Steam download kills internet and local network connection

[DaveTheBrave777]

About two weeks ago when downloading from Steam my network connection just completely dies - no internet, no local network, nothing. This also has the nasty side effect of killing the ENTIRE network that its plugged into. So all my wifi devices and everything are knocked offline until I pull my computer off the network. I've been using Steam for years and this is the first time this problem has occurred.

I get a yellow exclamation on the network icon and the only fix is to pull the network plug out of the computer to reset it.

I've traced the problem to Steam. I have google fiber and am directly wired into the google fiber router. I've also done speed tests and downloaded stuff through other apps, streamed multiple videos from Netflix and Hulu...so it not being able to handle the download speed is not it.

The speed at which it dies is proportional to the download speed. If I specify unlimited, it dies within about 10 seconds, at 5 MB it lasts about 20 minutes - I can watch the graph spike then start dropping to 0 quickly then the network icon flips to yellow.

I can restrict the bandwidth speed but that just delays how long until the problem appears. I've dropped it to about 1.5 MB so I can at least get through a download but now takes hours instead of what should be about 10-20 minutes!

I've seen numerous posts on this issue but no resolution and no official acknowledgement from Valve or Steam that this is an official bug.

The only two "fixes" I've seen mentioned in other posts are upgrading to Win10 or get a new ethernet card. Neither of which I'm real keen on since it WAS WORKING before - obviously something changed in the one the numerous Steam client updates I seem to get every time I launch it.

As an FYI - this is happening on a Win 7 Pro install. E2200 gigabit ethernet card.

So just to recap -the problem is not:
* Because I'm on wireless - its wired
* Because its a slow connection - Google Fiber dude - 950 MB download speed
* Because my router is old - I'm directly connected to the Google router, 2016 tech
* My computer is too slow - Core I5 - pretty speedy
* Antivirus is interfering - tried it without it, same problem

I've been in IT over 20 years, I've done quite a bit of process of elimination of the obvious, checked the cabling, rebooted, blah blah. There's thousands of setting combos and haven't stumbled on the right one yet.

If anyone has any other suggestions or fixes please post them here. I'll post my own if I figure one out.

[The Giving One]

İlk olarak aRlolerman tarafından gönderildi:

I am having this issue on windows 10 as well. I am using laptop with network adapter Intel Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz. When I am connected to WIFI Network 5GHz AC standard and start game download from the steam client, I am able to download for 10-60 second, and after that WIFI connection says "No internet", but I remain connected to it. Tried to limit the download speed, but it doesn't help. Tried to switch the bands on and off, but again it doesn't help.

Then run an ethernet cable directly from your source unit (modem) to the computer and test it again.

Process of elimination. Eliminate the router from the equation and see where the problem might be. If you can't, due to location, distance, etc., then that means that the router still must remain a question mark in the troubleshooting process.

It makes no difference if you can use the internet fine otherwise on that wifi. It could be a security issue or firewall issue, for example. Bypass the router.

Also, try more regions. Go to Steam in the top left, then settings, then downloads. Change the region and try again. Don't just change it once or twice and give up while using ethernet. Try many, and try some very far away from you.

[moOo]

TDLR; I turned on VPN on my PC while downloading through Steam and my network issues went away.

Despite the age of this thread, I'm still suffering the same issue and I found a resolution that some might find helpful.


I tried different things before and had many problems. I measured my internet speed using Speedtest on my PHONE while I'm download on my PC

Phone Using a Google Wifi Mesh on Google Fiber
Normally: 300-400 Mbps up/down, with 0% packet loss
While Steam downloads: 10-15 Mbps up/down, with 8% packet loss

Relevant PC/Network Specs:
3900x on a Gigabyte Aorus Master (hardwired, tried both network cards)
970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSDs
EdgeRouter Lite
EdgeSwitch 10XP

Suffice to say this is not a network card, CPU, HDD read/write speeds, or modem/router issues. I tried resetting network services, changing drivers, etc and nothing worked. I even downloaded GlassWire and didn't see it sucking up the entire bandwidth.

Steam will download only at 20-25 MB/s normally, and my entire network slows to a crawl. I can barely browse a web page on both my PC and phone.

Then I thought, why not try turning on my PIA VPN and see what happens. Woohoo, using VPN, I was able to get Steam not only download at 50 MB/s (depending on VPN Server), I tried Speedtest on my phone and it was running at normal speeds.

I understand this is not an ideal solution, but I think it beats taking down the entire network at home. Hopefully this will eventually get fixed, but hopefully this helps someone else save some time and headache without finding the root cause.

[Csimbi]

I have a gigabit connection and Steam downloads at about 60-65MB/s (peak is 68ish).
After a while, the connection dies.
And I doubt it's a speed cap issue.
Nothing else produced this issue and I DO download crap faster (85MB/s or so) than this from other sites.
Did the Steam devs respond to any of this officially?
It's nonsense.

[TacticalGoose]

İlk olarak Csimbi tarafından gönderildi:

I have a gigabit connection and Steam downloads at about 60-65MB/s (peak is 68ish).
After a while, the connection dies.
And I doubt it's a speed cap issue.
Nothing else produced this issue and I DO download crap faster (85MB/s or so) than this from other sites.
Did the Steam devs respond to any of this officially?
It's nonsense.

Exact same issue here (Vodafone 1Gbit connection). I was blaming the ISP at first, but it doesn't happen when downloading from other sources.

Steam only let's me download at around 30MB/s and occasionally completely drops my connection, other sources let me download at 100MB/s+ and don't have that problem.

The weird thing is, it didn't start until like a month or two ago, before everything was fine. However I didn't change anything aside from updating GFX drivers, which are unrelated.

[Mikko]

Download when no one is using the internet or if your sleeping, you can also limit the internet that Steam use via settings.

[h0ghead]

I have google fiber as well, same issue. It's so weird because I'm currently working from home, and my work pc is not affected but my gaming pc's internet connection dies during almost anytime I download something more than a gig from steam.

[The Giving One]

This is pretty old, but if the service still has this process, for those that have Vodafone, then it might still be relevant :

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/154644928857892981/?tscn=1485240636#c143388408895379895

[Csimbi]

You got the part that it kills the local network and has nothing to do with WAN, right?

[Iceira]

as The Giving One exlan several years ago. plug directly into wallplug if rj-45 and test ( with friends laptop that do work at he's place to confirm say issue at your place, this is same as ISP tech dude goto end custommer and verify connections. this ruleout own fault or proof it.

rest is traceRT and ping test and bad packets. ( and tell ISP you did this, so you can say it's from ISP into steam and back.

contact both Steam support ticket and own ISP, ( do tell isp, not the fist time error can vannish doing test isp can have many cross points and just touch and confirm can actual solve this. sometimes, and its rare but have been seen before.

if you lie and they found error at your end you will get bill from ISP. ( thats why you test this. ) and try to gather proof. ( look like OP has left and solve it post is from 2016)