Why is Steam so damn slow?!?

[Whiternoise]

This normally wouldn't be a problem. I downloaded HL2 at a fair rate of 400kbs, which was great. I downloaded Gmod10 at about 400kbs.

I've just bought X3-Reunion. Yesterday it was fine, it started at about 500kbs and kept going until about 20%. The download is now on about 30% and is going at about 30kbs..

Any idea what the problem is?
(I've tried turning off BitComet, my firewall, UD Agent, web browsers, msn and it makes absolutely no difference)

GMod updated today reasonably quickly, so i don't think it's my connection.

EDIT: The game size is a few gigs iirc, so 30kbs could take a while..

[MysticBiscuit]

My steam takes about 5 mins to actually start up...
And im still stuck on a 512 line.. so 30kbps isnt too bad!

[autopilot]

It probably just server load issue / temporary bandwidth issue their end. I would not worry about it, it will probably go back up.

That said, you might want to check and see if your ISP employs any kind of bandwidth throttling as part of their "Fair use" policy, especially if you are a seriously heavy downloader.

And count yourself lucky, i can only dream of those speeds.

[CrazyMonkey]

I get that aswell but just later on in the downloads. I get 200-300kbp's Download untill *bang on* 94% then it drops to around 10-12 kbps for the rest... It is very frustrating.

[Whiternoise]

Well usually it goes fast every 20% then drops massively.

@CrazyMonkey: My trick is just to pause and resume - seems to work getting the speeds back up.

EDIT: If you want to switch

[iamtheoneneo]

it has got worst in recent times. and its weird how it always takes 30seconds just to show the steam client. guess theres alot more people on it now then there ever has been

[Oobie-]

Try doing it at a different time of day, I used a 100mb line and CS 1.6 came down at 2MB/s which was awesome, and that was at like 13:00.
Managed to download the whole of cs 1.6 (600 odd MB) in 11 mins

[kalniel]

*nods* mid-morning to midday is an awesome time for steam speeds

[Whiternoise]

I just left it on at night and it seemed to work!

I swear there's some dodgy programming going on with steam. The download speed would only go high if i had Steam as my active program (ie having firefox and steam open - having steam selected would boost the speed, it would drop massively when switching, even without any other internet applications oen). I find this a bit odd, as bitcomet seems to work the opposite way, when i'm downloading something the download speed slows right down unless it's minimised to they system tray..WEIRD. O.o

100mb should be a LOT faster than just 2mb though.. i have 8mb and i get maxes of about 768kbs..