Help needed with extremely slow write speed on Steam

[John Long]

I have this issue with steam where it is writing extremely slowly and I'm no expert so hopefully someone more knowledgeable can help me out. I'll go over my PC's specs and the steps I've taken already at the end but first, the problem itself.
It does this with different games but for example, Mordhau had a 480MB update today. Steam downloaded it in a flash (500mbp/s connection, wired) but then took about 5 hours to finalize the update. Peak disk usage was 40MB/s, average somewhere around 3MB/s but quite often and for extended durations would drop below a single MB/s all while hogging the disk usage to 100%, no matter the speed. In comparison, I downloaded, extracted and installed two 80+ GB programs recently, and they both did the whole process faster than steam installed a 480MB update.

Here's what I tried (keep i mind I'm no expert and that none of this had an impact):
-Emptying Steam's download cache
-Checked games' integrity
-Made sure windows defender/firewall weren't interefing
-Made sure drivers were up to date.

PC's specs:
OS: Win 10 64-bit
CPU: i5-9400F
GPU: GTX 1050i
RAM: 8GB
C drive: WDC pc sn520 (250GB SSD)
D drive: Toshiba DT01ACA100 (1TB, 6gbits/s, 7200rpm)

The thing that comes to my mind is that Steam is installed on the C drive while it's library is on the D drive, could that be the issue?
In any case, help would be greatly appreciated!

[crunchyfrog]

Having the steam installation on another won't necessarily be an issue - I run mine across at least three separate drives.

There could be a few reasons why you're getting this issue. The prime culprits I'd go for are that drive you are using - is it a USB drive? That can cause issues like this, especially if it's not a USB 3.0 or newer type.

Second, are you using a laptop? If so, then power saving on laptops can cause reall big issues like this. So make sure all power saving settings are off and everything's set to full power.

Also, there is one long shot that I encountered when I bought my latest laptop a few months ago. There seems to be an issue either with Windows or something that causes hard drive usage to skyrocket for no good reason. What cured it for me was changing a registry setting.

The way to check if this is the case is to bring up task manager while all this is going on, and see what's happening with your computer usage. Is the hard drive (or anything else) maxing out at 100% usage? If so, there's your problem.

Lastly, is your antivirus causing issues? The way to determine this for certain is to start your computer in safe mode with networking and see if that improves this.

[John Long]

Thanks for the answer Crunchyfrog.

PC is a desktop (and is only about 3 months old), drive is sata. Tried changing the power settings from recommended to performance anyway, no noticeable difference.

Gave safe mode w/ networking a try, same issue.

I was monitoring the HDD's usage through task manager, like you mentioned, while the problem was occuring and it was indeed stuck at 100%, even when going slower than 1MB/s. What's strange is that it seems to only do that with Steam.

Do you remember what you did to your registry or could you perhaps point me in the right direction?

Thanks again, much appreciated!

[Maj.Faux-Pas]

Same problem for the past 8 mo.
Would love to know.
Every browser app: Steam, AMD, Chrome, Edge all have 2 minute cache lag and... why does AMD control panel have a web browser? It's killing me lol

[Iceira]

this is user own faulth for not respect 200gb free room at disk win10 10% rule. at a 2tb drive % fail then bigger or smaller drive but 200gb apox still stand. ( consilidation of free space issue and , it cant fix no free room left anyway ) no user has this problem then they have plenty of free space.

[crunchyfrog]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Mike Hawk Long:

Thanks for the answer Crunchyfrog.

PC is a desktop (and is only about 3 months old), drive is sata. Tried changing the power settings from recommended to performance anyway, no noticeable difference.

Gave safe mode w/ networking a try, same issue.

I was monitoring the HDD's usage through task manager, like you mentioned, while the problem was occuring and it was indeed stuck at 100%, even when going slower than 1MB/s. What's strange is that it seems to only do that with Steam.

Do you remember what you did to your registry or could you perhaps point me in the right direction?

Thanks again, much appreciated!

It was this fix.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3083595/task-manager-might-show-100-disk-utilization-on-windows-10-devices-wit


It annoyed the hell out of me when I first got my laptop as I'd deliberately stayed away from PCs for a number of years, so I was a bit lost on what to do having no experience with Windows 10 at that point.

Took a bit of Googling to find the right solution, but as soon as I did it (and I had to reboot TWICE for it to fully stick) it's been flawless ever since.

I've seen it predominantly on laptops, but it does indeed affect some desktops too from what I've witnessed. As yours is three months old, I wouldn't be surprised if this works for you.

Let me know in any case, and if not there are some other things you could try. The only difference I see here is that you say it only happens with Steam, so there's a chance it might not be the solution.

