Slow download speed

[Sir Hacksalot]

Hi, I've got a 10gbps internet connection and yet steam is downloading at a few KBytes/s.


I can download 1.4gb files from Firefox in a matter of seconds, but for some reason Steam is completely erractic.

I've already cleared the cache, and changed region to check, but it's still amazingly slow.

Any suggestions?

[Iceira]

Are you sure this is not ISP and there partners, that cant delivere the through put.

ask ISP, most only promish traffic into own ISP. not through them to other end, that why many ask ourslef what good is 10g net then it cant get into steam. or other DL server with all our game clients.

point is why will you have to pay for it if isp and there partners cant even deliver it, in other word your isp job to make sure traffic reach other end.

make sure you can write 10g traffic. even that is see before. ( i dont think i need to explan all the bottleneck here most user do )

ps.
do make ticket to steam support and ask them can they get traffic to you with 10g

[Elucidator]

A lot of places don't even let you get to 5gbps, even for big companies.
a 10gbps connection is extremely costy to maintain, you have your own standard 10g fiber cable and your own wavelength lighting up through the whole fiber network, requiring the right leds and brightness and such.
hense, the ISP can provide you with about 10gbps, but often cannot promise that speed across the network outside of their own control (the internet)

That said you can be a content delivery network for others (you can max out the internet basically for a lot of things)

That you download 1.4gb and need 'seconds' just says enough on that note.

Considering KiloBytes per second on the Steam network, likely something is being a bottleneck at least, but yeah-
you should like Iceira said contact support to see if they can let you even download at 10gbps from where you live, to see what your max is.

You should be able to download at MB/s at least-
as to why... I know too little of your setup (pc, network (router settings, etc.), steam settings, operating system, hardware involved inside the pc, where the program is downloading from and to, where it is installed, etc.)

Have you checked the Steam logs?
I assume you know of the logs. content_log.txt shows the flow of 'downloading games' at least.

You can enable p2p traffic logging with a commandline option. You can do other stuff like reading other logs to see what is going on there as well.

[Sir Hacksalot]

Hardware is a laptop with 32gb of ram,
Ryzen 9 4900 HS cpu,
1TB NVME ssd
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 wireless chip


The ISP provides a 10gbps connection, it's standard in switzerland. They're able to sustain those speeds.

This isnt the case of the ISP throttling me personally, there's something wrong with the client's download speeds, or potentially some upstream issue with a server somewhere.

Standard ports for steam are open.
Download location is Switzerland.

Steam is currently downloading at 14.2kbyte/s download.

[Mad Scientist]

What speeds do you get when using Ethernet rather than WiFi? Sounds like a fairly weak signal, as a laptop is extremely unlikely to get anywhere near the service speed, let alone on WiFi depending on the signal and rate of transmission the router can handle.

[Sir Hacksalot]

Wifi maxes out at whatever the wireless can handle. Most the time I use a wired USB network adapater that's a 1gbps adaptor. It's a Linksys USB3GIGV1.

[Elucidator]

You'd also need a UTP 6 cable with the proper copper wire thickness to achieve 1gbps
this cable also must not be broken (obviously), since that can slowdown speed. There are non-copper, aluminium zink cables that break more easily when bend or folded.
I assume you also checked the 'media converter' (whether that is a fiber modem or a router or... a... I forgot the name. Some just have a small stick where both cables go into and it only converts data to light signals, nothing else.)


anyway, as for suggestions:
maybe run steam with -fs_log and -lognetapi and see what the logs say?

maybe it can hint you on the slowdowns.

[Annihilator]

Well in italy maximum of the fiber is 5 gbbit for seconds but not exsist so many router to handle it.

But already have a 1 gbit fiber, actually, in my house and is enough for download all.

I never reach the maximum also. Probably not for steam, in my case, but is enough because can download all in few minutes already :) for me not is a big problem honestly but understand you ;)

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Sir Hacksalot:

Wifi maxes out at whatever the wireless can handle.

How very unhelpful. Numbers would be better; speedtest, as well as what the connection states.

Originally posted by Sir Hacksalot:

Most the time I use a wired USB network adapater that's a 1gbps adaptor. It's a Linksys USB3GIGV1.

More interested to see what color the USB port is that you're using, or if it has issues with attempting sustained downloads from the chip inside of it. Reviewers do note getting "nowhere near the speed" and getting around 100 Mbps, instead of 1000 Mbps, seems to be noted that it can, and has, overheated as well under higher loads.

Does the laptop lack an actual Ethernet port? Sounds like you're doing all sorts of wrong with the setup.

[Iceira]

whats does https://www.speedtest.net say. atleast that explan abit, but what about rest of the way, thats your ISP and partners issue, im sure steam in other end can handle it, but you still need to get there. ask steam support. sure i could say i dont care , but again could be fine to know if steam actual can deliver if all the other ISP and there partners can do it.

my point is dont think we have seen red server
https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/
we have seen event congested network and that can still be a ISP issue that cant keep up.
i hope you are experience enough to understand what we try to explan.

huge diffren in millions of user try DL doing event and you try get DL then its not a event sale

[Sir Hacksalot]

Wireless card is stated, it's allegedly a 2.4gps card.

I use Ethernet connection on the laptop most the time basically. Cable is fine, fibre optic is fine. No other devices have problems - nor does any other software - so it's either this device, or the steam client.

Laptop is an Asus Rog Zephyrus G14.


Last speedtest on the router said 7.8gbps download, and 7.5gps upload.
Last speedtest on the laptop said 110.57 mbps download and 932mbps upload.

[Booface]

I know this was months ago, but I came across it while Googling a similar issue and thought you might want an update, or maybe this'll just be helpful for other people.

This could be an issue with your Zephyrus laptop specifically, apparently the G14 has trouble with Steam and a few other programs and its wifi adapter.

For some people, going into device manager and enabling "Throughput Booster" gets your download speeds back to normal, though the downside is it causes frequent disconnection issues (which can end up meaning that your game downloads still take a long time as they constantly start and stop and start again). That's as far as I've gotten so far.

As far as I can tell, this is a relatively common problem with the Zephyrus but never really got a solid solution.

[Sir Hacksalot]

The closest I got to the root cause was it's something to do with the actual hardware, or driver.

It only occurs in Windows. Doesn't occur in Linux (Ubuntu).

Given how quickly that revision of the Zephyrus was pulled from manufacturing and replaced I'd guess it's more a firmware/hardware issue.

[AI_Princess]

For me it's the opposite. 50-90mbps while downloading from stream but 20 max from other apps/launcher n hardcapped 8.1 for edge browser. Lol. But I'm ok with it.