Slow Steam Download Speed

[BOT Retard]

So I'm having an issue that I've been having for years and years.... So I have always gotten 2MB/s download speed no matter what when download in Steam. Now even back when I lived in Chicago in 2015, I had AT&T. I got like 20MB to 50MB/s. It was great, besides Steam. It always stopped at 2MB/s. Now that I've moved away I had Hughes Net. Same thing. 2MB/s. And now I currently have Frontier Internet. 2MB/s... Only in Steam. When I download stuff on the internet, it's always faster then 2MB/s. Even my speedtest.net score shows it's beyond that.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7723641762

What the heck is going on? And why has this been happening for years? I've gone through 3 internet providers all of which download at 2MB/s in Steam. I've never ever seen it hit 3MB/s in Steam. The highest I saw it was 2.9MB/s.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Ummm...

How is your download speed display on Steam Megabytes per second, or megabits per second?

MB / MBps = Megabytes
Mb / Mbps = Megabits

Just giving you heads up, I see nothing wrong if you're saying MB, as 18Mbps = 2.25MBps.

https://www.gbmb.org/mbps-to-mbs

[BOT Retard]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Ummm...

How is your download speed display on Steam Megabytes per second, or megabits per second?

MB / MBps = Megabytes
Mb / Mbps = Megabits

Just giving you heads up, I see nothing wrong if you're saying MB, as 18Mbps = 2.25MBps.

https://www.gbmb.org/mbps-to-mbs

It's Megabytes per second.

https://imgur.com/If5XzkN

Even on console I get around 22MB/s... This clearly is a Steam issue. 3 service providers still the same glitch.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by The_Chicagoan:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7723641762

See the little b? That is for bits. Speedtest and your ISP show speeds in Mbps.

Originally posted by The_Chicagoan:

https://imgur.com/If5XzkN

Steam shows them in MB (Big B is Bytes).

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

18Mbps = 2.25MBps.

So this is correct, based on the numbers you showed in your own links.

You can change Steam's settings to show Mb, the same as your ISP if you want. It is located in the downloads section of the Steam > Settings.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by The_Chicagoan:

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Ummm...

How is your download speed display on Steam Megabytes per second, or megabits per second?

MB / MBps = Megabytes
Mb / Mbps = Megabits

Just giving you heads up, I see nothing wrong if you're saying MB, as 18Mbps = 2.25MBps.

https://www.gbmb.org/mbps-to-mbs

It's Megabytes per second.

https://imgur.com/If5XzkN

Even on console I get around 22MB/s... This clearly is a Steam issue. 3 service providers still the same glitch.

I want you to look at your own speed test one more time, click the link you posted for your own speed test, and read it carefully. I even gave you very clear details how to tell between Megabyte, and Megabit.

[stevebittner]

Megabytes or megabits it's still slow why is the server throttling the connection?

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by stevebittner:

Megabytes or megabits it's still slow why is the server throttling the connection?

You do realize there's a difference between them do you not?

A bit is only 1/8 of a whole byte.
A kilobit is only 1/8 of a whole kilobyte
A megabit is only 1/8 of a whole megabyte.

1/8 means it takes 8 parts to be equivalent to 1 whole, as that what 1/8 means. It's basic division.

His internet speed test shows 18 Megabits, that equivalent to 2.25 Megabytes.

[stevebittner]

yes I do know there is a difference between the two. My point is there is something wrong with steams download servers at times the download slows to a crawl and on most games it stops just before the end and takes forever to finish the download. it's not on my end speedtest.net is reporting 160 MBPS download speed and the same up I have Verizon Fios

[stevebittner]

I have noticed that if I stay off he download screen it's much faster. when I click back on it's doing about 130 MBPS but if I stay on that screen it slows to a crawl which is really strange

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Does it say writing to disk?

Is it the busy time in your area?

Is someone hogging the bandwidth in the same household?

Are you downloading, doing any updates in the background, or something hogging your storage device as the same time, while you download your game?

When downloading you may not have consistent download speed, as other factors can come into play as some I have listed above, and others such as stable connection, infrastructure of the network leading to the server, and etc...

[stevebittner]

It says updating. no not busy middle of the night. nobody else is up in the house I even turned the TV off. I updated Windows before I started Steam. Not writing to disk other then steam according to task manager. Cpu usage is low. disk usage is around 50%

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by stevebittner:

yes I do know there is a difference between the two. My point is there is something wrong with steams download servers at times the download slows to a crawl and on most games it stops just before the end and takes forever to finish the download. it's not on my end speedtest.net is reporting 160 MBPS download speed and the same up I have Verizon Fios

That’s because Steam is busy unpacking the compressed files it is downloading. There is nothing wrong with Steam’s servers. I often hit 28MB/s when downloading, which is my full 220Mbs bandwidth.

[stevebittner]

Ok I will buy that but what's up with the download having 0.1 gig left to go and it just sits there doing not one thing unless I restart steam it takes forever to finish the download!

[NillaDkilla]

i have to admit i also agree that the downloads are very slow. i'm using 300mbps and on many other formats i can download much faster than on steam. I've even had it slow down to 2 or 3 MBps which is considerably slower than my connection. if you can recommend any tweeks i can do to steam that would be helpful too. Cheers

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by stevebittner:

Ok I will buy that but what's up with the download having 0.1 gig left to go and it just sits there doing not one thing unless I restart steam it takes forever to finish the download!

Steam is unpacking files. At that point keep an eye on your disk usage. The amount of time it takes Steam to unpack depends on the game. Payday 2 and ARK for example take forever to unpack. Unpacking is limited by your CPU and HDD speed. Buying a large SSD will considerably reduce unpacking but unless your time is really valuable, it’s probably not worth the price just yet.

[stevebittner]

Originally posted by MancSoulja:

Originally posted by stevebittner:

Ok I will buy that but what's up with the download having 0.1 gig left to go and it just sits there doing not one thing unless I restart steam it takes forever to finish the download!

Steam is unpacking files. At that point keep an eye on your disk usage. The amount of time it takes Steam to unpack depends on the game. Payday 2 and ARK for example take forever to unpack. Unpacking is limited by your CPU and HDD speed. Buying a large SSD will considerably reduce unpacking but unless your time is really valuable, it’s probably not worth the price just yet.

Yeah I'm using a hybrid HDD at the moment for a Data drive with an NVME M.2 for the OS. I guess I'm going to get a 1 TB SSD to replace the Data drive that should help out some correct?