Internet Slows During Big Downloads, but Stays Slow After Completion!

[Adam B]

Info:
PC Model: Custom gaming
Internet connection: Cable internet; Direct Ethernet connection to router.
Router: Linksys WRT54G (a bit old, but has never had an issue before.)

Hello!

I've noticed this problem within the past two days with a certain game that I've been playing which requires frequent updates every other day. The updates are between 200MB and 1GB.

Yesterday, it began downloading about 1 gigabyte of updates, and naturally, my internet browsing was slowed, almost to a halt while it was downloading.

My problem lies with what was happening after the download was complete:

After the update was completely installed (got a "Updating Complete!" message, and even closed out the program), my browsing speed remained at its snail pace. The same thing happened today when I launched the game and installed a 150MB update. The internet slowed upon starting the update, and remained impossibly slow after it was completely finished.

My only resolution to this issue was to power cycle my router and modem to reset my connection, and it has worked every time, but I still do not understand why my internet remains slow after the downloading is supposedly finished.

Is this a software issue with the game I'm playing, or is there a common reason why my internet remains slow even though downloading is done?

Thank you!

 

[theyeti87]

Curious, what game do you play?

 

[USAFRet]

Are you sure it was the 'internet browsing' being slow, and not the PC being slow because it is actually installing the update after it finished downloading it?

 

[SBMfromLA]

You didn't give enough information. You need to give the name of the service that downloads the updates. Also, is there a setting that allows you to adjust/throttle the speeds? For example, if that service's upload speed is set to Unlimited... then it would have a huge impact on your connection speed. It should be reduced to about 75% of your total upload speed.

 

[theyeti87]

I'm imagining that a torrent program is open in the background and bleeding out your uplink.

 

[boosted1g]

Could be your computer still installing things and so the slowness was at the application level.
Could be another program open using bandwidth as suggested.
Could be your ISP throttles your connection after a lengthy download.

 

[Adam B]

To append some requested information:

The game in question: "War Thunder" on Steam

System:
GPU: GTX 770
CPU: AMD 8350FX
RAM: 8 GB
OS: Win 8.1 Pro

To answer USAFRet's question, the slowdown affects all devices on the network, not just this system.

When you say the "service" that downloads the program, do you mean what I can find in Resource Manager?

Regarding torrents, if you mean torrents like BitTorrent or uTorrent, I do not have any programs like those installed on this system. The game has its own launcher that checks for and forces updates before you can launch the game. Maybe I'm confused on what you mean by torrent though, sorry.

I hope I've provided most of the information that has been asked for.