Download speeds are terrible

[Philsmeup]

TL:DR at the end of this post.

Hi all, I have been having a horrible issue for a long time and I am finally going to address it. As the title suggests, my download speeds are atrocious. Refer to the first link below for a screenshot. All my downloads are like this more or less, and it has been going on for months.

I tried everything: port forwarding, downloading steam again, shutting services off in the task manager, configuring my network, switching download regions, even a complete reset of my PC does nothing. Everything on the Steam Support section I have tried so please do not send that to me.

I called my ISP and they said everything is fine on their end and it must be my hardware. I call BS on that since my wife's laptop has the same issue. I am also downloading on a brand new SSD I just got this year (2 TB), refer to the second link for a screenshot of read/write test. I know it might not be the best for an SSD, but I can read and write much higher than what the Steam download is.

To give some extra info: I live in Tucson AZ (Phoenix is my region), I pay for Cox Gigablast Internet which gives me a gigabyte download more or less (I know Cox is trash but that is the only thing available in my zip code), and I am hardwired to the Cox panoramic modem/router. Refer to the third link for speed test.

I feel I am out of options, if anyone could help me I would appreciate it.

TL:DR - My internet download speed sucks (first link) and it has been like this for a long time. I have tried everything on the Steam support page including resetting my PC entirely. I am using a new 2 TB SSD for downloads and have a decent read/write test (second link.) I am hardwired using Cox Gigablast Internet (third link speed test.) Please help, thank you!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2695882123 (This is the download screenshot)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2695884211 (This is the read/write test screenshot)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2696202720 (This is the speed test screenshot)

[Henrik]

Publicado originalmente por RubiaSabrosa:

It's most likely you have a bad internet speed if you just insalled a new SSD, could you tell me what the download speed is?

Already a sceenshot of it at the beginning.

[Philsmeup]

Publicado originalmente por RubiaSabrosa:

It's most likely you have a bad internet speed if you just insalled a new SSD, could you tell me what the download speed is?

Look at initial post

[Philsmeup]

Publicado originalmente por Ettanin:

Yes i am. I got gigabit fiber with half a gig up (E.ON Highspeed 1000 aka VSE NET). Whenever a file is getting changed by a large diff such as yours my download stops and resumes on downloading the next diff after the previous diff is written.

M.2 alleviated that bottleneck but didn't eliminate it entirely.

Also, as the Crystaldiskmark screenshot showed, the writing speed at random locations of that SSD is pretty slow and it matches the disk speed in the download screenshot pretty closely.

You should see a different behaviour when installing a new game instead of updating an existing one (on new installs, there is no diff to work with). It's perfectly normal. Steam aims to minimize internet traffic, which is why such monstrous speeds get to idle most of the time. It should also be a lot faster because a new installation is of sequential nature, something that your drive doesn't have an issue with.

There is no fix for this because that installation system is optimized to use as little traffic as possible as in more common cases the bottleneck is the download speed of the user instead of the drive. Most users on more common speeds within 100 MBit/s shouldn't come across this kind of bottleneck.


And here is an example where the drive is a bottleneck (a SATA III SSD i still have in my system for storage). Also, this game uses compression during installation which makes matters worse.


It might basically boil down to the fact that you are downloading (compressed) data faster than your drive can write it down after decompression.

Thank you for the answers. It makes things a little more clear now, especially with the screenshots you added. I definitely will invest in a M.2 SSD. Do you happen to have any suggestions? Like the one you use?

Also, do you think my current SSD is just cheap and that might have an effect as well? It is a 2 TB WD Green.

And looking at your upload speed, that is a massive difference to mine. I am about to give Cox a call lol. Again, thanks for clearing this up!

[Ettanin]

Publicado originalmente por Philsmeup:

Publicado originalmente por Ettanin:

Yes i am. I got gigabit fiber with half a gig up (E.ON Highspeed 1000 aka VSE NET). Whenever a file is getting changed by a large diff such as yours my download stops and resumes on downloading the next diff after the previous diff is written.

M.2 alleviated that bottleneck but didn't eliminate it entirely.

Also, as the Crystaldiskmark screenshot showed, the writing speed at random locations of that SSD is pretty slow and it matches the disk speed in the download screenshot pretty closely.

You should see a different behaviour when installing a new game instead of updating an existing one (on new installs, there is no diff to work with). It's perfectly normal. Steam aims to minimize internet traffic, which is why such monstrous speeds get to idle most of the time. It should also be a lot faster because a new installation is of sequential nature, something that your drive doesn't have an issue with.

