Steam UI Freezing, Running Painfully Slow? Here’s How To Fix It

Steam has grown into the biggest gaming network and distribution platform on PC and it is showing no signs of slowing down. Despite the comprehensive lead it has over its competitors, however, its client still isn’t completely immune to hiccups. We can all plow through the odd UI bug, but what if the Steam client were to freeze up right before your daily gaming session?

I recently had the misfortune of coming across this apparently common issue of Steam slowing down to a crawl, with its UI becoming almost completely unresponsive and the store, as well as most interface elements, failing to load. My first reaction was to kill the app from Task Manager and launch it again, as would most users, but the problem turned out to be a little more stubborn than that. In fact, even a reboot doesn’t make it go away. If you too have come across, or are currently experiencing, the same issue with your installation of Steam, read on ahead for our simple, step-by-step solution.

1. To start off, make sure Steam is closed. If you’re having trouble quitting the app, right-click the Windows Taskbar, launch Task Manager from the context menu, find Steam in the Processes tab, right-click it and select End task.

2. From the Start menu, search for and launch Internet Options. Alternatively, you may manually navigate to the same from Control Panel (or Control Panel > Network and Internet, if your Control Panel view is set to Category).

3. In the Internet Options window, switch to the Connections tab and click LAN settings.

4. Uncheck the Automatically detect settings option in the window that follows, then hit OK twice.

5. Launch Steam again.

The Steam interface should now return to running smoothly. You can now return to the LAN settings window and re-enable Automatically detect settings. Steam should continue to run without problems. Note that if you find the Automatically detect settings option unchecked the first time around, try launching Steam once with it enabled, and then again after disabling it. Remember to quit Steam in between.

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