Steam Freezes Computer when Downloading

[Boss†Cross]

Title says it all, basically when downloading large updates or large games (e.g bioshock infinite) after a few minutes the computer completely locks up and i can't do anything but manually turn off then turn on the computer. I take very good care of my machine so i don't have any viruses, hidden spyware, etc. and ive downloaded thousands of gigabytes of data with p2p file sharing programs no sweat, so it can't be a problem with my nic card. So I'm left wondering, what gives? Is there any way to tweak the way steam downloads data over the network? thanks!
by the way my downloading speed variates somewhere between 6-8mb/s over a wireless connection.

[Silicon Vampire]

I've installed over 300 games on two computers over the last several weeks and have had no troubles (well, beyond the PITA it is to migrate game data you already have). You should look closer to home for your issue. It's not the way Steam is transmitting, it's the way your computer is receiving...

and ive downloaded thousands of gigabytes of data with p2p file sharing programs no sweat

this causes me some concern, as always. You don't know what you have on that computer if you are running exe files from P2P networks. You could have several root kits by now.

[Boss†Cross]

I run steam and all my games off my usb 2.0 3 tb external hdd. lol Then it occured to me that im probably downloading faster than the hdd can receive. I went to device manager and enabled write caching for the hdd for better performance, been downloading for 10 minutes so far so good but I'll see.

[Satoru]

I'd really really advise AGAINST using a USB enclosure for your games, let a lone a USB2.0 one. The speed of that will really obliterate your read/write speeds and make game loading like watching paint dry. At least try to get eSATA or usb3.0. Otherwise be prepared for LONG load times.

[Boss†Cross]

I had to do a lot of tweaking to get rid of excess crap but the speed of the hdd is pretty good compared to my main C: drive. It takes a few seconds to launch a game with no loading performance issues in game. I had to disable the automatic sleep function, turn off any power saving performance inhibiting settings for both the hdd and the usb ports themselves, and to give the hdd exclusive priority when launching programs.

[Kazuhira]

this happened to me its a shame

[Boss†Cross]

Dang it it's still happening, this time the computer froze 20 minutes into downloading instead of a few so that's an improvement i guess lol. I guess ill bite the bullet for now and shut off and turn on the computer if i have to, as long as im not getting bsod over it.

[Nagi_Def]

I have this same exact issue. Goes for installing games on Origin too (or maybe I'm doing both at the same time, regardless, if Steam is just downloading this'll happen). Sometimes I'll run a insanely long youtube video to see how long it takes to crash/hang and its roughly about 20 minutes but it ranges from 10minutes to 30 minutes.

Currently trying to re-install windows on a new SSD to see if possibly the SSD is corrupt. I have checked it multiple time for errors and, did get some ! icons, but upon checking on the internet about them, they don't seem to cause any issues.

[DoriamVell]

It's old topic, but I hope it will help to someone in future.
I had the same problem, my noutebook have total freeze (only power off was solution).

After ~year or even more, I detect issue:
It's freeze when download speed (not steam, entire network) is faster than ~2.5 Mb/s

I think my HDD realy can't write so fast and when some cache is full - it's just dying.
My notebook from end of 2010 year. Before this issue, I had WI-FI connection, but my wi-fi module was burned down. It used old protocol (with speed limitation around same 2.5 mb/s). So I became to use wire connection, and my top speed became around 5.5 Mb/s. After that problems become.

I had limited my download speed, and freeze are gone. For now ._.
Not best solution, but better than restart every five minutes for another five minutes.