Forum Discussion
Steam download speed keeps dropping to zero
Trying to download a game on Steam right now, but the download speed is all over the place. My internet is fast—should be getting well over 50MB/s—but Steam keeps dropping to zero and slowly creeping back up. It's been doing this on and off for hours and I can't figure out why.
I've already checked my connection and it's fine on other devices. Anyone know what might be causing this or how to fix it?
2 Replies
If your disk can't keep up, the download will pause to let it catch up, causing the speed to drop to zero.
Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and watch the Performance tab while Steam is downloading.
If your Disk (the one Steam installs to) is pinned at or near 100% right when the speed drops to zero, the download isn't network-limited — Steam is waiting on your drive to finish writing/unpacking files before it requests more data. This is the single most common cause of this exact pattern.
