Question Steam download capped at 1.1 mbps

[onimoss]

Ever after I plugged in an ethernet cable into my laptop, steam download speeds have been capped at 1.1 mbps and can drop to speeds as low as 500 kbps. Even without the ethernet cable plugged in the steam download speed remains the same. I only have this problem on steam. The download cache is cleared, and I have tried switching download regions. The ethernet cable went through the experia wifi router/amplifier i am normally connected to. Please help.

 

[bniknafs9]

Are you downloading a free game ?
a popular free game by any chance ?
their download speeds are often slow

post some pictures we can enjoy

 

[onimoss]

Nope, i was downloading an old xbox game called Thief. The first part went at normal speeds and then after i plugged in the ethernet cable it has been stuck at 1.1/1.2 it is also this slow with other downloads on steam like an apex legends update. It isnt letting me post a picture.

 

[bill001g]

How fast is your internet connection. What speed do you predict you should get....taking into account steam by default displays rates in BYTES/sec.

 

[onimoss]

The speeds used to be around 8 mbpts, close to what internet speed tests still say.

 

[bill001g]

Speedtest is in bits/sec. Steam is in BYTES/sec. It is almost exactly 8 to 1 so your numbers are valid it just in different units.

 

[onimoss]

Speedtest is in bits/sec. Steam is in BYTES/sec. It is almost exactly 8 to 1 so your numbers are valid it just in different units.

Then how come the sudden change and how it is only on steam??
It used to take 10 minutes for about 2 gigabytes and now it takes over 2 hours, this is not my actual download speed. It also does not do this on other applications like uplay or epic games launcher.

Besides i dont really care if the numbers are the same or not, i want to know why the download speed has gone from decent to abysmal.

 

[Ralston18]

@onimoss

Reference Post #3

"It isnt letting me post a picture. "

Post images/pictures here via imgur (www.imgur.com)

And try another known working, at speed, Ethernet cable.

 

[bill001g]

It might have actually got slower but what you are describing is one of the most common question we see here which is why I suggested it.

Just be very sure you post the proper units. You can somehow change steam to show mbits and if you only get 1.1mbits and your internet is 8 mbits then you have a problem.

Note when you do the math a 8mbit connection will allow you to download about 3.6gbyte of data in 1 hour but this does not include about 10-15% overhead. So it is taking far longer than it should to download 2gbyte.

Here is your big problem. If it is really only steam then the ISP will correctly say it is not their problem. It is even harder because there is some so called "gamer" QoS software that you might have installed that will mess up downloads but let say speedtest run fine. The issue here is it should affect more than just steam.
Steam for me does very strange stuff. It can on some games download at extremely fast speeds and on other is runs very slow. It also tends to download and then stall out maybe unpacking files or something and then start downloading again.

Maybe there is something set wrong in the steam app. You can artificially limit the download rate to a lower value.

 

[onimoss]

Thank you all for your help, ill be contacting my ISP to see if they can help with anything. Ill post an update later.

 

[Pixel05]

Thank you all for your help, ill be contacting my ISP to see if they can help with anything. Ill post an update later.

did you eventually find a fix for this?