So, just got my Steam Deck OLED in today. Was excited, started downloading a pile of games. But I start the downloads, and they all seem to cap at around 12.5 MB/s. My connection is 400/20, given that I should be seeing downloads around 50 MB/s. And, on my desktop, I regularly do, going as high as 60 MB/s. I have spent the past 3 hours searching and digging into this. I’ve tried:

  • Disabling the Wifi connection completely
  • Changing the WiFi Power setting in Developer Options
  • Capping my download speed to various numbers
  • Changing my download location to a few different areas near me
  • Going into Desktop mode and manually setting DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1
  • Plugging in via a USB-C ethernet Adapter as opposed to official Steam Deck
  • Unplugged the ethernet and gone directly over WiFi

Nothing seems to work, and my speeds, while they may occasionally spike to 15 MB/s, will inevitably end up back around 12.5 MB/s. If I go into Desktop mode on the Steam deck, I can run a speed test and see the full bandwidth available to me. If I download the exact same game on the desktop, I will see the normal 50 MB/s download speed

What in the heck is going on? I know the Steam Deck is capable of faster sustained downloads as I’ve seen a bunch of videos. I know my internet connection is capable of faster speeds of downloads. I realize that this won’t be a problem once things inevitably finish downloading, but now I’m concerned that there’s something fundamentally broken with my Steam Deck that is preventing me from downloading at a decent speed, and I’d rather figure out what is broken now so I can hopefully get it fixed vs having it gradually degrade when I’m no longer under warranty.

Does anyone have any suggestions of things I have not tried that may give me some relief here? I really want to be able to enjoy this device, but the constant anxiety of wondering if something is broken is going to keep bugging me until I can solve this. I had a similar issue when I was using an ROG Ally, but it was way worse and the connection would constantly drop out, so I think that was different – and it never really capped right around 12.5 but would go higher and sustain for longer then drop to 0 for 30 seconds or so.