Vista + Steam = network slowdown

Cozman

Cozman

Cozman

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Hi All

Today i reinstalled my Vista x64 rig & put on SP1 so system is bang upto date & been running very well indeed until ......

brief history - ive always suffered the network slowdown bug in Vista with Gigabit network transfers being around 12 to 14Mb which has been uuurgh to suffer but i stuck with hoping for a MS fix

the last reinstall about 6 weeks ago i suddenly got 60 - 80 Mb and was gobsmacked but overjoyed at but have no idea why it had improved but put it down to an MS update during the reinstal however earlier this week suddenly i was back down to the 12 - 14Mb for no reason as system hadnt changed

Now back to the here & now after reinstalling Vista x64 today i was getting the 60Mb+ transfers and happy till i retested after a couple hours & it was back to 12Mb again .. grrrr .. so i restored back to before any apps or games were installed . By a process of ellimination it turns out that the network lag is down from 60Mb+ to 12Mb is solely due to the Steam client :confused:

Now i can prove its Steam (no idea why its not downloading or updateing) is the culprit as if the client is loaded into systray the network transfer speeds are 12Mb and if i quit the client the transfer speeds instantly shoot up to the 60Mb speeds

So i know the answer is simply "dont run Steam from windows startup & only start it when needed" which i can live with but my question is ... is or has anyone else narrowed down their Vista network slowdowns to the Steam client or is it just me being unlucky ?

Sorry for the longish post but i dont post often so make the most of it :p
 
wow

i'll test this out later

does steam have to be updating? or just in the system tray..

i hope you are right and that this is re-producable, valve would fix this quickly i'd like to think (when they find out about it)
 
It does seem to happen I have to say.

Set up the network at my uni house and when a couple of us were on Steam it'd kill the internet. I have a decent router now though so all is well. :D

InvG
 
Do you people affected forward the ports needed for STEAM? I've not forwarded any STEAM ports on my WRT54GL and it seems to run fine network wise :S
 
I've never forwarded any ports for Steam, always been fine until a few days ago, when it started.

I have read that Steam can be tricky if you don't forward all the prots for it, never affected me though.
 
It's the reason I chose it hehe! but either way I'm just going to do a quick test just to be sure!

Edit*

STEAM on or off I get 3.5MB/sec sending and receiving files over Wireless-G, I'm on remote desktop from work though so take off a bit. Still - no issue here I guess!
 
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Hi

I dont have any problems with Steam updateing or connecting/downloading as its working as it should so sorry if i confused the issue .. the Steam client is idle in the systray and costs me 75% my network performance for some reason if its running

I havent port forwarded or anything special just installed Steam & it works through the router (Linksys Wireless G Gigabit Cable Router) with the two PC's hardwired to the router ..

as far as i can tell there is no internet activity but i still lose 75% the network transfer speeds if i have Steam idle in the systray , rather a slight grrrr than a major hissy fit as i can simply not run Steam at boot and let any steam based game autostart the Steam client when needed its just i stumbled upon this as the problem that has caused my network sluggishness as far as i can tell & wondered if anyone else had the same issue

Thanks for the comments maybe just my bad luck my PC is affected this way or maybe i need to change some settings in my router ... hopefully a future Steam update will be the answer :cool:
 
The Steam Client practicly kills my whole network when it is downloading any game updates or downloading any games, yet steam still seems to download the updates fine even thos everything else on my network doesnt work, this is on Vista X64.
 
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