P2P Programs slow/kill internet connection

Whenever I use any sort of downloading program, be it P2P or Bittorrent (in my case Limewire and Azureus, though I had the same problem when I was using ABC), my internet slows down to an unbearable rate. This slows down my browsing, as well as the downloads themselves. Eventually, the connection dies entirely. All I have to do is walk into my dad's room and unplug then replug the browser, but then it reconnects to the same slow speed. Any ideas?

 

Yap, that the way the evil is.

Unless you configure it to take less Bandwidth.

 

On torrenting you have to set your maximum(global) upload speed to about 80% of what your connection is capable of doing. You can use a speed test like the one incorporated in the utorrent client to find your maximum upload capability. Another way is to watch Azureus and probably at the bottom of the screen it should tell you your total upload speed for all torrents running. Take that number and reduce it by 20% and put it in the settings under global max upload rate(I don't have AZ it slows my whole computer down but it shouldn't be that hard to find.) This gives your client a little breathing room to download info about what pieces you need and which pieces have been received. It will actually increase your download speed and, of course, web browsing.

Example: The fastest you ever upload at is total 50kbs no matter how many torrents you have running. Change the max upload to 40 or 42kbs.

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If you've already done this-- have you forwarded a port for AZ?