Steam Downloads/Updates reaching extremely low speeds (10Mbps to around 100kbps)

[Avo_XCI]

All of a sudden in the past day my steam downloads have became a nightmare to do, as the download speed doesn't stay consistent. When I would start a download or update, it will begin at regular speeds or reach regular speeds, then slowly slow down until it reaches ≈ 100kbps. Usually repeating itself if I leave it for awhile. Checking with other clients/platforms download speeds are fine.

Is there any solution that works as I feel I've tried everything, and this is a list of everything I've tried:

- Restart my router
- Disabling the internet connection in 'Network Connections' and re-enabling (and physically unplugging the Ethernet cable)
- Clearing my steam download cache
- Flushing my DNS
- Changed download Regions (not just ones close by)
- Disabling automatically detect settings (Under LAN settings)

Is there a solution to this problem or could it have to do with my provider? help pls

[D3AD_W3IGHT]

This has been a plague for a long time, I've gone A LOT deeper than what you listed and still found no fixes. With my last ISP it only happened once in a blue moon but it wasn't 1/10th of the speeds I'm hitting with my current ISP, but with this ISP it affects EVERY download.

People claim it's basically your download speed outrunning your disk write speed so it needs a moment to catch up from decompressing and writing files.

This explanation doesn't make sense to me. My reason being is that downloading a game on origin for instance, this never happens. I downloaded Crysis 3 (Roughly 15GB) in four, yes FOUR, minutes. With speeds at a consistent 56MB per second. Steam has this issue with both my mechanical drive and SSD.

The hard drive claim doesn't add up to me for this reason, but it's possible that Steam just does things differently. Try figuring out your drives maximum write speed and throttling your download speed to roughly 50% or 60% of your drive write speed. It seems that in my case when Steam is downloading at around 7MB per second, I don't get the hiccups. Again this will be case by case depending on your storage drive capabilities.

It's not ideal because your download times will be nowhere close to what they should be, but should still be faster than hitting zero constantly. Hopefully this will work for you, best of luck.

[Avo_XCI]

Originally posted by D3AD_W3IGHT:

This has been a plague for a long time, I've gone A LOT deeper than what you listed and still found no fixes. With my last ISP it only happened once in a blue moon but it wasn't 1/10th of the speeds I'm hitting with my current ISP, but with this ISP it affects EVERY download.

People claim it's basically your download speed outrunning your disk write speed so it needs a moment to catch up from decompressing and writing files.

This explanation doesn't make sense to me. My reason being is that downloading a game on origin for instance, this never happens. I downloaded Crysis 3 (Roughly 15GB) in four, yes FOUR, minutes. With speeds at a consistent 56MB per second. Steam has this issue with both my mechanical drive and SSD.

The hard drive claim doesn't add up to me for this reason, but it's possible that Steam just does things differently. Try figuring out your drives maximum write speed and throttling your download speed to roughly 50% or 60% of your drive write speed. It seems that in my case when Steam is downloading at around 7MB per second, I don't get the hiccups. Again this will be case by case depending on your storage drive capabilities.

It's not ideal because your download times will be nowhere close to what they should be, but should still be faster than hitting zero constantly. Hopefully this will work for you, best of luck.

thanks for the help! Turns out it was my ISP and it has since been fixed

[[JAFK] Fowler]

Originally posted by D3AD_W3IGHT:

This has been a plague for a long time, I've gone A LOT deeper than what you listed and still found no fixes. With my last ISP it only happened once in a blue moon but it wasn't 1/10th of the speeds I'm hitting with my current ISP, but with this ISP it affects EVERY download.

People claim it's basically your download speed outrunning your disk write speed so it needs a moment to catch up from decompressing and writing files.

This explanation doesn't make sense to me. My reason being is that downloading a game on origin for instance, this never happens. I downloaded Crysis 3 (Roughly 15GB) in four, yes FOUR, minutes. With speeds at a consistent 56MB per second. Steam has this issue with both my mechanical drive and SSD.

The hard drive claim doesn't add up to me for this reason, but it's possible that Steam just does things differently. Try figuring out your drives maximum write speed and throttling your download speed to roughly 50% or 60% of your drive write speed. It seems that in my case when Steam is downloading at around 7MB per second, I don't get the hiccups. Again this will be case by case depending on your storage drive capabilities.

It's not ideal because your download times will be nowhere close to what they should be, but should still be faster than hitting zero constantly. Hopefully this will work for you, best of luck.

That is my constant struggle with steam. I get 1gbps in download speeds - 970mbps avg. With steam, for one second I get 900 mbps then it drops down to 105 kbps for a few seconds and the it goes to 0 - It is cancer. Always going up and down. I want it to end

[taurėzas]

so i havethe same problem i just restart my pc after my mbs drop to kbs

[War Thunder Leaker]

Current date of comment July 2023 and this issue is still very well present. Recently I built a good rig with an M2 2TB SSD, 32 gigs of ram and 12th gen I7, it performs amazing in all aspects but for some reason even with WARP's 1.1.1.1 DNS boost my download speed in steam is abysmal.

Where I live you can't really achieve all that lot in terms of ISP contracts at getting some super high internet speed unless you get them to replace the old and slow cables with new fast ones, but I still have some solid 50-100mbps if I need it. Yet on steam download speed is stuck at between 5-10mbps and in order to get it back to the normal speed I have to restart either steam or the entire PC it sucks.

[Fearagen]

Originally posted by Svetoslav:

Current date of comment July 2023 and this issue is still very well present. Recently I built a good rig with an M2 2TB SSD, 32 gigs of ram and 12th gen I7, it performs amazing in all aspects but for some reason even with WARP's 1.1.1.1 DNS boost my download speed in steam is abysmal.

Where I live you can't really achieve all that lot in terms of ISP contracts at getting some super high internet speed unless you get them to replace the old and slow cables with new fast ones, but I still have some solid 50-100mbps if I need it. Yet on steam download speed is stuck at between 5-10mbps and in order to get it back to the normal speed I have to restart either steam or the entire PC it sucks.

Try choosing a different download region in steam settings >> downloads.
Most likely you are on the default option, which is used by potentially billions of people. Choose a different download region and it should resolve the problem. Also try and find the fastest one as that can further improve download consistency. Be aware that the server closest isn't the best option in most cases.