[John Long]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Iceira:

this is user own faulth for not respect 200gb free room at disk win10 10% rule. at a 2tb drive % fail then bigger or smaller drive but 200gb apox still stand. ( consilidation of free space issue and , it cant fix no free room left anyway ) no user has this problem then they have plenty of free space.

That's interesting and makes sense, however I have/had well over 300GB of free space which which means there was over 30% of free space on the drive. There's still something to check there, so thanks!

Opprinnelig skrevet av crunchyfrog:

It was this fix.

Thanks a lot again mate! I don't have any Event id 129 as the page suggest but the symptoms are spot on. I finally have some time so I'll give it a try and will let you know the results!
Cheers

[crunchyfrog]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Mike Hawk Long:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Iceira:

this is user own faulth for not respect 200gb free room at disk win10 10% rule. at a 2tb drive % fail then bigger or smaller drive but 200gb apox still stand. ( consilidation of free space issue and , it cant fix no free room left anyway ) no user has this problem then they have plenty of free space.

That's interesting and makes sense, however I have/had well over 300GB of free space which which means there was over 30% of free space on the drive. There's still something to check there, so thanks!

Opprinnelig skrevet av crunchyfrog:

It was this fix.

Thanks a lot again mate! I don't have any Event id 129 as the page suggest but the symptoms are spot on. I finally have some time so I'll give it a try and will let you know the results!
Cheers

Please do.

Even if I'm unable to help, I'm happy to put my mind to it too. We might get there if this isn't it.

[Iceira]

most do not have slow disk over 200gb and it seem crunzyfrog found another odd issue, and that is your mortherboard chipse driver problem. or controller driver.

and that thirpart units at our board . you might want to try iobibs driver booster its freeware, and not the first time they can update pc , because mortherboard do not always has latest driver.

[crunchyfrog]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Iceira:

most do not have slow disk over 200gb and it seem crunzyfrog found another odd issue, and that is your mortherboard chipse driver problem. or controller driver.

and that thirpart units at our board . you might want to try iobibs driver booster its freeware, and not the first time they can update pc , because mortherboard do not always has latest driver.

The funny thing about the issue I stumbled across was not just that it took me several hours to find out what the hell was destroying my hard drive usage, and fix it, but that my daughter's laptop had the same issue too.

She has a Lenovo running Win 8.1, and I run an MSI on Win 10.

Unlucky I guess.

[' Chesterfield]

Yes, of course

[Iceira]

Opprinnelig skrevet av crunchyfrog:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Iceira:

most do not have slow disk over 200gb and it seem crunzyfrog found another odd issue, and that is your mortherboard chipse driver problem. or controller driver.

and that thirpart units at our board . you might want to try iobibs driver booster its freeware, and not the first time they can update pc , because mortherboard do not always has latest driver.

The funny thing about the issue I stumbled across was not just that it took me several hours to find out what the hell was destroying my hard drive usage, and fix it, but that my daughter's laptop had the same issue too.

She has a Lenovo running Win 8.1, and I run an MSI on Win 10.

Unlucky I guess.

yeah and now it can kick our pc Brand Support in our butt , because they dont care to update thirdpart optimized drivers anymore, and why many use iobit driver booster or other help app to locate the many onboard device our pc has. its not thati dont get the focus on stability, but not have the other drivers at all ie equal bad , we all know drivers are rewiriten and optimized over time but not tell user there is update, well i bet you will not have kind words for it at your product support then you had to go through all that.

atleast we can agree on this fall under own product support site not thirdpart unit that update something. ( because that will be a hell to locate all driver for all over the net. )

this is same as DL Realtek netcard drivers and they ask for specific model type and most has no clue what they talk about, it takes much research to even know what the hell they talk about.

and this is why iobit driver boost or glare update driver or other help app kick in.
i cant say they know that specific issue you have.
that depend on iobit know new opdate and you still have right chip set driver ID it first.
so app can ID what you have. i doubt it can fix a old ! exclamation point. but try it at own risk as always , theyre is no 100% sure thing anymore, most have accept such. driver can be a issue for some.

[Phase_verocity]

well this is nice. both times the fix is mentioned leads to a not found page.

[John Long]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Phase_verocity:

well this is nice. both times the fix is mentioned leads to a not found page.

My bad for not replying, I guess but no actual fix was ever mentioned here, nothing worked.

This was 2 years ago but as far as I'm concerned it was just a faulty drive.
Changed it and things are much better.

[Phase_verocity]

Its a brand new drive. One of those external 2.5inch usb drives.

[JK_Original]

On my last system I was having horrible write speeds on Steam. Ended up getting a secondary SSD to manage games on. Night and day difference. However, there were signs my primary SSD was having issues in general. From my experience, external drives are always much slower but maybe they've gotten much faster over recent years. Dunno