How To Make Steam Download Faster The Right Way

Your Steam downloads are crawling because the default content server assigned to you is likely overloaded by other users in your area. You can bypass this congestion by manually routing your traffic to a less busy regional server.

Why this happens

Steam defaults to the geographically closest server, which often becomes a bottleneck during peak traffic times or major game releases. A hard limit set within the Steam client can also throttle your connection regardless of your actual internet speed.

Steps

1. 01
   Open the Steam application, click on the word 'Steam' in the top left corner of the window, and select 'Settings' from the dropdown menu.
2. 02
   Click the 'Downloads' tab on the left sidebar to access your network configuration.
3. 03
   Locate the 'Download Region' setting and select a city that is the second or third closest to your actual location, rather than the one closest to you.
4. 04
   Restart Steam when prompted to apply the new server region, then resume your download and observe if speeds improve.
5. 05
   In the same 'Downloads' menu, ensure the 'Limit download speed' option is set to 'No limit' to prevent the client from artificially throttling your connection.
6. 06
   If your download speed is high but the install progress crawls, check 'Task Manager' and look at the 'Disk' tab; if disk usage is at 100 percent, your mechanical hard drive is the bottleneck and you should install your games to an SSD instead.

Still not working?

If you are still seeing slow speeds, verify your units of measurement. Steam displays speed in MB/s (Megabytes per second), whereas ISPs advertise speeds in Mbps (Megabits per second); 6 MB/s is equivalent to a 50 Mbps connection. If your disk usage is constantly at 100 percent in Task Manager, the issue is not your internet, but a failing or slow HDD that cannot keep up with write speeds.

Frequently asked questions

Will changing my download region cause higher latency in games?

No, this setting only affects the Steam content delivery network used for downloading game files. It does not change your matchmaking region for online gameplay.

Does 6 MB/s mean my internet is broken?

Probably not. Steam measures in Megabytes (MB/s) and your ISP measures in Megabits (Mbps). Since there are 8 bits in a byte, your Steam speed will always appear numerically lower than your ISP plan speed.

Why is my disk usage at 100 percent while downloading?

Steam decompresses files while it downloads them. If you are installing games to a slow mechanical hard drive, the drive cannot write the data as fast as your internet can provide it, causing an installation bottleneck.