Steam kills my whole PC performance when downloading.

[Comandante_J]

Hi folks. Well, I have been living with this issue for some time now. Like a year or so ago, i had a very old computer (Q8600, 3GB RAM, a pair of 5850's, and a very old 200GB Barracuda RAID0 two disk array). At that time, i thought if surely be the HDD's fault, because they were spitting sector failures on a regular basis. So, some month ago, i built a new machine, this one is fairly decent (4690K, 8GB 2133 CL10 RAM, Sapphire 290 TriX OC, and a 128GB SSD. I

I know, 128GB is not much, but i barely use this PC for storage, i have a NAS for that, so i always have like 40GB of free space, or more.

But Steam does the same thing!. Whenever it downloads something, be it a game, or an update, the whole systems stops to a crawl. I mean, REALLY stops, like, you are writing in a forum, and letters stop appearing, the mouse works but the system is totally unresponsive.

And it gets worse and worse the faster my internet connectio is. It was bad when i had VDSL 30mb, then it got much worse with 100mb FTTH, and today i upgraded to 300mb FTTH, and it's unbearable.

Task manager shoys a near 100% disk usage (It's a SanDisk 128GB SSD, not the UltraPlus, the standar one). Running W8.1 Pro x64, fresh install, of course. The other computer had the same SO.

Is this a common problem, or it's only me?

Oh, another thing, it will download in "chunks", so, it gets up to 36 MB/s, then suddenly stops, and says "Busy: writing to disk". Or Something like that, i have Steam in Spanish. Then slowly gets to speed, stays a couple of seconds at full speed, then down again, big pause, and downloading again.

TL;DR-

My freshly installed Windows 8.1 x64 in my very decent PC with a SSD stops to a crawl the entire system when downloading, and gets worse the faster my internet connection speed gets, currently at 300mb/s (around 36MB/s max). Steam says "Busy: Writing to disk". It was the same in another computer i had earlier.

[76561193857876471]

Best I can suggest is to throttle your download speed.

[wuddih]

dont use the system drive to store your games. problem fixed.

[Marble]

I have Steam installed on a 2011 Atom netbook and it doesn't cause the issues you are describing.

Try using Process Explorer to get a better idea of what is using your disk and for what purpose.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

The fact that the problem persists over multiple different systems suggests there is some sort of software installed that is making the issue worse.

[Comandante_J]

Originally posted by Canti:

I have Steam installed on a 2011 Atom netbook and it doesn't cause the issues you are describing.

Try using Process Explorer to get a better idea of what is using your disk and for what purpose.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

The fact that the problem persists over multiple different systems suggests there is some sort of software installed that is making the issue worse.

I Thought of that, so the first thing i did when i reinstalled Windows a month ago (i routinely wipe the system twoe or three time a year), was installing the mandatory drivers, downloading steam, and download Borderlands 2. Then ArmAIII. Then HL2, L4D2 after that (i did this to rule out dependencies that could be slowing the installation down). It was the same, and i dont get it. It's not that i install any garbage, anyway, apart from Steam, i only have Kodi (XBMC), SketchUp, Kerkythea (a 3D renderer), LibreOffice, Origin, MalwareBytes, CCleaner, and Audacity. And not a single program to start with windows or anything...

I want to buy a second SSD to try if having separate SO and Games folders helps, like wuddih said, buy i dont remember having this issue earlier.

PS: Oh, and it still does it if i limit my DL speed to 10 MB/s

[Marble]

Originally posted by Comandante_J:

I want to buy a second SSD to try if having separate SO and Games folders helps, like wuddih said, buy i dont remember having this issue earlier.

It would probably help but doesn't resolve the underlying issue, whatever that may be. Steam only plows the disk when it's allocating space for a game download or unpacking the download, but never so much as to cause this sort of lag.
The Atom PC I mentioned also uses a Sandisk SSD and I use it to idle in games I'd never normally play to get trading cards (among other home server-type uses) so, it's pretty busy and downloads a lot, but stays responsive.

Again, check which process is actually causing the activity and which file(s) is being used, it might help with investigating.

