Terrible Steam issues.

[curlycrouton]

Dear Esteemed Escapists (specifically PC gamers).

I appear to be having some terrible trouble with Steam. You see, I love steam, and all it has to offer in terms of straightforward online purchasing and ease of access. I was a happy user until recently, when all of a sudden, and with no apparent cause, I have incredibly slow transfer speeds with Steam, and Steam only.
The maximum speed I am able to download at is around 15/kbps. This leaves me effectively unable to download and update games on Steam without leaving my computer on for long periods of time, something which I do not want to do.
I would like to stress again that all other transfer speeds etc. are perfectly adequate. I also know it's not my district, as a friend who lives not far away at all downloads at 700/kbps.

Any helpful suggestions as to what I can do to fix this? Also, has anyone else had/got this problem?
Thank you.

 

[TMAN10112]

I've had this problem with everything but steam, for me it just stops compleatly sometimes.
I would help if I could find a solution for the problem myself.

 

[Ronwue]

Well... from what information you gave out it's a bit hard to pinpoint the problem. I would ask, what sort of internet connection you have, what provider, what events happened before the decrease in speed, do you and your friend share the same internet provider, so on and so forth. If I would have to take a wild guess, I'd say it's a temporary problem cause by either great stress on the server from which you download, or sudden temporary bad peering between your internet provider and steam internet provider.

How to fix... contact both steam customer support and your internet provider and say your beef. I always do that when stuff with the internet doesn't go well. Thing with internet is, that unless it's configured badly on your end, there's nothing much you can do about it.

Also, I would check firewall and anti-virus software. They tend to interfere with up/download speed very much. A less likely possibility would be DoS attack on your machine, but considering that it's only steam that jacks, it's less probable than the other things I have mentioned.

 

[curlycrouton]

Well... from what information you gave out it's a bit hard to pinpoint the problem. I would ask, what sort of internet connection you have, what provider, what events happened before the decrease in speed, do you and your friend share the same internet provider, so on and so forth. If I would have to take a wild guess, I'd say it's a temporary problem cause by either great stress on the server from which you download, or sudden temporary bad peering between your internet provider and steam internet provider.

How to fix... contact both steam customer support and your internet provider and say your beef. I always do that when stuff with the internet doesn't go well. Thing with internet is, that unless it's configured badly on your end, there's nothing much you can do about it.

I have a wireless connection, by way of NETGEAR router. I have no idea what ISP my friend has.
The strange thing is, I came back after a week away and the connection speed had rapidly decreased.

 

[ChocoCake]

Dear E-steam-ed Escapists

I found the pun!

 

[curlycrouton]

Dear E-steam-ed Escapists

I found the pun!

Bloody hell you are quick. I really didn't think anyone would get that.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Usually it's the Americans. I find my download speeds drop drastically after 12am and 10pm, being the time the eastern coast of the US (7am, 5pm for them) wakes up and finishes work, I can only assume it's the sudden increase in bandwidth usage from the US. Valve being an american company and all. At other times of the day like mid afternoon and early morning the download rate is fine.


Otherwise what the people above me said.

 

[ChocoCake]

Dear E-steam-ed Escapists

I found the pun!

Bloody hell you are quick. I really didn't think anyone would get that.

I know, I know. No need to tell me.

 

[Ronwue]

Dear E-steam-ed Escapists

I found the pun!

Bloody hell you are quick. I really didn't think anyone would get that.

I know, I know. No need to tell me.

Lots of +1 posts in this thread. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. The fact that your friend's speed has not decreased and your lack of knowledge your friend's ISP, makes my probable diagnosis more probable. If 2 people have different ISPs they could be in the same room and have different download speeds. Depending on type of internet connection and load of traffic in the ISPs network, among other things. However, the details you specified are still too little. There are a lot of diagnosis things you could do, and they are a bit too technical to go over in a forum and some I don't even know or could not be arsed to dig up through the mountains of info I gathered on the subject. The best course of action would be to go ahead and call the ISP customer support/troubleshooting first, then if it is not from them call steam tech support or equivalent service.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

Any helpful suggestions as to what I can do to fix this? Also, has anyone else had/got this problem?
Thank you.

The only thing I could think off the top of my head would be to double check your router and firewall settings. Steam offers support for both [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6776-MYXU-0480] of those [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2198-AGHC-7226].

On top of that, I'd suggest trying through a direct-to-wall connection, just to see if it is the router issue, or if it's something else. Assuming it isn't your router (which would suggest firewall or perhaps some other stuff), then Steam suggests cleaning up virii and malware [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6057-YLBN-1660].

On top of that, I'd suggest checking their list for known issues with ISPs.

Spoiler: List in Question

There are several ISPs which block ports required for the proper operation of Steam and Steam games:

[li] Dutch Telecom (Steam traffic blocked)[/li]
[li] ISPFree (Steam traffic blocked)[/li]
[li] TalkTalk (bandwidth throttling reduces download speeds)[/li]
[li] Bluewin (Firewall blocks Steam from provider side - must be disabled through provider's service portal)[/li]
[li] 012.net (Reported to have connection trouble with downloading game updates and connecting to game servers)[/li]

There are connection issues with certain ISPs that can be avoided depending on what type of cable/DSL modem and router you have.

Please follow the guide for Client dropped by server and Warning: Connection Problem issues if this is the error you are experiencing.

On top of that, I'd suggest personally clearing off a lot of common computer slow-down problems, like deleting old, unused installed programs, scanning for adware/spyware (Ad Aware and Spybot are perfect for this, and free), running DeFrag, and rebooting your computer before attempting to open steam. Also, double check (if you're running Vista) to clear Steam and all affiliated programs through Windows Firewall and DEP.

Lastly, run a speed test (http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest) and check you down and up bandwidth. If your values are high enough, the above solutions didn't fix anything, and you're still having trouble... Then you've gone beyond my basic troubleshooting.

Beyond that, I'd suggest double-checking everything, from router settings, computer settings, Steam settings, to make sure you aren't inhibiting the programs in any way.

I really hope that helps, because I'm tapped for knowledge if it didn't. Good luck.