Steam downloads cause entire PC to stutter/hang randomly

[Mike]

Lately I've been having a problem where my entire PC will start to randomly stutter or freeze for less than a second to maybe 1 second at a time when I'm downloading games from Steam. This issue is exclusive to Steam downloads, never experienced it with other platforms. The only thing that "solves" it is to run my ethernet line through my router instead of directly to my PC to reduce my download speed to around ~70MB/s at most. Once the download goes much faster than that, the stuttering starts. My average download speeds peak around 90-100MB/s which is still obviously significantly slower than an m.2 NVME SSD's write speeds, so the issue does not seem to be a drive issue. My performance metrics in task manager never spike or increase much while downloading, CPU, GPU, and RAM remain at consistent %s well below 100 (30-40% typically for CPU and RAM, 0% or very low for GPU, I'm usually browsing stuff in the background but the issue occurs regardless of background activity or load). My CPU doesn't even use all its processing bandwidth for it, it hovers around ~3.95ghz instead of 4.2ghz max.

I just replaced my old m.2 drive today with a faster one with ~5100MB/s seq read/write and thought that maybe the issue would resolve itself with a faster SSD, but nope, still the exact same, which is what brings me here finally.

My system specs are:
Ryzen 7 2700 OC'd to 4.2ghz
2060 Super
32gb Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4 @ 3600mhz
2x Samsung 870 EVO 2tb SSDs (530MB/s read/write)
1x WD_Black 1tb NVMe m.2 SSD (5150MB/s read/write)
1x Seagate Barracuda HDD (7200 rpm, this is not used for gaming or downloads)
ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming motherboard
Windows 10
All drivers are up to date on all hardware. Not sure if any other specs are relevant on the issue, but that's as much detail as I can think to give.

Some other things: Moving files/copying files/etc at the same time does not effect this either, stutters still occur equally if disks are being used or not. My boot drive is one of the Samsung 870s, the issue occurs no matter what drive is being downloaded to, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the boot drive read/writing while in operation. The stuttering stops when Steam is installing a game, it only stutters while downloading.

Really got no idea why this is happening, Steam is the only platform that causes this issue while others download at the same speeds to the same disk with no problems.

Task manager metrics screenshot: https://imgur.com/pQOZk8a

[warnerve007]

Wow. I'm having the exact same issue. I haven't tried your work around yet - I usually download at around 100-120MB/sec on Steam so I'm curious if I slow it down, will that fix it.

I have (2) 2TB nvme m.2 drives (both are Samsung 970 EVO Plus)
Rest of my specs :
Intel i7 12700k
Nvidia Asus TUF 3080ti (12GB)
G.Skill Trident 32GB DDR5 5600 RAM
Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro motherboard
Windows 11 Pro

This ONLY happens in Steam - I especially notice it when games update. I download large files from other services (Epic, battle.net etc) and no issues whatsoever.

Figured I'd respond since we have the exact same issue basically. I'll try to download at a slower speed to see what that does, but besides that, no idea how to fix this.

[cleeb]

Also have the same issue - 12700K and 3090, also Z690. Wish I knew what was causing it?

[Mike]

I still haven't found a fix for this or anything besides just throttling Steam's download speed. I've since disconnected my HDD and made some other hardware changes and the issue still persists if I hit a download speed over 100MB/s or so.

[Nachiinn]

ehh amigoo

[Mentally]

also

[AlexTheRedScout]

Mike eredeti hozzászólása:

Lately I've been having a problem where my entire PC will start to randomly stutter or freeze for less than a second to maybe 1 second at a time when I'm downloading games from Steam. This issue is exclusive to Steam downloads, never experienced it with other platforms. The only thing that "solves" it is to run my ethernet line through my router instead of directly to my PC to reduce my download speed to around ~70MB/s at most. Once the download goes much faster than that, the stuttering starts. My average download speeds peak around 90-100MB/s which is still obviously significantly slower than an m.2 NVME SSD's write speeds, so the issue does not seem to be a drive issue. My performance metrics in task manager never spike or increase much while downloading, CPU, GPU, and RAM remain at consistent %s well below 100 (30-40% typically for CPU and RAM, 0% or very low for GPU, I'm usually browsing stuff in the background but the issue occurs regardless of background activity or load). My CPU doesn't even use all its processing bandwidth for it, it hovers around ~3.95ghz instead of 4.2ghz max.

I just replaced my old m.2 drive today with a faster one with ~5100MB/s seq read/write and thought that maybe the issue would resolve itself with a faster SSD, but nope, still the exact same, which is what brings me here finally.

My system specs are:
Ryzen 7 2700 OC'd to 4.2ghz
2060 Super
32gb Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4 @ 3600mhz
2x Samsung 870 EVO 2tb SSDs (530MB/s read/write)
1x WD_Black 1tb NVMe m.2 SSD (5150MB/s read/write)
1x Seagate Barracuda HDD (7200 rpm, this is not used for gaming or downloads)
ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming motherboard
Windows 10
All drivers are up to date on all hardware. Not sure if any other specs are relevant on the issue, but that's as much detail as I can think to give.

Some other things: Moving files/copying files/etc at the same time does not effect this either, stutters still occur equally if disks are being used or not. My boot drive is one of the Samsung 870s, the issue occurs no matter what drive is being downloaded to, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with the boot drive read/writing while in operation. The stuttering stops when Steam is installing a game, it only stutters while downloading.

Really got no idea why this is happening, Steam is the only platform that causes this issue while others download at the same speeds to the same disk with no problems.

Task manager metrics screenshot: https://imgur.com/pQOZk8a

well what do you expect it means you need to upgrade your pc this what happens when you download anything off the internet

[The Green Goblin]

I have the same issue with
I7 12700k
64gb 3600mhz ram
RTX 4080
Z690 mobo
2 TB WD SN850x nvme over 7000 read write with os and steam installed on it
Windows 11

The only solution I have found is to limit the download speed to 100mbps in steam settings. No other programs such as EA Play, Ubisoft Connect, Xbox App, Epic Games, etc, have this issue and download at 500-700 mbps no lag.

[Clement]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.