Problem Downloading

[TheTimeCrust]

Hello, 

I had to move countries earlier this year for my studies. Upon arriving here I was given an old computer from a friend as I had left my computer back home for my little brothers to use.

The specs of this computer:

i5-3740  
12GB DDR3   
GTX 750ti

The problem I am facing is very simple. **Whenever I download something as a single file (from a browser for example) everything is completely fine**, I get 20 megabytes down and all is well. But when I try to download things from Steam or Epic games (Games that need decompressing as the are being downloaded) the download **speeds drop to almost zero and the download stops** at random intervals as well as the disk speed. What exactly is the issue?

The internet at the house I am currently staying at is very fast (I get 20mb down on steam) so could it be that the internet is too fast for the processor or disk to decompress? Or is the issue with the CPU/Disk anyway? 

One thing I have noticed is that when I download something on **Linux it doesn't have this problem!** But on every single edition of Windows that I've tried has had this issue, even an extremely lite low ram usage custom windows. 

Please help, thank you.

[Levent]

4 minutes ago, TheTimeCrust said:

Or is the issue with the disk anyway

Yes, that would be my very first guess. Steam can preallocate games before actually downloading begins and if you have issues with your disk (I assume this is a HDD) then it wouldnt complete or take forever.

[The Hope]

What type of SSD/HDD do you have?

Can you do this test with both your Windows and Linux system: https://www.nperf.com/en/

What exact results do you get for both systems?

[TheTimeCrust]

13 minutes ago, Levent said:

Yes, that would be my very first guess. Steam can preallocate games before actually downloading begins and if you have issues with your disk (I assume this is a HDD) then it wouldnt complete or take forever.

Its a new adata ssd that I bought not too long ago

[The Hope]

10 minutes ago, TheTimeCrust said:

Its a new adata ssd that I bought not too long ago

I'm using Steam on FreeBSD, usually you're either downloading, or your SSD is doing work, or both at the same time. But I think on all operating systems there are definitely times when you don't see any activity in download or SSD. I don't know if this is something abnormal per se that you need to troubleshoot, unless you find that your game installations on Linux are much faster than on windows, have you timed this multiple times?

[TheTimeCrust]

2 hours ago, The Hope said:

What type of SSD/HDD do you have?

Can you do this test with both your Windows and Linux system: https://www.nperf.com/en/

What exact results do you get for both systems?

230 download

30 upload

22 ping

same for both operating systems

[TheTimeCrust]

1 hour ago, The Hope said:

I'm using Steam on FreeBSD, usually you're either downloading, or your SSD is doing work, or both at the same time. But I think on all operating systems there are definitely times when you don't see any activity in download or SSD. I don't know if this is something abnormal per se that you need to troubleshoot, unless you find that your game installations on Linux are much faster than on windows, have you timed this multiple times?

The only issue is that there aren't "times" where it stops the download, it just always is doing it on windows but on linux its a constant download that doesnt drop at all

[The Hope]

2 hours ago, TheTimeCrust said:

The only issue is that there aren't "times" where it stops the download, it just always is doing it on windows but on linux its a constant download that doesnt drop at all

Can you still download something on windows? Are there times on windows when it does download?

 

You can try to reinstall steam (but delete all your local steam folders/settings/data first).