Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1764898841
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Linux Mint 22.2
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
• Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I'm a Linux Mint user of Steam who has been getting horrendous Steam and general System slow down and near crashing when downloading games and updates.

Essentially what happens is that once Steam starts writing to disk, I get system slow down after a short period of time that will cause the PC to crash if I fiddle with anything. If I leave it, the disk writing will generally continue and the OS will eventually catch up. However, it does mean I cannot really use my computer when Steam is downloading a game as these slow downs happen everytime a game is being installed.

I've traced this to the disk writing process and not download process of installing a game as the slow down only appears to happen during this stage and during "Verify integrity of internal files" operations for example. It also happens for any game and only on my Linux Mint OS, my dual booted Windows 10 install is fine.

The screenshots in my cloud folder below show the high memory cache usage and very little left free for system resources.

I realize this problem may be a bit vague and possibly hardware specific, I haven't found any other applicable issues online for this issue. I'm happy to send over whatever additional info you may need from my system to help.

Please see the following folder for relevant evidence (password is happybunnyg@merkilled) = https://app.filen.io/#/f/29b161c3-f581-4794-8fef-b8ee5e4e8d14%23FjuNVl8JhQF5JaHdakHXcdQ4XbhKUdnJ

Similar to issue #8545 but affects the whole OS, not just the steam client.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Start download of any game of a medium - large size
2. Observe slow down of system when steam reaches the "Installing files" write to disk stage