Steam killing internet connection

Liamario

I've tried port forwarding and I'm all out of ideas.

F2000 modem

davyboy1975

Liamario wrote: »

I've tried port forwarding and I'm all out of ideas.

F2000 modem

Doing it for me too. Only thing I do is close it completly when not using it and exit it

Liamario

davyboy1975 wrote: »

Doing it for me too. Only thing I do is close it completly when not using it and exit it

Yep. It only started recently. Are you leeching off my Wi-Fi?! :-p

ED E

If you have a slow connection steam will use all of it unless otherwise told.

Liamario

ED E wrote: »

If you have a slow connection steam will use all of it unless otherwise told.

Any advice?

Skatedude

set a download speed limit in steam settings .

Liamario

Skatedude wrote: »

set a download speed limit in steam settings .

I had it reduced to 25mbs and now have set it to 5. We'll see how it goes.

scamalert

when you say killing is it because its running constantly while gaming or while downloading ?

if its in games or running in general go into steam->settings->in game and disable steam overlay,also in the interface tab you can uncheck box to launch it when windows loads.

Liamario

scamalert wrote: »

when you say killing is it because its running constantly while gaming or while downloading ?

if its in games or running in general go into steam->settings->in game and disable steam overlay,also in the interface tab you can uncheck box to launch it when windows loads.

No, steam could be sitting idle, but as soon as it tries to update something or even go to the store, it'll crash the router.

scamalert

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/358416640391826729/ seems a common issue smth to do with other bundled network drivers or soft,

as reading link seems its common issues with MSI motherboard killer network drivers,and most report it happening on win7.

i myself have msi killer lan adapter but use wifi dongle instead and running win10 causes no issues, anyway if anything theres few sugestions in link as its same issue as you describe it.

Cuddlesworth

scamalert wrote: »

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/358416640391826729/ seems a common issue smth to do with other bundled network drivers or soft,

as reading link seems its common issues with MSI motherboard killer network drivers,and most report it happening on win7.

i myself have msi killer lan adapter but use wifi dongle instead and running win10 causes no issues, anyway if anything there's few suggestions in link as its same issue as you describe it.

Networking person here, I really can't see how steam could "kill a network" or really kill the NIC. It's just a application that runs on the IP stack of the device. All those devices are doing are just passing frames.

Skatedude

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Networking person here, I really can't see how steam could "kill a network" or really kill the NIC. It's just a application that runs on the IP stack of the device. All those devices are doing are just passing frames.

Any chance steam is trying to use a port that is reserved by the router for something like remote access?

Cuddlesworth

Routers NAT traffic to specific port ranges and steams traffic is outbound initiated not inbound. If your device/router keels over when steam starts downloading, it's either just a really crappy connection that is maxed out or a really crappy router(overheating/faulting chip etc). It's worth pointing out that the steam client during off peak times can really max out most connections quite quickly.

scamalert

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Networking person here, I really can't see how steam could "kill a network" or really kill the NIC. It's just a application that runs on the IP stack of the device. All those devices are doing are just passing frames.

Same networking background and yes its completely possible for it to happen if you have application that chokes entire bandwith,since cheap routers arent capable of any load balancing, and single app that uses connection eventually chokes it, had similar issues in the past with old cisco routers where id need to launch single torrent and whole house would lose wifi in minutes and drop dead,needing reboot or soft reset since torrent would take whole bandwidth and router couldnt handle mass frames nor imagine there was any integrated balancing still common issue with cheap ones nowadays that you get from ISPs,since them 30e boxes arent meant to handle ever increasing speeds properly.
one way would be to run wireshark and see whats happening with frames and when connection starts to choke.

Duddles summarized it well, just touch your router to see if its running hot, since theres no priorities in place with them boxes and steam would be seen as no1 thus slowly maxing out your bandwidth .

Cuddlesworth

scamalert wrote: »

Same networking background and yes its completely possible for it to happen if you have application that chokes entire bandwith,since cheap routers arent capable of any load balancing, and single app that uses connection eventually chokes it, had similar issues in the past with old cisco routers where id need to launch single torrent and whole house would lose wifi in minutes and drop dead,needing reboot or soft reset since torrent would take whole bandwidth and router couldnt handle mass frames nor imagine there was any integrated balancing still common issue with cheap ones nowadays that you get from ISPs,since them 30e boxes arent meant to handle ever increasing speeds properly.
one way would be to run wireshark and see whats happening with frames and when connection starts to choke.

That's not a frames things, that's to do with TCP streams. Bit-torrent opens lots and lots of active TCP streams, in which a home router has to keep track of to for NAT and firewall purposes. Depending on size and settings, a single Torrent could easily be the equivalent of 50+ active users on a normal day. And ISP's have quite frequently in the past provided relatively low end hardware which would struggle maintaining that level of connectivity. It would be far less common now days.

scamalert

you got a point there TCP connection requires to confirm each frame, same would apply to steam to verify each frame is delivered, combined with max speed and eventually it cant keep up.

ED E

Frames are ethernet, the datagrams in TCP are packets.


A little knowledge is a....

scamalert

ED E wrote: »

Frames are ethernet, the datagrams in TCP are packets.


A little knowledge is a....

segments > packets >frames but that's not solving OPs issue

rmacm

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711

^^^^ Steam Port info.

Depending on the amount of connections Steam opens you might end up hitting some performance limitation of the router. I've no idea what the Specs of the F2000 modem are though.

ED E

Steam idles with 2 x TCP and 2x UDP streams open for me (and I've never seen it spam connections). It shouldnt blast out the NAT table on any CPE, even an old 2247 from 2001.


The drive conflict listed above is a very likely cause.

Liamario

Just a little update. Throttling steam download speed stopped the router from crashing. That said, in the time I made the original post, I've cancelled my Eir connection and went with Sky. Whether that was a good decision will be revealed in time.