Steam Download No Disk Usage

I've had W10 for a few months and haven't really had many significant problems, but as of a few days ago, my computer has been getting worse and worse each day. It started about 3 days ago. I tried to launch Steam(which is something I did almost every day) and it caused my whole computer to become unresponsive. My browser would stop loading, my Skype would stop responding and drop connection, and even Windows itself would stop responding(as in I would hit the start button and ctrl alt del and absolutely nothing would happen). It was so bad that I would have to hold the power button down to turn it off because I couldn't do anything else. I tested this about 5 times and each time I started Steam the same exact thing would happen. This had never happened to me before in the months of using Windows 10.

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The next thing I did was re-install Steam. This seemed to temporarily/partially fix the problem since I can now launch Steam, but now I can't download any game updates or my computer will act up again and become unresponsive. If I try to download the updates, it will download a few KBs for a few seconds, then freeze up everything(including windows which stops my wifi and cancels the download). I cannot download anything on Steam or my computer will freeze.

I'm pretty sure what is causing this is the disk usage. For some reason Steam was overloading it I think. I looked up online how I could lower it and I found out it was a common Windows 10 problem and I tried all the steps I found to lower it. The most effective I found was to disable windows search and some other thing. This worked partially. My disk usage went form 100% to very low. However, this was only temporary. If I turned Steam or anything else on, it would sky rocket again and Windows Search keeps turning itself back on despite me disabling it multiple times.

  • When I click the 'download now' button, my disk usage is always at 0 bytes/s. My network is fine though. I'm not sure what's going on so some.
  • Solved Very low disk usage in Steam - Evo 960 1TB; solved Is hard disk usage supposed to go to 98 percent during a steam download? Solved what is your disk usage when installing a game on steam.

It's getting worse each day. Now it can even become unresponsive if I merely have my Chrome Browser open. This is infuriating. I have never had this problem before and I have no idea why it's happening now. I ran two different malware scans (one of which is suggested from Microsoft) which was in the suggested things to do to fix my issue, but both scans revealed absolutely nothing.

I tried running Windows Defender and that causes the same exact issue as Steam. If I try to run it, it will run for a few seconds and then freeze me computer up until I can somehow close it.

As of right now, my disk usage is always at 100% even when I have no main programs running. Windows always has side programs running, but even if I turn nothing on, my disk usage is 100%. I tried to launch one of my games twice(which I've played numerous hours on this laptop) and it freezes my whole computer and I have to hold the power button. My other games seem to work fine, but it seems completely random which programs can screw up Windows.

My question is how can I fix my ridiculously high disk usage? This is not normal and I've heard it's a common Windows 10 issue. Why is there no fix for this? Was there an update a few days ago? Is that what broke my Windows 10? I'm considering downgrading(more like upgrading) to Windows 8.1 since I didn't have this issue with it. This problem started up out of the blue about 3 days ago. I would like help fixing it.

I froze twice while typing this. I even got a message saying 'Windows has stopped responding. Would you like to end it?' and no matter what I click, nothing happens. This issue also seems to have included the black start up screen. I never had the black screen issue until this mess started 3 days ago.

If so, you may be wasting a lot of hard drive space. Steam makes it easy to download and play great Mac games. Steam hides your downloaded games, though, which makes it easy to waste dozens or hundreds of GB of hard drive space. Here's how to reclaim it.

J.R. writes:

Steam Download No Network Usage

I just ran DaisyDisk on my Mac and discovered that I have more than 100 GB of files dedicated to Steam. I don't play most of those games. Can I just delete them?

Valve's popular Steam is a great way to download and play Mac games. The service makes it simple to pay for games, and services like Steam Play make it possible for you to pick up and start playing a saved game even months or years later. Updates are regularly pushed out, and Steam also offers game ladders and chat services so you can socialize yourself with other gamers.

When you first download Steam games, you're asked if you want to create a shortcut for them. Those shortcuts look like apps, but Steam typically installs apps somewhere else: In a folder called Steam inside the Application Support folder in your Library folder. That's made it really simple for Steam to squirrel away dozens, in some cases hundreds of GB of files on your hard drive without making it readily apparent.

Apps like DaisyDisk make it really easy to figure out what's using up space on your hard drive; it took me just two or three clicks with DaisyDisk to figure out that Steam was eating almost 30 GB of space. There's no similar feature in the Steam app to ascertain how much space in total is being used. You can certainly use DaisyDisk's 'collection' feature to grab unused games and delete them.

But I'd recommend restricting yourself to deleting unused Steam games from within the Steam client itself, however, just to make sure everything is removed properly.

How to delete Steam games you've already downloaded

Steam Disk Usage Low

  1. Open the Steam application by holding down the command button and pressing the spacebar, then typing Steam.
  2. Click on Steam's Library tab to examine the games you already own. All the games that are currently installed will appear in white bold text in the library's left sidebar window.
  3. To delete a game's local content, hold down the control key. Click on the name of the game you'd like to delete, then select Delete Local Content...
  4. You'll get a message telling you that all content related to that game will be deleted. It's safe to click the Delete button.
  5. If you want to see how much space an app is using first, hold down the control button, click on the app name, select Properties, click on the Local Files tab. Disk usage will be listed near the top.

That's it! With this tip you can safely delete all the game files you're not actively playing. And thanks to Steam Play, all of your saved games remain in the cloud attached to your user ID, so the next time you download the game and install it, you can pick up right where you left off.

Steam High Disk Usage No Download

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