why is my download speed so slow?

[Milkdromeda]

i use ethernet and my internet speed is around 450 mb/s but on steam when im downloading a game it fluctuates between 0 and 5 mb/s. yes ive tried clearing my download cache.

[nullable]

Some people have issues with some dramless SSDs (mostly) and their default settings. Sometimes this can be resolved be enabling or disabling certain features of the SSD, depending on the drive.

But since you didn't mention anything about your system this is just a wild guess on my part as to the root cause.

[Milkdromeda]

yeah sorry i shouldve mentioned that im using a hard drive but the disc speed goes up to 100mb/s when its verifying so the drive isnt the problem i think

[nullable]

Well the speed of the disk isn't the only factor. HDDs can get up too 100MB a second, or even faster under certain workloads, on others it could be in the single digits, and under the most extreme conditions sub 1MB/sec is possible too. Normal mixed loads would have you be in the 20-40MB/sec range.

And the dramless SSDs I mentioned can go plenty fast under the right conditions too, but under certain scenarios and certain configurations they can perform poorly, like HDDs can too. So I wouldn't entirely rule out disk performance as an issue, even if some things like verifying games seems fast enough.

If it's not the disk, the rest of the system specs might be warranted. And ISP issues could be on the table too. There's lots of variables between Steam and what you see on the screen.

[Milkdromeda]

specs:
Ryzen 5 3600
GTX 1660 Super
MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
500GB WD Blue 3D SSD
Seagate 1TB Desktop Hard Drive (ST1000DM003)
Seagate 2TB Desktop Hard Drive (ST1000DM003)
Corsair Vengeance LPX Memory Module 32GB (4x 8GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4-25600) C16 1.35V Black
Windows 11 Pro

these are my pc specs any of them could be problem? also i know its not my ISP because on my laptop i can download games at 20 or 30 mb/s

[nullable]

Nothing seems out of the ordinary. But since downloads work fine on your laptop and not on your PC, your options are some kind of system issue, maybe related to the disks. Or home network issue, or possibly something related to the NIC on the PC.

If you try to do downloads on your SSD and take your HDD out of the equation does the issue persist? And to be clear Steam is installed on which drive?

[Milkdromeda]

if i download on my ssd download speed is above 50mb/s and disc usage at 200mb/s or so and im pretty sure steam is installed on my ssd and also if i stop the download and start it again my download speed is practically the same as my ssd

[Ettanin]

Are you sure your internet speed is really ~4.5 GBit/s? Do not mix up MByte and MBit. 50 MByte/s is roughly 400-500 MBit/s.

[Milkdromeda]

if i go on www.speedtest.net i get roughly 450mbps

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