I've noticed that even though I pay for a 1000 Mbps connection, my downloads and updates on Steam are painfully slow. Right now, I'm trying to download the new Helldivers update, which is 11 GB, and it's estimating a 3-hour wait. In contrast, downloading videos from Chrome is super fast—I can pull down 5 GB in just a couple of minutes. This speed issue has been consistent ever since I upgraded my internet package from 600 Mbps to 1000 Mbps. I've tested my speed with Ookla and it shows I'm getting the speeds I should be. I've also checked that Steam isn't capping my download speed and ensured no other devices are using up bandwidth. Here are some steps I've already taken to try to fix the issue: I disabled disk write caching, changed the priority for steam.exe in Task Manager, and cleared my download cache. My PC specs are as follows: GPU: Nvidia 2070 8G, CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K @ 3.80GHz, Motherboard: MSI Z490-A PRO, RAM: 32 GB DDR4, and I'm running on Windows 10.
2 Answers
You might be overlooking the type of drives you’re using. What kind of hard drives do you have, and how full are they? If they’re SSDs, that’s great, but if they’re older drives, it could be a bottleneck. Make sure your drives are up to date with the latest firmware as well, that can also help with performance.
It sounds like you’ve tried a lot already! Just to clarify, when you disabled disk write caching, that tends to slow things down rather than speed them up. You might want to enable that again. Also, check your download speed settings in Steam—sometimes it fluctuates. It can be affected by factors like file checking, whether Steam is decompressing files, or even the speed of your hard drives. Many users find that their download speeds vary depending on these factors, and sometimes the Steam server might be a bit slow too, even if it's rare.
Got it! So, I should turn disk write caching back on, then? Also, how do I check the download speed settings in Steam?
Thanks for the tip! I’ve checked, and both my OS and the drive for Helldivers are SSDs and have about 50-70% space left. Should I be worried about the HDD I have for other games?