Is my ISP throttling Steam?

[Kremlibot]

I haven't been able to download any updates for games recently, because the downloads would start at full speed, and then 1 minute later, the speed tanks to 30kb/s, and stays there and never goes back up.

Purged the download cache, and tried different download servers, and it's all the same thing.

I boot up my VPN, and I get full speeds again.

I called my ISP, and they insist they're not throttling my connection. My ISP is Windstream. I told the dude over the phone there is no point in throttling me on specific websites, because I'll just circumvent it with a VPN.

Is there some way for me to prove my ISP is throttling specific content, and do I have any recourse at all? This only happens on steam, and I wasn't able to replicate this issue on other websites. GOG, and Epic games store work fine.

[Popo]

Didn't read all replies. Have you tried to switch download region in steam?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Yea get rid of the vpn or turn it off and restart steam client, then try a different download server via client settings, downloads.

[MonkehMaster]

this has been a known issue in steam for years, it isnt something new or have anything to do with the outbreak (coronavirus), for me it isnt an isp thing either.

my isp doesnt throttle at all, i have tested this at all times of the day, my speed is always up to par, unless ofc something happens to have went wrong with the booster or lines on the pole.

my internet is 300-30, my download is almost always 30-50mb higher than 300 i pay for, my upload differs and may sometimes be lower than 30 or be at advertised speed.

i will also mention my isp is giving all their customers real unlimited data for 60 days, my current data limit is 900GB, it used to be 1TB but i switched my old package deal to a higher speed that made my bill a few bucks cheaper.

that being said, steam always has this issue, there is no fix...

it also goes hand in hand with the preallocation process that steam seems to think is needed.

in general, you have a preallocation nonsense taking its sweet time for small or large updates/patches, then you get to downloading and it jumps and drops randomly, sometimes running at really low speeds and even drops to 0 frequently, then either jumps to your max speed or slowly rises to your max speed, repeat this a few times.

with steam it seems having high speed internet is useless as they determine how fast your going to download most of the time, not including the time wasting preallocation proccess.

any other game store/app or internet download site, ect.. doesnt have this issue, only steam.

[Carlsberg]

引用自 OK：

引用自 Sigmund：

Hey guys.

I think Governments/ISPs are throttling everyone. I read an article that they are doing it to ensure everyone has some bandwith.

My connection is incredibly slow at the moment, can't even perform a test on my ISP.


Since so many people are at home, the usage of internet is exploding, and its probably being rationed.

I don't believe in the rationing theory, at least not from the perspective of them actually being short on bandwidth.

Keep in mind that businesses and corporations use tons of data, and if those places are shut down, that's data that's not being used. They got plenty of bandwidth available for everyone.

If that's actually what's going on here, then I'm glad I can circumvent rationing in an imaginary bandwidth shortage by simply using a VPN.....Maybe some of the ones having problems should try that?

But allow me to put my "bastion of humanity" cap on for this one. I totally get it that some people might totally feel bad about getting the entirety of the speed they paid for, if there is even the thought at the back of their minds that 1 person is getting crap speeds because they're "using all the bandwidth" /sarcasm

Not a believer either, many people are staying home from work and school and network traffic is high as they try to stay somewhat occupied, bit like its always busy in the evenings and weekends thing. But if isp companies did not oversell bandwidth to more than it can support it would not be such an issue.

[Vixen]

I've been having this issue since way before the pandemic started, been searching for a fix for like a year and a half now. Only Steam has this issue as well, when other apps, be they downloading games or downloading updated for Visual Studio, which are really big, they all max out both my HDD and Network usage in task manage. Steam, however, will, in almost all cases, run at 70% Network and max my HDD for about 20 seconds, then drop to almost, or sometimes literally 0 usage in both. This makes trivial downloads, 1-2GB downloads take hours if I'm not actively pausing the download every 30 seconds then unpausing it.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

HDD = well there's your problem; use an SSD.

[Vixen]

It happens on my SSD as well, I just install most games to my HDD because it's much larger, and my SSD is only 250GB

[[☥] - CJ -]

Went to reply but noticed the thread is a year old.

Power cycling your Router/Modem would be the first step

Then

I would benchmark your HDD to make sure it isnt the sole problem
You can use Crystal Disk Mark to do this.

If Read/Write speeds are not above 100MB/s then there is the issue.
Test your SSD as well

You should also do a number of speed tests on speedtest.net, dont only use the automatically chosen server, use a couple in your area as results will vary from 1 server to another.
And go from there

Also
Keep in mind that download speeds will not only depend on your Max possible download speed and the drive you are installing to, but your CPU as well. If a lot of crap is using the CPU while you are downloading something the speeds at which you are doing so will be affected, this is especially true if you have a Gigabit or similar connection, High download speeds can use a good bit of the CPU so doing other things at the same time can cause a bottleneck.

[_I_]

引用自 Vixen：

It happens on my SSD as well, I just install most games to my HDD because it's much larger, and my SSD is only 250GB

if you have enough room, install the game to the ssd, then use steam to move it to the hdd
all the read/writes while installing wil be done fast on the ssd, and only written once when moved to the hdd

[Illusion of Progress]

引用自 _I_：

引用自 Vixen：

It happens on my SSD as well, I just install most games to my HDD because it's much larger, and my SSD is only 250GB

if you have enough room, install the game to the ssd, then use steam to move it to the hdd
all the read/writes while installing wil be done fast on the ssd, and only written once when moved to the hdd

That only helps if the slowing of the download happens on the HDD but not the SSD, which isn't the case here. Otherwise it's just wasted time and writes on the SSD.

[_I_]

steam downloads are limited by the drive
it downloads/decompresses/installs in stages
1. allocate space (disk)
2. populate files (disk, download)
3. unpack files (cpu, disk, and can happen during downloading)
4. move files (disk, when downloading and unpack is complete)

for most game it will be faster to initially install them on a ssd and move to hdd vs just installing them to the hdd

if you are worried about the extra few write cycles on the ssd, you should also worry about windows using it along with browsers that are always changing files

[Kawfee]

引用自 Kremlibot：

引用自 _I_：

it may also be the way steam downloads

watch steams download graph, if the disk line is maxed its the hdd slowing it down

That's not it. I left my PC on all night to download freaking 5GBs, and it didn't even finish, because it was downloading at 30kb/s the entire time.

I'm using a 1TB Samsung Evo 970 NVMe drive, so there is no possibility it was maxed out. Even if I had gigabit internet, I still couldn't max that drive out.

If this is happening to anyone else, just use a VPN. If you talk to your ISP about this, chances are they're probably lying to you. Because I went through their entire troubleshooting process, and they determined there is nothing wrong with my connection. They're throttling me and lying about it most likely. A sizable portion of the data I use is through Steam, a good 60% of it, it's possible they are throttling over coronavirus stuff like Zunkey was talking about, but they didn't say so over the phone.

If this was an issue with Steam servers, then a VPN wouldn't have made a difference, I'd have gotten the same speeds.

100% agree with Kremlibot. I have the same issue and, logically, it could only be the ISP if they "detect no issues" and your speeds are fast on all other apps, websites, and platforms OTHER than Steam. It is blatant throttling of gaming services/files by the ISP and they are lying to us directly. If you wanted to dispute them, we are all most likely locked into an arbitration agreement through our service contract, so it'd be difficult to even prove lying or malice on the ISP's part.

When I turn the VPN on, Steam downloads jump from 20 mbps to over 700. This is so blatant it's criminal--but at least we have an easy fix. I highly recommend EXPRESSVPN!

[Yandy]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.