You can use Performance Monitor which comes with Windows, as described:
http://tweaks.com/windows/39199/how-to-detect-what-process-is-thrashing-your-hard-drive/

[Jtwizzle]

I have a similar issue on a system with 128gb crucial m4 raid 0 and samsung f3 1tb raid 0 with i7 @ 4ghz and 12gb ram. It downloads the game update completely(ark survival evolved) and then proceeds to start installing in random spikes on the disk. ~0-100MB/s which randomly causes the unresponsiveness you report. Steam used to download and install the updates/game simultaneously(without this problem), now it appears to do do them for the most part seperate. Hmm..

[Dusk of Oolacile]

Get a decent network card that doesn't rely on CPU offloading all the time, and it won't happen.

[Jtwizzle]

Originally posted by Dusk of Oolacile:

Get a decent network card that doesn't rely on CPU offloading all the time, and it won't happen.

It is not to do with network or the CPU. The disk usage spikes are causing the problem for whatever reason. Even with an ssd this should not be happening.

[Lio]

Try this:
Right-click on the Start Menu button to open the WinX Menu.

Click on Command Prompt (Admin).

Type the following into the elevated Command Prompt and then press Enter:

bcdedit /set useplatformclock false

Restart PC

[Lio]

Originally posted by Arka:

I've been having the same problem the last few days.
Just bought a new setup and i'm very frustrated.

Since it's been some time now, i need to ask, have you solved the problem?
If you did, please let me know how, i'm kinda running against time bc of this issue.

Try the thingy above(my previous comment)

[Iceira]

im not sure you get the bottleneck issue here. if i understand it correctly, you use nas as game disk though the network while you download something on old disk that cant keep up , i mean i have a 40mb/s then it read and write on same disk, and thats not even including unpacking supercompressed files.

most pc gamers have learn from the past have small OS disk just as you do have now, but you still need a game disk to install it there and DL it to there. ( you might even what to move Document to that disk ( 200gb disk ? , even 2TB disk today is seen as very small now , games last 2 years is getting bigger, but thats okay if game is older then, i think someone mention a game that was 1TB now with some mods. so things added up quickly now.

nothing wrong with older pc , its more know your limit and dont bother play games pc cant barely handle.

ps.
most will walk away from post like this, ( then that pc was release as new , that year + some years ahead thats the range of game you should play, but thats just imo.

i think, you will notice same thing as GB network can kill older pc , you do know flooding is that happend to your pc because you cant write it fast enough. 100mb network might be better , and as other post mention limit your DL rate could be part of solution, but that is not part of the cpu cant unpack it fast enough. ( this is same my friend get a surprise he think he can write faster then pause my cpu cancer cruncher app ) and its here tech and bottleneck , so if i want to write faster , then its raid or even faster media , the bus is full on the board , thats the bottleneck, do note i dont play games while DL for max speeed. ( that windows limitations )


and no you cant use the 10% rule on a 128gb SSD . then size is bigger then 12,8gb free , so
even 10gb if *3 in unpacking size , you are in temporary unpacing size issue here. until its done clean up after itself., dont forget the 10% disk that hit that mark seem to slow down alot.

i can feel the same on my last 150GB on my HDD. ( and it dont make it better then OS do need more free room in it self it do make virtual swapfile and write cache.

but if you think you know better GL with it, you will soon get other tech person apply on the subject , but even OSdisk require free room so there is actual no free room anywhere.

just so you know seen plenty of steam user get into trouble with a game update on 50gb patch. and they have same issue as you do,

this is why most will walk away from such post, to complicated to explain.

[Comandante_J]

Originally posted by Arka:

I've been having the same problem the last few days.
Just bought a new setup and i'm very frustrated.

Since it's been some time now, i need to ask, have you solved the problem?
If you did, please let me know how, i'm kinda running against time bc of this issue.

Hi! Well, this was 5 years ago, and if I remember correctly, I solved it when I got another SSD just for the games, instead of using the same SSD for the SO and the games.

