Steam dropping internet connection *Possible Fix*

[Nubert]

So I had the same problem that many people are having, namely when you start Steam or a download or update starts, it kills off your internet connection. I was able to isolate the problem to the ethernet card itself (my wifi card was fine, router was fine (on a T1 line so download speeds are not remotely an issue). I noticed that the same card in an identical machine running Win 10 was having a similar issue except when it hiccuped, it just dropped the Steam download rate to zero but did not kill off the connection entirely like it was on my Win 7 Pro box. Since they had identical hardware this led me to suspect the card itself. In this case it was an Intel I218-LM ethernet card (On an Lenovo W550S if that helps anyone). I tried all the solutions I've seen out there, updated Steam, updated ethernet drivers, made that registry CafeRate entry, etc etc but what finally seems to have fixed it was this:

In Device Manager, find your ethernet card and right-click and go to Properties, then go to the advanced tab and choose Flow Control and set it to Disabled.

I believe Steam was just overwhelming the ethernet card anytime it tried to auto-start a download or anytime an install was started. I still see it dropping the steam download rate to zero every now and then but it no longer kills off the entire connection (I have a lot of ODBC database connections running so this became very annoying very fast for me).

Hopefully this helps someone :)

[highfivingbears]

Will this fix work for Windows 10?

Also,for some reason,my device manager won't pop up.

[Nubert]

It might, depends on what driver you have installed for the card though (rather than the version of Windows), as not all cards and drivers have the ability to modify the Flow Control setting. If it doesn't work, just switch it back!

I had two systems with identical hardware and drivers and the one with Windows 10 didn't have the issue so it's possible that Windows 10 already has a fix in place, but it's worth a try.

[POLO9999]

Thanks for the solution, i tried and the results are immediate : No longer internet issues when downloading a Steam game on my new computer.

(Win 7 x64 with an Intel I219-V)

[OokamiKun.TV]

I have a Railink card and I was having issues with loosing connection upon launching certain online games, so I did the same as OP, but I disabled the roaming sensitivity from 3 to 6(disabled), and now I'm online! For now at least, hope this doesn't happen again