My friend reinstalled his steam and was asked to write in the verification code witch had been sent to his e-mail adress. Actually there was nothing on his email. He applied for another code several times. The codes were sent but with 3 hour delay and none of them was valid, I mean Steam asked for the latest one. He applied for a code once again but since than (about 30 hours ago) he has receiverd nothing at all.

I would have one sent again and then check my spam folder. If there still is nothing, or there is a huge delay I would contact the folks at Valve/Steam with my issue.

That's what he did but in the meantime we are looking for the solution.

A coupe of things spring to mind first make sure that the email address sending the activation code is set as a known email. Also if using a email client try accessing via website.

Check both steam forums and news see if they are having issue likewise with the email service.

Other than this it may just be a case or waiting till a less busy time

My first validation codes went to my Junk Mail box for my ISPs' email server, so I never got it directly. Odd that it took so long though. I've had to do that about a dozen times now and they always showed up right away.

Well, I'm not sure what was the reason but steam support took care of this and everything is fine.

sounds like the password times out before he can apply them this has happened to me....good luck