Today i have a newer PC (Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB RAM 3200, 5700XT), and on this one i have a 500GB NVMe drive that i use for both OS and games. I upgraded to FTTH 600mb connection and Steam can max it out without any noticiable slowdowns, so... I'm a fraid i cant help you.

[Comandante_J]

Originally posted by Iceira:

im not sure you get the bottleneck issue here. if i understand it correctly, you use nas as game disk though the network while you download something on old disk that cant keep up , i mean i have a 40mb/s then it read and write on same disk, and thats not even including unpacking supercompressed files.

most pc gamers have learn from the past have small OS disk just as you do have now, but you still need a game disk to install it there and DL it to there. ( you might even what to move Document to that disk ( 200gb disk ? , even 2TB disk today is seen as very small now , games last 2 years is getting bigger, but thats okay if game is older then, i think someone mention a game that was 1TB now with some mods. so things added up quickly now.

nothing wrong with older pc , its more know your limit and dont bother play games pc cant barely handle.

ps.
most will walk away from post like this, ( then that pc was release as new , that year + some years ahead thats the range of game you should play, but thats just imo.

i think, you will notice same thing as GB network can kill older pc , you do know flooding is that happend to your pc because you cant write it fast enough. 100mb network might be better , and as other post mention limit your DL rate could be part of solution, but that is not part of the cpu cant unpack it fast enough. ( this is same my friend get a surprise he think he can write faster then pause my cpu cancer cruncher app ) and its here tech and bottleneck , so if i want to write faster , then its raid or even faster media , the bus is full on the board , thats the bottleneck, do note i dont play games while DL for max speeed. ( that windows limitations )


and no you cant use the 10% rule on a 128gb SSD . then size is bigger then 12,8gb free , so
even 10gb if *3 in unpacking size , you are in temporary unpacing size issue here. until its done clean up after itself., dont forget the 10% disk that hit that mark seem to slow down alot.

i can feel the same on my last 150GB on my HDD. ( and it dont make it better then OS do need more free room in it self it do make virtual swapfile and write cache.

but if you think you know better GL with it, you will soon get other tech person apply on the subject , but even OSdisk require free room so there is actual no free room anywhere.

just so you know seen plenty of steam user get into trouble with a game update on 50gb patch. and they have same issue as you do,

this is why most will walk away from such post, to complicated to explain.

I'm having trouble following your message, maybe english is not your native language?, but no, I never used a network drive to install games, I think you misunderstood.

The issue got solved when I got another SSD just for games, and I'm having trouble imagining it was the CPU's fault, given that the 4690K was one of the fastest CPUs on the market for single-core tasks.

Also, the SSD always had more than 25% of space free, and that's including space allocation for the the game I was downloading.

In any case, now I have a much newer PC with a NVMe 500GB SSD and I can max out my 600mb FTTH connection in steam and still use the PC normally, so I dont have any problems with it anymore.

[Iceira]

Good then you can see huge diffrence in performance , and why older tech get into trouble then they just aient part of the Main games requirements, but many think they are.

its not that you get then you read your first topic, what you need to do is sorting games after what they can. ( same as i will not install games , then this laptop is over 10 years old now most newer games forget it. )

[DerpLvlAsian]

I recently built a new pc, and this time its a monster. Ryzen 9 3900XT, GeForce RTX 3070, 32GB of g.skill Trident Z RAM in dual channel config, 2TB Samsung EVO 970 Plus SSD, B550 Tomahawk motherboard. Problem is, i basically have the same issue. Downloading games on steam, epic games, or any other client just kills my performance. Its also way lower than it should be, downloading at around 500KB/s while my connection is around 35MB/s. Other than the fact that my memory usage is always near 50% because of my habit to leave chrome open with like 50 tabs, there is no performance bottleneck. The thing it does say is that power usage is very high for some apps, but power should be no problem with a seasonic 750 Watt 80+ Titanium PSU, though i already have problems with its hybrid mode not working and the fan just always turning on and off each couple seconds. I am pretty desperate at this point, so i thought why not post my problems on a 5-year-old thread, that will definitely help.