Question steam and blizzard downloas speed max 1.2MB/s

[Pixel05]

Hi, i have a problem since last friday where my download speed on battle.net and steam are only reaching as high as 1.2MB/s.
when i download on chrome, i get almost 50MB/s and i have a 1gigabit network at home, that at the moment of writing gets up to 580Mb/s.
i already tried using another cable, reinstalling battle.net & steam, downloading with firewall off, downloading the games on my hdd (instead of SSD)

I am also aware of the confusion about Megabytes and Megabits. i add the pictures of what i mean.
can someone please help? its driving me crazy.

https://imgur.com/a/Osg1TBa

View: https://imgur.com/a/Osg1TBa

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's most probably a limitation of those servers. That happens when you consistently have more than a million simultaneously connected users on your servers, and maybe much more than that. It could also be that your ISP is throttling certain type of activity. Who is your ISP?

Could also be that somebody has changed a setting on your router? Is this YOUR home and system or do you have parents/roommates who might have made changes to your router settings?

 

[bill001g]

It not likely going to be a true network issue more some software is limiting. Since it works for speedtest it can't be something easy like a cable or driver setting. I guess you could try disabling IPv6 in the nic but I doubt that is the issue.

The main difference between the traffic that works and the stuff that does not is the stuff that works is running via a browser.

It is strange it just started to happen but a very common cause is some so called "gaming" QoS or accelerator software. This garbage is bundled with many motherboards and video cards...asus in particular. It has many names but a very common one is CFOSspeed.
I would uninstall that software.

You could check the router also for similar stuff but generally you would remember setting this stuff if the router even has these so called gamer features.

 

[Darkbreeze]

You could check the router also for similar stuff but generally you would remember setting this stuff if the router even has these so called gamer features.

Unless of course a parent or somebody else changed that setting because the gaming server traffic was eating up all the bandwidth, which I've seen happen a fair number of times in threads around here. I agree it's less likely than the accelerator app from bundled software but it has occasionally come up before.

 

[randyh121]

I'm curious what the solution is to this as I've had similar issues with steam

 

[Pixel05]

It's most probably a limitation of those servers. That happens when you consistently have more than a million simultaneously connected users on your servers, and maybe much more than that. It could also be that your ISP is throttling certain type of activity. Who is your ISP?

Could also be that somebody has changed a setting on your router? Is this YOUR home and system or do you have parents/roommates who might have made changes to your router settings?

would a limitation not be weird? Since it just happend friday and because it Steam AND Battle.net?
mij ISP is Telenet (Belgium). If it is throttling, then everybody with the same ISP would have this issue right?

No it's my own home system and my girlfiend doesn't know anything about these thinds so she would nog make changes.

 

[Pixel05]

It not likely going to be a true network issue more some software is limiting. Since it works for speedtest it can't be something easy like a cable or driver setting. I guess you could try disabling IPv6 in the nic but I doubt that is the issue.

The main difference between the traffic that works and the stuff that does not is the stuff that works is running via a browser.

It is strange it just started to happen but a very common cause is some so called "gaming" QoS or accelerator software. This garbage is bundled with many motherboards and video cards...asus in particular. It has many names but a very common one is CFOSspeed.
I would uninstall that software.

You could check the router also for similar stuff but generally you would remember setting this stuff if the router even has these so called gamer features.

i will try disabling IPv6. I indeed had CFOSspeed automaticly installed with MSI, but after deleting this & restarting my PC, the problem is still there.
And yes i normaly don't touch my router settings, only my girlfriend lives with me and she doesn't even use a PC. Also, she was at sleep at that moment.
I also checked my network usge in task manager and it only uses 0% to 1% when i download at 1.2MB/s.

 

[Pixel05]

Unless of course a parent or somebody else changed that setting because the gaming server traffic was eating up all the bandwidth, which I've seen happen a fair number of times in threads around here. I agree it's less likely than the accelerator app from bundled software but it has occasionally come up before.

