wondering if I need to forward that port on the router? If the answer is yes, then I'm not sure where in the router's interface I can do that . I would have thought this was a more common problem but I can't find any assistance on Google or anything. Portforward.com doesn't really seem to help with wireless routers so I'm a bit stuck.

Is there an easy fix that someone can give me?

Thanks in advance.

nate

6473 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#152211 28-Jul-2008 21:26

From experience, properly configuring a wireless network for the first time can be very, very frustrating. For example, one of my wireless access points (I have two) won't give IP leases (DHCP) to some of my wireless devices. Why? I have no idea, and gave up on it. I originally set it up about five years ago.

My suggestion would be to simplify your network. Do you need to have an ADSL modem and an ADSL modem with wireless running together? Why not use the one ADSL modem with wireless as your main network gateway + wireless interface?

If you must keep both I would check the following:

- Turn off Windows Firewall + any other firewall software you have running on your laptop.
- Do you have Norton Antivirus? If so, uninstall this and replace with AVG.
- Is DHCP running on both the modem and wireless - if so, turn if off on one device so you only have one DHCP server.
- Have you done a Google search on your wireless modem and it's firmware version? You may need to do a firmware upgrade.
- Try a different modem and wireless modem.

Welcome to Geekzone by the way!

fergs

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#152221 28-Jul-2008 21:48

Hi, and thanks for your reply.

My wireless router is only a router - no modem. So I do need both and am using them as my main network gateway and wireless interface. I have turned DHCP off on the modem, and so my addresses come from the router.

I will have a look at the firmware though and see if it needs an upgrade. If that doesn't work, then maybe a new modem is the answer - especially as this one keeps dropping the internet connection which is highly annoying.

Cheers

fergs

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#152223 28-Jul-2008 22:00

Aha it is fixed! I turned off the firewalls on both the router and the modem. And I also turned off the upnp on the modem. And omehow miraculously utorrent tells me that my port is forwarded properly now, and gives me back my good connection. One problem down, just the whole modem cutting out every twelve minutes to fix now :)

nate

6473 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

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Lifetime subscriber

#152224 28-Jul-2008 22:04

fergs: I will have a look at the firmware though and see if it needs an upgrade. If that doesn't work, then maybe a new modem is the answer - especially as this one keeps dropping the internet connection which is highly annoying.

No worries fergs, glad I could help out.

When doing a firmware upgrade, make sure you do the following:

Make sure you pick the right firmware from the manufacturer's website, and the right language (I've been caught out upgrading to a newer firmware, but it put the modem in Chinese).
Whatever you do, do not turn off power to your modem in the middle of a firmware upgrade. You will brick (break) it.

Keep us up to date with how it works out.

fergs

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#152679 30-Jul-2008 13:20

I have now had my Dynalink RTA1320 modem with a solid connection for over 24 hours. I'm getting constant 3000+ kbps speeds from Speedtest.net and the modem is no longer running hot. How did I do it you may ask? Well, I disabled support for all ADSL modes except G.dmt and this seemed to fix it.

Now I just have to figure out what isn't going to work properly now that ADSL2+ is disabled.