Steam Client Unable To Download Games Properly | Help

[serialXR]

Hello ppl

In the last month I am having issues with downloading games Steam and I have NO IDEA how to fix it. So what happens is I start downloading a game, it goes fine for a while then boom download speed dips to 1 mbps. Shortly after that it says "Corrupted Download" and stops the download. Changing the region and restarting steam makes it able to continue for a while until it repeats. Another solution is limiting the download speed to 15 mbps. For some reason it works. My normal download speed is around 30mbps.

I also contacted support and after talking with them for a while this was their response:

After investigating your Steam log files it looks like you are experiencing a failed unpacking chunk error while trying to download and install your games. This error occurs when Steam goes to unpack files that have been download for the game but those unpacked files fail verification (meaning the file chunk downloaded was corrupted in some way). This issue is generally caused by local hard drive or memory corruption on your system, however, if you had recently backed up or transferred files from another location for this game recently that could also be a cause as well.

I checked my RAM, its healthy. I checked my SSD, its fine too. I had more discussions with them and they said they are not able to help anymore since.. idk. They said they can't help further.

My RAM is fine, my SSD is fine, my network is fast enough.

And the weird thing is I am only having issues with Steam itself. Epic Launcher downloads are fine, EA's launcher is fine. Like.. everything else is normal. I only got 1 ssd on this device. It has 1TB of storage with 200GB being free to use. I did not change anything with the file locations either. I tried fixing library and reinstalling steam too. Nothing fixed it completely.

My Specs(Laptop):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS/
GPU1: AMD Radeon 780M
GPU2: NVIDIA RTX 4050
RAM: 16GB
LAN: MediaTek MT7921 Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax

My Wi-Fi connection spec: Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac)

One more thing, when i try to start steam with admin perms it boots with Steam safe mode idk if thats normal. Please help.

[Swordsmachine]

Having the same exact problem, still no fix, have you fixed it?

[serialXR]

Originally posted by SparkelsTR:

Having the same exact problem, still no fix, have you fixed it?

Disable Write Cache on the disk drive you are using. That worked me.

[Swordsmachine]

Trying rn, I'll let ya know if it works so the other people who come across this dont have to deal with the incompetent steam support ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[Swordsmachine]

You beautiful bastard, it worked

[serialXR]

Originally posted by SparkelsTR:

You beautiful bastard, it worked

Lets gooooo

[Elucidator]

I am guessing you have a WD Blue SSD in your laptop then.
This issue is specific to some Western Digital SSDs. (not all of them, and no other brand yes)
-- (unless the third party brand uses WD parts, but usually they don't.)

[serialXR]

Originally posted by Elucidator:

I am guessing you have a WD Blue SSD in your laptop then.
This issue is specific to some Western Digital SSDs. (not all of them, and no other brand yes)
-- (unless the third party brand uses WD parts, but usually they don't.)

I got a Kingstone branded NVMe M.2 SSD, and yes it's healthy and the issue happened randomly, got solved after I did that. It was spesific to Steam. But WD Blue SSD's might have spesific issues I don't know and I can't confirm.

[Elucidator]

Write Caching means 'caching write operations'. In other words, some of the write instructions are stored inside a cache for later execution.

There are two types of Write Caching.
Write Caching in Windows and Write Caching on the device.

The difference is that, Write Caching on the device makes windows prefer the SSD's internal memory over immediately writing to the NAND.
Write Caching in Windows makes windows prefer the system RAM over immediately writing to the NAND on the SSD.

Normally Write Caching increases the speed of writing.
This is because instead of just one track of write instructions, the SSD's controller now operates two of them. One for writing from the SSD's internal DRAM, and one that Windows sends directly to be written to NAND.
You might think that Windows writing to the SSD's DRAM might be slower, but that's not it. The DRAM is a temporary storage place for the SSD. The controller on the SSD is supposed to immediately empty the DRAM as it receives bytes to NAND as well, meaning you get bytes from DRAM and Windows. (2x speed) at least till the DRAM is completely filled up. (Writing to the NAND is usually slower than writing to DRAM, so Windows fills up the DRAM much faster.)

Once DRAM is filled up, you are only supposed to see a performance drop in writing speed; that's it. It's not supposed to go haywire Peak, 0, Peak 0, Peak 0. That seems to be clearly a bug. I have no clue why this happens though.

This bug is widely present on WD SSDs, both blue and black drives, and yes, it usually specifically affects Steam Downloads. It might also affect other types of writes such as torrent files.

Most SSDs are not affected by this bug and perform well, usually better even with it enabled.