Hi.

Recently I got issue where my download speed on my Steam Deck decreased drastically. I used to get up to 63 MB/s (~550 Mbit/s) but now I struggle to get even 10 MB/s sometimes. And the issue only happens with Steam downloads and only on Steam deck.

Things I’ve tried:

  1. Connect to 5 GHz Wi-Fi using different router;

  2. Turn off/On Wi-Fi power management (I had it turned off since I got deck this Spring);

  3. Turn off all other devices that connect to internet;

  4. Changed DNS to the one provided by ISP/Google (I usually use Cloudflare 1.1.1.1) also tried different IP (my IP is dynamic so I turned off router to get new IP after some time);

  5. Change Wi-Fi channels (5 GHz Wi-Fi is not cluttered here and I still used 60 DFS channel since spring just fine with Deck and had ~60 MB/s download speeds);

  6. Changed Wi-Fi Security level from WPA3 to WPA2 (Used WPA 3 since I got deck with no issues but whatever);

  7. Cleared Download cache in Steam;

  8. Tried downloading to SD Card (when everything is fine I get same download speeds to SSD and SD card);

  9. Praying;

  10. CHANGING STEAM DOWNLOAD REGION (The most obvious thing which I actually tried first)

I have not tried to use VPN, using beta/preview branches and I have re-imaging my deck;

At this point I’m pretty sure that one of the latest updates either to steam client for deck or stable Steam OS (released in October)

There’s nothing wrong with router or my internet connection, as I mentioned before I tried to download different files through browser and got expected speeds. Services like https://speed.cloudflare.com or https://www.speedtest.net return expected speeds of 500-600 Mbit/s (tried different servers)

I’d like to do traceroutes to different steam download servers to confirm that issue is on Valve side but I don’t really know how to learn their IPs

This is my usual download speeds on my pc through wired connection, but this screenshot is taken with said connection completely turned off (network card disabled via device manager) and instead wi-fi (different network device) turned on.

https://preview.redd.it/7oisbbvig10c1.png?width=807&format=png&auto=webp&s=43f0521412cb8c51dd83556e23183f0eae432843

This is what I get on SAME download server on SAME Wi-Fi connection, restarting deck/steam may yield different results but max what I got is ~30 MB/s while cycling download servers in EU/RUSSIA/UKRAINE

https://preview.redd.it/ynb48vrng10c1.png?width=592&format=png&auto=webp&s=0aeea2446d9262922310ba2ba3e652e9bf6f36f1

And this is my download speeds while I clicked North West Africa download server just for the sake of troubleshooting. Like WTF? It’s half planet away from me. Anyway I got this speed once. After steam restart (gone from desktop mode where it’s easier to switch dl regions to gaming mode) DL speed is not going higher than 30 MB/s but it’s still way stable than any server in EU/RUSSIA/UKRAINE. The main problem with selecting different download server is that Steam tries to be smart and will change it back to nearest server to you after some time. Also after like 3 hours I started to get ~ 5MB/s speed on this Africa server but instead my usual local server is now giving 25 MB/s but still only on deck. It’s like routing is screwed up.

https://preview.redd.it/ms014s9xg10c1.png?width=546&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e8cec71b2b30eb28717426790c5b0e9b63eacca