I recently reinstalled Windows on my computer, but I’ve noticed a significant difference in download speeds when installing games. On Linux, I get around 100 MB/s, while on Windows, it fluctuates wildly from 40 MB/s down to 8 MB/s and sometimes even drops to 0. What could be causing these issues?
4 Answers
Have a look at your CPU usage. If it’s pinned at 100%, that could definitely be affecting your download speeds. You might want to monitor it while downloading to see if that’s a factor.
You might want to check out some troubleshooting tips from the Arch Wiki. There’s a whole section about slow Steam downloads. They suggest installing a DNS cache like dnsmasq and maybe disabling IPv6. There are a few tweaks you can do to the Steam config that could improve download speeds too!
It might be worth checking if you’ve installed the latest drivers for your network on Windows. Linux usually has these baked into the kernel, but on Windows, you often need to update them manually. Double-check your drivers to see if that helps!
Consider your Wi-Fi frequency. Are you using 2.4 GHz instead of 5 GHz? Sometimes Windows can get stuck in a lower speed mode while Linux manages to take advantage of the faster frequencies better. Plus, it also largely depends on your drivers.
