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Evilnapkin Apr 11, 2023 @ 6:28pm

Terrible download speeds

I'm on 130MB/s down, which is about what I get when I download from Steam on my PC connected via ethernet.

On my Deck I will speed test at 590Mbps, which means I should get about 73MB/s downloading games through Steam, but I am lucky if I even get 17MB/s. Usually it will sit around 5 - 6 MB/s, sometimes dropping as low as 0.1Mb/s and not improving until I reboot and it randomly increases.

I've tried all the fixes I've found online, like setting download cap to 1000000, setting DNS to 8.8.8.8 in Desktop mode (which it always clears on reboot), but neither has fixed it. I'm getting pretty frustrated with my Deck as a result of this, it used to be fine, averaging about 35MB/s which still wasn't full speed I was testing on sites but still way better than averaging 5 - 6MB/s. I even did a factory reset trying to solve this and it started off looking good, it was downloading at 35MB/s for a few minutes which not ideal but still a lot better, then it bombed to 5-6MB/s again and ever since that's been the average again.

Any ideas? I've tried everything that Steam support suggests, they have a link for forwarding ports, trying 2.4ghz (which gives me even slower speeds than 5ghz), changing wifi channel, trying different download servers, but nothing is solving this, and I am getting pretty frustrated. Yes I have wifi power management disabled. For example right now I am trying to download the Walking Dead Telltale Definitive Edition on my Deck and it says it's going to take 5 hours, when with the speeds I'm testing at I should be getting it done in 20 - 30 minutes tops.

Oh and plugging it into ethernet via a dock doesn't increase download speeds either, so it has nothing to do with wifi maybe being bad. Although again it speedtests at 590Mbps so I should be getting higher speeds than 5 - 6MB/s.

Wifi power management is turned off, and this is installing to internal drive not a SD card. I've seen videos of people downloading at 500Mbps so I know it's possible, why isn't Steam giving me the speed I test at when I download games?

Last edited by Evilnapkin; Apr 11, 2023 @ 7:04pm

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Showing 1-15 of 16 comments

shadowboy813 Apr 13, 2023 @ 11:37am

It can only download as fast as the disk it's writing to. Check the micro SD card if that's what you're saving it on.

Evilnapkin Apr 13, 2023 @ 5:40pm

It's going to internal drive. When I do a local transfer it goes at 35Mb/s which is a lot faster but still not full speed. Anyway if it can local transfer at 35Mb/s it should be able to download that fast from Steam, but it isn't. I've read and posted around and a lot of people have slow downloads on the Deck and have just assumed that's the way it's supposed to be. I have a long support ticket with Valve and now they basically have me on hold while they investigate.

Evilnapkin Apr 17, 2023 @ 5:45pm

I switched to Win11 on my Deck and it downloads at 60-65Mb/s (not Mbps, Mb/s) from Steam. So why do I average 5Mb/s on SteamOS, when speedtest is 500Mbps? I didn't do anything with the Windows install but install Deck drivers, no fiddling, and it got those speeds. Deck I have done probably 10 different things and no change. Steam support is now suggesting I do things they have already suggested I do (and have done) earlier in the ticket, so I'm not expecting much help there.

Last edited by Evilnapkin; Apr 17, 2023 @ 5:47pm

Prezidentas Apr 17, 2023 @ 11:43pm

Originally posted by Evilnapkin:
I switched to Win11 on my Deck and it downloads at 60-65Mb/s (not Mbps, Mb/s) from Steam. So why do I average 5Mb/s on SteamOS, when speedtest is 500Mbps? I didn't do anything with the Windows install but install Deck drivers, no fiddling, and it got those speeds. Deck I have done probably 10 different things and no change. Steam support is now suggesting I do things they have already suggested I do (and have done) earlier in the ticket, so I'm not expecting much help there.

Could you clarify the speeds? Mb/s is the same as Mbps, perhaps you meant something else.

Evilnapkin Apr 18, 2023 @ 7:35am

Mbps means megabits per second, Mb/s means megabytes per second. So I am speedtesting at 500Mbps (~60Mb/s), downloading at ~5Mb/s under SteamOS, and getting full speed under Win11 on Deck.

Last edited by Evilnapkin; Apr 18, 2023 @ 7:36am

Prezidentas Apr 18, 2023 @ 10:09am

Originally posted by Evilnapkin:
Mbps means megabits per second, Mb/s means megabytes per second. So I am speedtesting at 500Mbps (~60Mb/s), downloading at ~5Mb/s under SteamOS, and getting full speed under Win11 on Deck.

Mb is megabit, you actually mean MB.

Evilnapkin Apr 18, 2023 @ 1:08pm

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:
Originally posted by Evilnapkin:
Mbps means megabits per second, Mb/s means megabytes per second. So I am speedtesting at 500Mbps (~60Mb/s), downloading at ~5Mb/s under SteamOS, and getting full speed under Win11 on Deck.
Mb is megabit, you actually mean MB.

It speedtests at 60. Downloads at 5 on SteamOS. Downloads at ~60 on Win11.

Joseph May 19, 2023 @ 6:10am

any update on this cause you can't even use cloud services such as geforce now, for whatever reason the deck downgrade my 300mb/s connection to 8 mb or even less, also when i download a game the internet get disconnected and i need to restart it several times

Evilnapkin May 20, 2023 @ 9:07am

Originally posted by Joseph:
any update on this cause you can't even use cloud services such as geforce now, for whatever reason the deck downgrade my 300mb/s connection to 8 mb or even less, also when i download a game the internet get disconnected and i need to restart it several times

Been dealing with Steam support on this for over a month now, no fix. They want me to reproduce it on my Deck again so they can look at logs again but I won't be back with my Deck for a few more days so will be a bit still.

Joseph May 20, 2023 @ 9:26am

Originally posted by Evilnapkin:
Originally posted by Joseph:
any update on this cause you can't even use cloud services such as geforce now, for whatever reason the deck downgrade my 300mb/s connection to 8 mb or even less, also when i download a game the internet get disconnected and i need to restart it several times

Been dealing with Steam support on this for over a month now, no fix. They want me to reproduce it on my Deck again so they can look at logs again but I won't be back with my Deck for a few more days so will be a bit still.

how did you contact them ?

#10

Evilnapkin May 20, 2023 @ 11:12am

Originally posted by Joseph:
Originally posted by Evilnapkin:

Been dealing with Steam support on this for over a month now, no fix. They want me to reproduce it on my Deck again so they can look at logs again but I won't be back with my Deck for a few more days so will be a bit still.
how did you contact them ?

Opened a ticket. If you google steam support you login select hardware then Deck.

#11

Slim Nov 12, 2024 @ 11:25am

Check the wifi adapter setting and disable 802.11d if it's on. The deck can only handle 650Mbps up and down which should be around 81MBps if your storage can write at those speeds. Hope this helps.

#12

Evilnapkin Nov 12, 2024 @ 11:41am

This issue got resolved at some point in the last while. I hadn't used my Deck for a couple months, but whenever I've downloaded something the last few weeks, it will hit 50MB/s quite easily. Nothing changed with my setup, so it must've been something Valve did.

#13