with the new wireless network at home in use full-time, i have found that while downloading the latest fedora core torrent (or any torrent for that matter) that the wireless network basically is gridlocked. other machines get sporadic access to the internet, if you are lucky.

the culprit? it turns out that the default timeout value for a bittorrent connection is something absurdly high and the default keep-alive connection in the dd-wrt firmware is also pretty high. the combination of these factors make for an unstable wireless network.

the solution? apparently a lot of other people use this firmware and bittorrent and have found a workaround. i applied the changes in the settings and the network is purring once again.

i started to look at powerline solutions which are very expensive. ethernet over your power line seems like a cool concept, but it’s very expensive and from what i hear can be kind of flaky and prone to interference. luckily, i didn’t have to go down that route so that was quite a relief.

Update: Link above is dead.
Here is another source with the solution used.