Slow Steam Download Speeds

[ScHoolboy B]

Hi all,

So a problem that I have had with Steam for just about ever (at least the past year or so) has been extremely slow download speeds. The problem is that no matter how many different methods I have tried, Steam has constantly had terrible speeds. I have a pretty good internet connection, and have turned off my anti-virus so I do not know what the deal is. I have even tried switching to the Steam Beta Client, uninstalling and re installing Steam, restarting my computer, switching from Wireless to Wired Connections, changing download regions, turning off my firewall, and closing other programs that might inhibit the download speed. So to conclude, I am getting really bad Steam download speeds (10KB/S to 500KB/S on a good day), when I have internet speeds such as 83 mb/s down and 85 mb/s up. I appreciate all help, and I just really want to fix this frustrating problem that stops me from installing games in a reasonable manner.

[Spawn of Totoro]

First, check you setting and make sure you don't have Steam slowed down. In the client, go to: Steam > Settings > Downloads

Go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and check your speeds. Link the results.

[ScHoolboy B]

Thank you for the quick reply; I'm not sure what you mean by checking a setting to make sure that Steam isn't slowed down, but here's a link to my results from speedtest.net.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4362959762

[Spawn of Totoro]

Where I directs you to was an area where you can limit the speed that Steam will download at. I wanted you to check it to be sure someone didn't change them to slower speeds.

You can also change your download region there. If the region is set to a far away one, it could cause reduced downloading speeds.

So, with those speeds you should be getting, roughtly, 10MB/s (Megabytes) downloads. Speedtest and your ISPs show speeds in Mb (Megebits). It takes 8 Mb to make 1 MB.

You should check the download settings and try a few different regions. That will eliminate that as a possible issue.

Chances are you are going through a bad gateway on your connection to the Steam. Steam's servers are working fine, otherwise there would be a lot more people having issues.

May be check the router settings too and make sure some date isn't being throttled there.

[ScHoolboy B]

I have tried many different download regions to little avail; currently I am stationed in Charlotte but live in Virginia. Many of my friends who live in my community who have the same ISP as me do not have these issues, which makes me think it must be something with my router. With that being said, I'm not sure what to check to make sure my router is running properly.

[The Giving One]

Good ideas by Spawn here....

Originally posted by Bison:

I have tried many different download regions to little avail; currently I am stationed in Charlotte but live in Virginia. Many of my friends who live in my community who have the same ISP as me do not have these issues, which makes me think it must be something with my router. With that being said, I'm not sure what to check to make sure my router is running properly.

Are you in fact using a router ? Try bypassing it with an ethernet cable hooked directly up to you modem and see if that helps.

Are you sure all your hardware drivers are up to date ?

Power cycle on and off your router and modem. Wait a few minutes with them unplugged and then power them back on again and test it again.

Check this link also if it will help...

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1456-EUDN-2493

EDIT...you ninja'd me so I see now you are using a router

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Bison:

I have tried many different download regions to little avail; currently I am stationed in Charlotte but live in Virginia. Many of my friends who live in my community who have the same ISP as me do not have these issues, which makes me think it must be something with my router. With that being said, I'm not sure what to check to make sure my router is running properly.

Borrow a friends router (router, not modem) and give it a try.

[ScHoolboy B]

I am currently hooked up to my modem with an ethernet, but it doesn't seem to be helping too much. As for hardware drivers, I am fairly certain that all of my computer's drivers are updated, and the firmware on my router has recently been updated.

[The Giving One]

FAIRLY certain ? I saw a user here once that posted that a driver update did in fact fix this same issue for him/her.

EDIT...some may disagree with me on this but this page has programs that can affect downloads sometimes...check it out if you wish...

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

[ScHoolboy B]

Do you happen to know the areas that the person updated the drivers in? I have updated my router, but am not sure what else might need updating.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Bison:

Do you happen to know the areas that the person updated the drivers in? I have updated my router, but am not sure what else might need updating.

You can go to the device manager and check your network adapter(s) there and see what yours is concerning ethernet in this case and try to search the web for the manufacturer's latest version. I would recommend to only use one's from the maker of your hardware.

You can also let windows try to update it but I personally don't do that, but do it like above.

EDIT..since you say you have good speeds on the net and just not Steam, your driver is probably fine...that is most likely not the issue. Sorry if that was misleading. I must have missed that in your title post here at first so please forgive me.

[ScHoolboy B]

It's no problem.
Update: I tried setting my Steam launch settings to TCP instead of UDP and that didn't seem to change much. Running an anti-virus scan with Malwarebytes to see if viruses are in play for at least the fifth time in the past 2 weeks.

[The Giving One]

Have you looked over the links I have given you in this thread ?

DID you power cycle your hardware (modem and router) ? Well, at least the modem since you are bypassing.

[ScHoolboy B]

Yes sir, and I have troubleshooted through things that I have previously not done with no luck. I think that this problem might be something related with my computer but I'm not sure what.

[The Giving One]

Try this...

boot your PC into safe mode with networking and test this again....see if that helps.

If it does, then you are correct...something on your PC is causing this.

[ScHoolboy B]

Ok, I will try booting with Safe mode but what exactly should I test?