Edit: when checking task manager, at the moment of downloading at 1.MB/s my network usage is only 0 - 1%.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If it is throttling, then everybody with the same ISP would have this issue right?

Absolutely not. In fact, VERY MUCH absolutely not. Not only does the ISP NOT have to throttle anybody else in order to throttle you, they can specifically throttle ONLY certain kinds of traffic, or give preference to your bandwidth when you are visiting sites that offer specific types of content and have paid the ISP to give them preferential treatment. Gaming servers are usually not among those kinds of companies.

ISP Throttling: How Do You Know If You’re Being Throttled?

Editor’s Note: On April 25, 2024, the FCC reclassified ISPs once again under Title II. That means net neutrality regulations have gone back into effect. These

www.security.org

 

[Darkbreeze]

Did you install, uninstall, change or otherwise modify ANYTHING on the system whether it's hardware, software or settings, on either the PC, router or modem, at or around roughly the time on Friday that you began noticing that there was a change in speed?

Have you checked again since then?

The fact that your network usage shows only 1% probably doesn't mean much, as that is likely referencing 1% of your network adapters capability, not 1% of your actual ISP tier maximum bandwidth. And it also very much depends on what kind of connection you have. DSL connections for example are generally just you between your house and the local central office, not shared. Cable connections are generally shared with other users in that neighborhood or section of the network. Fiber optic, generally also shared but the bandwith is so high it typically doesn't matter, just what tier you're on.

I get like 375-425mbps speeds when I run speed tests as well, but in real world applications I never see those kinds of speeds because it's dependent on how far away the server you are trying to access is, how many others are accessing it at the time, how many others are accessing OTHER sites that share the use of the networks BETWEEN you and that server even if they aren't actually accessing the same server, the time of day it is (Because different times of day will generally mean more or less people online at that time) and also sometimes if some normally used section of the network is down and traffic has to be re-routed through other, longer means of "getting you there" to where you are trying to access.

Bill knows far more than I about this so whatever he says likely greatly outweighs what I can offer, but so far as I know all of THIS ^^^^^ is completely accurate. Which still doesn't necessarily mean that any of those things ARE your problem.

Another thing to consider is even if you uninstall a program that has made changes to your network configuration to supposedly "optimize" it, it doesn't mean that it always changes those settings back. Sometimes it's necessary to reinstall the network adapter drivers or even in some cases completely reinstall Windows if you don't want to go through a lengthy process of finding the unwanted configuration setting somewhere in the registry or device configuration settings.

Probably not a bad idea to go to the motherboard product support page (Or the page for your NIC if you have an add in card installed) and download/install the latest driver, even if it's the same one you already have, so that the settings are returned to the default configuration.

 

[Pixel05]

update: after installing windows again, im getting 110MB/s when downloading with blizzard & around the same on steam
thank you everyone for your input and help!
If someone has the same problem, i installed windows without formatting my game drive so it go's fast.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, it's usually a lot faster to reinstall Windows than it is to try and track down these kinds of problems which is why I mentioned it. Glad you got it sorted out man. Good luck.

 

[Pixel05]

Yeah, it's usually a lot faster to reinstall Windows than it is to try and track down these kinds of problems which is why I mentioned it. Glad you got it sorted out man. Good luck.

True but i honestly still want to now what is was 🤔 also the only question that i asked the internet where i could not find answers for. Strange, especially because a lot of people have this.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I already told you what it most likely was. A LOT of software does not revert it's registry changes when you uninstall it. Not just "gaming optimization" software or utilities, but LOTS of software and utilities. Especially software that specifically tweaks those settings. It's simply lazy dev work and it's very common.

 

[Pixel05]

Yeah true you did! It sucks that they make it that way.. however, its solved now so how do i put this post on "solved"? 😅

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, it's the first line in my signature. Right next to where it says "Note".

Just click the trophy icon above the up/down vote arrows to the left of whichever post was most helpful.