ValveSoftware
Steam Deck gamemode WiFi Power Management settings does not work
Your system information
- Steam client version: 1730253536
- SteamOS version: 3.6.19
- Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
- Opted into SteamOS beta?: Yes
- Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes
Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
Every time I boot into the game mode, I notice the WiFi power management is turned on, despite the fact that the "Enable WiFi Power Management" setting under the Developer Tab is turned OFF.
Edit: I believe this occurred recently, as two weeks ago, I could still do remote play with no issue; now, it just stutters with drastic frame drops, so I started diagnosing the WiFi problem. And turning off the power management manually fixed my network issue.
Ah! So I'm not crazy, I knew something was off, as I was having the exact same issues with or without it.
I just checked and mine says its off. I am on the Beta SteamOS as well. I however do not use the Beta Client which I'd assume is the issue
It also works properly here. Did you edit any files on /etc or the OS partitions to try to debug other wifi issues?
If you submit a system report via Settings->System->Generate System Report (bottom of page) and send me your steam username I can check if there is any interesting info on your logs.
It also works properly here. Did you edit any files on /etc or the OS partitions to try to debug other wifi issues?
The only thing I have tried is to force the power management off by using config from here: https://gist.github.com/jcberthon/ea8cfe278998968ba7c5a95344bc8b55, which unfortunately didn't work. Every time I restart the Network Manager, the power management comes back.
If you submit a system report via Settings->System->Generate System Report (bottom of page) and send me your steam username I can check if there is any interesting info on your logs.
Are you working for Valve, or do you have a work email? I am not sure if I want to post my username publically ;)
@KrisCris A lot of the changes from that gist you linked your interfere with the steam settings.
Are you working for Valve, or do you have a work email? I am not sure if I want to post my username publically ;)
Yes. You can open a support ticket and send me your ticket id if you'd prefer not to post your username.
@KrisCris A lot of the changes from that gist you linked your interfere with the steam settings.
I tried the wifi.powersave=2 thing because the steam settings didn't work for me. I have already deleted it btw, cuz it's not working either...
@lostgoat I have submitted a system report, and the following is my Steam profile url: https://steamcommunity.com/id/_connlost/ Will you be able to find my log this way? Thanks.
Thanks for the logs @KrisCris I think I see the issue now. We'll work on a fix.
That is so amazing to hear, I'll opt in for beta as soon as it drops! Gonna make Moonlight Game Streaming so much better in 5Ghz (at least I'm hoping so hehe).
@Deus-nsf The issue above is a regression with respect to 3.5. In 3.5 power management would stay correctly disabled all the time. But there seems to be a small bug in 3.6 where it can turn on again under certain circumstances. So, once this is fixed the expectation is that things will behave the same as 3.5.
Having said that, SteamOS 3.6 already includes multiple fixes for WiFi issues that users have reported here, on steam forums and via steam support. So it is possible one of those fixes already addresses the bug you are concerned about.
Thanks for the logs @KrisCris I think I see the issue now. We'll work on a fix.
Thanks for the amazing work, I'm looking forward to the fixes!
@Deus-nsf The issue above is a regression with respect to 3.5. In 3.5 power management would stay correctly disabled all the time. But there seems to be a small bug in 3.6 where it can turn on again under certain circumstances. So, once this is fixed the expectation is that things will behave the same as 3.5.
Having said that, SteamOS 3.6 already includes multiple fixes for WiFi issues that users have reported here, on steam forums and via steam support. So it is possible one of those fixes already addresses the bug you are concerned about.
The thing is, I've been using wifi for local streaming (almost) only since 3.6 released, so I need to have that 5Ghz band locked in, kind of like in windows where you can "prefer 5Ghz" on the wifi adapter settings. I assume disabling wifi power management has an effect on this right? When I tried local streaming on 3.5, I wasn't aware of the option unfortunately since I didn't explore the options of dev mode at that time.
Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1696#issuecomment-2457693584
This is a different thing I guess. I would suggest separating 2.4g and 5g into two different SSIDs.
On 3.6.20, I confirm that while it says power management is off, I'm not so sure it is.. pinging the router gateway on 2.4 GHz with an idle connection not doing data transfers, the ping times are usually around 3 ms, but there are occasional ping spikes 8, 10, 20, 30 ms here and there that I originally turned power management off in order to resolve with SteamOS 3.4 and earlier so the ping spikes seem to be back. LCD Deck here.
I saw the fix in yesterday's update stable channel changelog, can't wait to try that tonight :)
Following the Nov 12 Steam client stable update, the same issue still appears to be happening. I've toggled the setting and restarted my Steam Deck multiple times, and iwconfig still reports Power Management:on.
With the update on Nov 12, the WiFi power management is off on my side. However, sometimes I experienced significant latency spikes during streaming with moonlight, and this could only be solved by disable and re-enable the Deck’s WiFi.
Hey @Zekfoo do you have wifi debug mode enabled? That toggle can result in power management to always be enabled.
Note that wifi debug mode shouldn't be used unless you have an explicit request from Valve support to collect wifi data. It enables some settings that are not recommended for everyday operation.
Hey @Zekfoo do you have wifi debug mode enabled? That toggle can result in power management to always be enabled.
Note that wifi debug mode shouldn't be used unless you have an explicit request from Valve support to collect wifi data. It enables some settings that are not recommended for everyday operation.
Ah yeah that seems to have been the case. I could have sworn I tried all permutations of these two toggles but I must have introduced some user error in the process. Working now for me, thanks!
The power management was back on yesterday for me, even though the toggle was shown as off. Re-toggling it on and off fixed it for me. However, apart from the power management issue, I am still experiencing some sort of slowdown and massive latency increases that make game streaming unplayable until I reconnect to Wi-Fi. It's similar to what the OP described in this issue, but I’m not sure if it’s related to the "low power mode" issue or not. FYI, I had never experienced such slowdown issues before the "Wi-Fi power management fix" SteamOS update back in November.
Steam Deck/SteamOS– Wi-Fi power management re-enabled after sleep in (3.7.17–3.9, all branches) On Steam Deck OLED, Wi-Fi power management is turned back on after sleep / wake in Game Mode, even when Developer → “Enable WiFi Power Management” is disabled.
This happens for me on all branches I’ve tested:
SteamOS 3.7.17–3.7.19 and 3.9, stable and main On both Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 networks With channel widths 40 MHz and 80 MHz After wake, Konsole shows that the active Wi-Fi interface (wlanX) has: iw dev wlanX get power_save
Power save: on
Network then stutters, latency spikes, and download speed often caps at around ~20 Mbps, very similar to other Deck OLED reports and the known power-management bug where Game Mode ignores the Developer setting. Toggling Wi-Fi off/on or just opening the Wi-Fi settings temporarily fixes it until the next sleep / interface change.
For those struggling with the Developer Mode toggle not sticking (or reverting after sleep), I wrote a tool that enforces this via NetworkManager dispatcher scripts instead of relying on the UI.
It automatically disables Wi-Fi power management when you are on AC power to prevent latency spikes, and re-enables it on battery. It runs on every connection event, so it overrides the OS defaults reliably.
You can check it out here: https://github.com/doughty247/hifi-wifi
