Steam Slow Download? Fixes Are Here
Is your Steam download speed slow? Like your Torrent or other programs can go full speed at 25Mb/s, yet Steam only gets 500kb/s max.
Obviously, Steam is the only program that’s slow in download.
Why is Steam downloading so slow? You may wonder. From our experience, the slow downloading speed for Steam might be caused by:
- the download servers;
- the in-app settings; and/or
- your computer issues.
Read on to see how to speed up your Steam downloads.
Please note that if the problem persists after you try one of the fixes below, go through the rest of them and you will see some improvement.
How to speed up Steam downloads?
- Clear download cache
- Set No Limit to Steam’s bandwidth
- Change Steam download region
- Update your network driver
- Cancel WPR
- Disable unused Windows processes or services
- Disable your VPN or proxy
- Reinstall Steam
1. Clear download cache
When your Steam download speed is slower than ever before, the first thing you should do is to clear your Steam download cache.
We can do it via in-app settings.
- Launch Steam and open Settings. (Please note that if you don’t see Settings here, you should click on the green icon on the top right corner then unlock it, as it is set for family sharing.)
- Select Downloads in the left panel.
- Scroll down the page until you see the Clear Download Cache button. Then click on it.
- On the pop-up window, click on OK and wait for the process to finish.
- Once the process finishes, re-login your Steam and check if it downloads files faster.
2. Set No Limit to Steam’s bandwidth
If the bandwidth of your ISP doesn’t go with your Steam’s bandwidth limitation, this could negatively affect your Steam download speed.
To resolve this issue, try changing your Steam bandwidth to No Limit on the setting page.
- Launch Steam and open Settings.
- Select Downloads in the left panel.
- Scroll down the page until you see the Limit bandwidth to option.
- Set No Limit in the drop-down menu and click on OK.
- Check if Steam download speed has increased.
3. Change the Steam download region
Since Steam has so many download servers across the world, you can alter your download region to avoid overloading or a hardware issue.
Please note that choosing the server closest to you isn’t always the best choice. When your server region is busy, it’s likely your neighbors are busy too. Try switching it to some far-away country that is nearly in the wee hours of the morning.
To do so:
- Launch Steam and open Settings.
- Select Downloads in the left panel.
- Scroll down the page until you see the Download Region option.
- Select a different region in the drop-down menu and click on OK.
- Check if Steam download speed has increased.
4. Update your network adapter driver
When your Steam download speed is slower than usual, one of the first things you should do is to update your network drivers, since an up-to-date network driver always ensures the highest downloading speed and fewer bugs.
To update your network drivers, here’s what you can do (please note that the following screenshots are taken on Windows 11, but the instructions work on Windows 10 as well):
- On your keyboard, press the Windows key and X at the same time, select Device Manager.
- Double-click to expand the category Network adapters. Then right-click your network adapter and click Update Driver Software… (the name of the device can be different on your computer).
- Then click Search automatically for updated driver software
- Wait for Windows to find the latest driver available for you.
- When the driver update is done, restart your computer for the change to take effect.
- Then check and see if the problem is fixed.
If Windows says that it’s already found the latest driver for you, so no newer drivers are found, then you should consider updating your network drivers in a different way with the help of Driver Techie.
Its ever-growing driver database allows you to always have access to the latest device driver that you need. More importantly, Driver Techie simplifies the driver update process, so all it takes is just 3 clicks (for Pro users), and all your drivers are updated.
To use Driver Techie to find you the latest drivers:
- Download and install Driver Techie, then launch it.
- Click Scan Now.
- After the scan, click Update All. Then all your drivers will be updated automatically without you having to do anything else.
Please note that Update All is available for Pro subscribers only, otherwise, you can only manually update the driver one at a time. To see how to manually update the drivers one by one, please check this post.
If you’re a Pro user of Driver Techie, and need our technical support to help with the Steam slow download speed problem, please feel free to contact <support@drivertechie.com>.
5. Cancel WPR
Some WPR items running in the background can occupy too much disk usage, thus, causing your Steam a slow downloading speed. Follow the steps below to cancel them.
- On your keyboard, press the Windows key and the R key together to open the Run window.
- Type cmd in the text field and hit Enter.
- In the pop-up command prompt, type WPR -cancel and hit Enter. (Please note that don’t miss the blank space in between “WPR” and “-cancel“.)
After doing so, check if your Steam download speed is still slow. If so, please move on to the next method.
6. Disable unused Windows processes or services
When you encounter the Steam slow download speed issue, you have to check if there are unused Windows processes or services occupying your hard disk usage, and therefore, slow download your Steam download speed.
You can follow the steps below to shut them down for your Steam download speed to pick up again.
- On your keyboard, press Ctrl, Alt and Delete together to open Task Manager.
- Click the Processes tab at the top. Click More details if it shows at the bottom to reveal background Windows processes.
- Click Options in the top menu bar, then select Always On Top.
- Once you’ve identified any unused process or service that takes up too much disk usage, right-click on it and select End Task/Service.
- If this doesn’t help to fix the Steam slow download issue, please move on.
7. Disable your VPN or proxy
If you are currently using a VPN or a proxy server and your Steam download speed is slow, then we suggest you disable it. If this doesn’t help you increase the Steam download speed, then move on to the next fix.
8. Reinstall Steam
Although performing a full reinstallation of Steam takes a large amount of time, it is somehow a fix that is worth a try since Steam’s slow download speed wastes you much more time than that.
Please follow the instructions carefully to reinstall Steam:
- Launch Steam and click on the Steam option located on the top left.
- Select Backup and Restore Games…
- Select Backup currently installed programs and click on Next.
- Tick the checkboxes before the games you want to back up, then click on Next.
- Click on Browse to change your backup destination and click on Next. (Please note down the backup location if necessary)
- Input your Backup file name and choose your File size, then select Next.
- Once the backup is completed, close Steam.
- On your keyboard, press the Windows key and the R key together to open the Run window.
- Type appwiz.cpl and hit Enter.
- Find Steam and right-click on it to select Uninstall.
- Download Steam on its official website and install it.
- After installation, launch Steam and click on the Steam option located on the top left.
- Select Backup and Restore Games.
- Select Restore a previous backup, then click Next.
- Click on Browse and navigate to the backup location you’ve noted down, select the backup folder, and click on Next.
- Tick the checkboxes before the games you want to restore, then click on Next.
- Once the restore is completed, check if your Steam download speed has increased to normal.
These are our recommendations to troubleshoot your Steam’s slow download speed. We hope the abovementioned fixes help you resolve the issue. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below.