There is no fix for this because that installation system is optimized to use as little traffic as possible as in more common cases the bottleneck is the download speed of the user instead of the drive. Most users on more common speeds within 100 MBit/s shouldn't come across this kind of bottleneck.


And here is an example where the drive is a bottleneck (a SATA III SSD i still have in my system for storage). Also, this game uses compression during installation which makes matters worse.


It might basically boil down to the fact that you are downloading (compressed) data faster than your drive can write it down after decompression.

Thank you for the answers. It makes things a little more clear now, especially with the screenshots you added. I definitely will invest in a M.2 SSD. Do you happen to have any suggestions? Like the one you use?

Also, do you think my current SSD is just cheap and that might have an effect as well? It is a 2 TB WD Green.

And looking at your upload speed, that is a massive difference to mine. I am about to give Cox a call lol. Again, thanks for clearing this up!

I have the Seagate Firecuda 520 1 TB

[daddy2times1085]

speeds have always been bad. steam needs to figure something out. it shouldn't take a whole 24 hours to download a game.

[Philsmeup]

Publicado originalmente por Ettanin:

Publicado originalmente por Philsmeup:

Thank you for the answers. It makes things a little more clear now, especially with the screenshots you added. I definitely will invest in a M.2 SSD. Do you happen to have any suggestions? Like the one you use?

Also, do you think my current SSD is just cheap and that might have an effect as well? It is a 2 TB WD Green.

And looking at your upload speed, that is a massive difference to mine. I am about to give Cox a call lol. Again, thanks for clearing this up!

I have the Seagate Firecuda 520 1 TB

Hey, I know its been a minute but took your advice and invested in a 2 TB Samsung M.2 SSD. The difference is night and day. After a long time of searching I finally have the fix. I downloaded a 30 GB game in like 10 minutes (instead of the 1 - 2 hours it wouldve taken with a SATA.) Thank you so much again!

[Ettanin]

Glad to hear it.

[NamSkram]

Sorry for the necro… but I have m2 nvme using Ethernet connection. I pay for 500up 500 down but speed test showes me I’m getting 100 up and 100 down. I’ve set speed and duplex to max but I’m hard stuck at 10mbs. Could it be the Ethernet cable capping me out? I apparently have Realtek gaming 2.5gbe family controller network adapter.

[Elucidator]

Publicado originalmente por NamSkram:

Sorry for the necro… but I have m2 nvme using Ethernet connection. I pay for 500up 500 down but speed test showes me I’m getting 100 up and 100 down. I’ve set speed and duplex to max but I’m hard stuck at 10mbs. Could it be the Ethernet cable capping me out? I apparently have Realtek gaming 2.5gbe family controller network adapter.

Use TCP optimizer.
At the very least unlock your full download speed with it by disabling Microsoft's network throttling index.
(In case you want to do that manually: image: https://ttcshelbyville.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/throttling.jpg )

Also your NVMe SSD may have that same weird bug on windows 11 others seem to experience.
Try disabling [Write Caching on the device]. It will slow down your device, but may improve download speed.
(re-enabling after it could also make the speed okay, no clue. You'd need to test this)

[Form-B]

Bruh I've lived all over the country and steam has always been ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at downloading games no matter what I do unless I wanna spend too much money on a CRAZY ULTRA BUILD PC OF THE FUTURE, cause I've had the best internet and damn near top of the line pc hardware and still poop. Take apex legends for example... download on steam 24 hour adventure go to EA or Origin and it takes minutes .... how.... just cause I switched gaming OS????? Like really though, how, that don't make any sense.... everything be in the same spot, same internet, same hardware and download time are SIGNIFICANTLY different. But I rest my case.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Publicado originalmente por Form-B:

Bruh I've lived all over the country and steam has always been ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at downloading games no matter what I do unless I wanna spend too much money on a CRAZY ULTRA BUILD PC OF THE FUTURE, cause I've had the best internet and damn near top of the line pc hardware and still poop. Take apex legends for example... download on steam 24 hour adventure go to EA or Origin and it takes minutes .... how.... just cause I switched gaming OS????? Like really though, how, that don't make any sense.... everything be in the same spot, same internet, same hardware and download time are SIGNIFICANTLY different. But I rest my case.

I've had no issues...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2962270385

[cockman]

i am in scottsdale, az and have cox isp. I have a feeling that they are throttling the speed to steam during peak hours, because i always experience this right when i come home from work and download a game (around 6-7pm azt) ♥♥♥♥ cox they are such a useless company.

[Bill]

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