Computer running slower than usual

[mattimus]

I just want to make sure nobody's somehow gotten into my system. I opened some ports for a p2p program and while it's running everything seems kind of slow. I haven't turned it off yet because I don't want my DL to stop but I was just going to see if you thought anyone was on my system somehow...I don't even know if that's possible or why they would be but I dont' know much about it. I've run adaware and nothing came up so it's not spyware that's slowing it down...It's just weird because now Downloads online go at like 20 or 60 kb/s when they used to be up at 300.

i'm on an athlon xp 2800
windows xp sp2
1 gig of ram
200 gig WD HD
60 gig maxtor

[Miz]

Download speeds on P2P programs depend on the speed of the connection of the computer you're downloading from. If they have a lot of uploads going at once, both uploads and downloads going, problems with their ISP or just a slow connection, downloading from them will be slow.

If you have people downloading from you at the same time you're downloading from others, you have only so much bandwidth to go around, too, so all of it will slow down.

Don't forget to factor in general net congestion during the transfer, always at its worst during prime time. Prime time for the computer you're getting the files from may be different than prime time in your part of the world, too.

If you're comparing speeds through P2P to speeds from download sites like Download.com,Tucows, etc., there really is no comparison. They use dedicated servers and huge pipelines to serve their files while P2P is just as the name implies...peer-to-peer, your computer and some other guy's computer transferring files through whatever bandwith each of you have.

[mattimus]

oh well i'm not really worried about my download speeds on the p2p i'm talking about everywhere else on the computer...i guess they have something to do with the bandwidth too? that makes sense

[Speedy]

Bandwidth doesn't really have an effect on your computer's overall speed. That would probably fall more under processer usage. Some P2P clients take up a lot of your processor and if the processor is using 50% of it's usage on your P2P client, then you will see a slower performace on your computer in general. I know programs like E-mule slow down my machine a lot.