Steam downloads are very intermittent

[Toast Malone]

For about a month now, my steam downloads have been extremely terrible. When i queue a download/update, it will be steady at about 7-8 MB/s. After about a minute, the download will drop off completely and start/stop every 5 seconds or so, usually maxing out at 350-400 kb/ps and the disk usage graph will rise and fall in a pattern.

My PC is connected via ethernet and my internet connection is plenty capable of relatively quick downloads. Everything else using the internet on my pc works perfectly fine.

I've tried changing download regions several times. I've also run at least 10 different virus scan programs and used the Windows Defender offline scan. I've reset my router, restarted my PC, designated all bandwidth priority to Steam, resinstalled my network drivers, and reinstalled Steam at least 5 times.

One thing I notice is whenever this happens, 9 times out of 10, Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry is at the top of the disk usage list. It doesn't use too much of my network resources, according to task manager at least, but at the time this looks like the culprit. I've tried every method under the sun to permanently get rid of it, but I don't think it's going anywhere. I've disabled every automatic "help Microsoft improve windows by submitting samples" type option there is, as well as the stupid P2P Windows update garbage. If I end the Telemetry task, it briefly jump starts the download for like 10 seconds. After that it's back to nothing, and even in those 10 seconds, the upload never tops 3MB/s.

Part of me doesn't think this is the issue though. I've used Steam on Windows 10 for almost a year now without this problem before, and I assume the Telemetry has been there the whole time. Plus, I haven't seen anyone else point out Telemetry as an issue with Steam.

So after all that, does anyone know what is causing this, or had/have the same problem?

Screenshots:

Issue: http://prntscr.com/duf05v
Speedtest: http://prntscr.com/duf0dx (Speedtest was done during a problem download)
Telemetry Task: http://prntscr.com/duf0mv
Telemetry Task again: http://prntscr.com/duf10m (After "Ending" the task)

[GuNsLiNgErX1983]

I am finding I have the same issue. Takes an age to commence an update/download, starts for 10-15 seconds and then stops for ages, then does the same again intermittently. Wish I knew what was cause was?

[Jimbobiss]

I believe the issue is related to the hard drive you're installing the game on. I had this same problem but was able to fix it because I have a SSD as well as a HDD. I was trying to install the game onto my HDD and it was taking forever and downloading exactly as you described. Since the game was relatively small (circa 2GB) I just uninstalled the progress and relocated the install to my SSD. Problem solved. I realise that this may not be so helpful to some because not everyone has a second storage drive.

As a side note, my HDD has become increasingly awful over the last year; in fact I bench marked it and it came in at the bottom 25th percentile in the world. HDDs seem to suffer severe degradation over time and become painfully slow. This may be the route of your issue as it was for me.

[Toast Malone]

Автор сообщения: Jimbobiss

I believe the issue is related to the hard drive you're installing the game on. I had this same problem but was able to fix it because I have a SSD as well as a HDD. I was trying to install the game onto my HDD and it was taking forever and downloading exactly as you described. Since the game was relatively small (circa 2GB) I just uninstalled the progress and relocated the install to my SSD. Problem solved. I realise that this may not be so helpful to some because not everyone has a second storage drive.

As a side note, my HDD has become increasingly awful over the last year; in fact I bench marked it and it came in at the bottom 25th percentile in the world. HDDs seem to suffer severe degradation over time and become painfully slow. This may be the route of your issue as it was for me.

Interesting. I'll have to try it. I wouldn't suspect my hard drive is the problem though since it's a 7200rpm drive and I just bought it in June. I do have a second hard drive but it's my old laptop's drive and it's pretty slow. Might just wait until I get paid next and buy an SSD since I've been wanting one for a while now anyways.

[Paul]

I was having this problem too but I found a solution which worked for me, which was to unplug my Xbox controller.
See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/5qa525/steam_wont_launch_unless_in_safe_mode/
This was not exactly the same issue, but it also involved Windows system services messing with Steam's download ability, it appears to be related to whatever system service is used for peripheral controllers such as joysticks and gamepads.
Hope this works for you.

[Sarbe]

Автор сообщения: Jimbobiss

I believe the issue is related to the hard drive you're installing the game on. I had this same problem but was able to fix it because I have a SSD as well as a HDD. I was trying to install the game onto my HDD and it was taking forever and downloading exactly as you described. Since the game was relatively small (circa 2GB) I just uninstalled the progress and relocated the install to my SSD. Problem solved. I realise that this may not be so helpful to some because not everyone has a second storage drive.

As a side note, my HDD has become increasingly awful over the last year; in fact I bench marked it and it came in at the bottom 25th percentile in the world. HDDs seem to suffer severe degradation over time and become painfully slow. This may be the route of your issue as it was for me.

That's not entirely correct. Ofcourse all harddrives degrade overtime with usage. But it's actually HDD's which degrade much slower than SSD's. They're also generally better for longer term storage. The trade off for it, and the whole reason for the widespread adoption of SSD's is that even though they have a more limited number of times you can 'write' on it. (put in new data, remove old data, etc.). The writing speed is much much faster.

So my best guess as to what is actually happening is that a lot of older HDD's performing terribly because they're both A: old, and therefore slower than they used to. And B: internet speeds have been steadily increasing. So it's probably an issue where the writing speed of your HDD literally cannot keep up with your download speed and needs regular breaks to put the new bits that were downloaded on the disc before continuing.
If you just want the download to be done fast but do want to store things on your HDD what you can try is downloading to your SSD and then moving them to your steamlibrary file on the HDD after your download has finished.