Wifi constant disconnects

[Dizzy Media]

Before you say anything, yes i've already looked around on the internet and the responses for this issue are mixed.

My current issue with the steam deck is the constant wifi disconnects or the wifi being connected but the system says "cannot reach steam servers", this issue happens randomly and has no consistency to when it actually occurs.

I can boot up the steam deck, be connected to wifi and a few moments after boot finishes, it says i can't reach the steam servers, other times it only occurs if my battery is below a certain percentage and in certain instances, wifi doesn't even stay connected after long play sessions, turning the wifi off and back on does nothing.

In short, there seems to be issues with the wifi itself and i've gone through 2 different routers so i know it's not my router. Many people supposedly state "this is not regular activity with the wifi connect" however it's been a regular occurrence for me since i first booted up the deck.

It's extremely annoying and no matter what i do, the wifi continues to break randomly.

I have tried adjusting the power settings in desktop mode to not turn off the wifi however that did nothing.

Has anyone had a similar experience and found a good solution besides wiping the entire OS? Considering i don't want to do that lol

[Aletheia]

Well i've been experiencing constant connectivity issue with my 5GHz wifi, the deck is the only thing on my network that doesn't keep a stable connection with my 5GHz spot.
It's usually fine until i'm downloading something and poof, connection lost.
Maybe try your 2.4GHz wifi to see if this get sorted out.

[Dizzy Media]

Originally posted by Aletheia:

Well i've been experiencing constant connectivity issue with my 5GHz wifi, the deck is the only thing on my network that doesn't keep a stable connection with my 5GHz spot.
It's usually fine until i'm downloading something and poof, connection lost.
Maybe try your 2.4GHz wifi to see if this get sorted out.

There's only one connection, so it's not like there is 2g and 5g wifi connections for my router. The first router i tried the deck with did have that and i used the 2g connection, which is when i first started encountering this issue.

That's when i got a new router, which now only has a single connection and doesn't state if it's 2g or 5g.

[Aletheia]

Originally posted by Dizzy Media:

Originally posted by Aletheia:

Well i've been experiencing constant connectivity issue with my 5GHz wifi, the deck is the only thing on my network that doesn't keep a stable connection with my 5GHz spot.
It's usually fine until i'm downloading something and poof, connection lost.
Maybe try your 2.4GHz wifi to see if this get sorted out.

There's only one connection, so it's not like there is 2g and 5g wifi connections for my router. The first router i tried the deck with did have that and i used the 2g connection, which is when i first started encountering this issue.

That's when i got a new router, which now only has a single connection and doesn't state if it's 2g or 5g.

If you were experiencing issues with the 2.4GHz connection then the issue is probably something else. Did you try another security procotol? I've read somewhere that the deck could have issues with some WPA3 (which you could solve by adding the spot in desktop mode). But I guess it would not drop if it was not working at all.

Clearly, Wifi on the deck has been a huge mystery to me as I can only rely on my 2.4GHz spot, which results in really slow download speed. :(

[Dizzy Media]

Originally posted by Aletheia:

Originally posted by Dizzy Media:

There's only one connection, so it's not like there is 2g and 5g wifi connections for my router. The first router i tried the deck with did have that and i used the 2g connection, which is when i first started encountering this issue.

That's when i got a new router, which now only has a single connection and doesn't state if it's 2g or 5g.

If you were experiencing issues with the 2.4GHz connection then the issue is probably something else. Did you try another security procotol? I've read somewhere that the deck could have issues with some WPA3 (which you could solve by adding the spot in desktop mode). But I guess it would not drop if it was not working at all.

Clearly, Wifi on the deck has been a huge mystery to me as I can only rely on my 2.4GHz spot, which results in really slow download speed. :(

Yea seems the new router uses WPA2 :P

I did notice that if i am in desktop mode, the wifi constantly disconnects and reconnects, even though the signal is strong. This is probably what it's doing in gaming mode as well but i just don't see it and after a while, it stops attempting to reconnect.

haha yea wifi isn't super fast, 2 - 3gbps is pretty standard :P

I've been relying on my ethernet adapter to download games, however to play them with ethernet connected works but once the battery gets low i have to switch back to wifi so i can plug the deck in.

Obviously a hub is more ideal for ethernet, charging, etc. all at once but i'm kind of waiting for the steam deck hub to get one, but still, i use the wifi more often then not.

There has to be some reasonable explanation as to why this issue occurs so often and to so many people, which could be solved by a patch from steam :P

[Aletheia]

You could invest in some USB-C hub with a Power Delivery port, I'm searching for one with a 1gbps Ethernet port actually, I'm tired of playing the waiting game every time I want to download a 50+gb game haha!

Actually, some people are experiencing diverse issues with their Wifi and looks like Valve is aware of some issues as I pointed out when I reached to the support, but it was like 1 month ago and still no ETA on this.

Especially if you want to stream games (I'm playing Judgment which doesn't have a proper PC port so i'm playing the Stadia port), the poor bandwitdh of the simple fact you can't use a stable wifi could be problematic (and you lose the "game on the go" side of the deck which is mainly why people bought it lol).

Best thing is to contact support and aknowledge them of your issue ;)

[Dizzy Media]

Originally posted by Aletheia:

You could invest in some USB-C hub with a Power Delivery port, I'm searching for one with a 1gbps Ethernet port actually, I'm tired of playing the waiting game every time I want to download a 50+gb game haha!

Actually, some people are experiencing diverse issues with their Wifi and looks like Valve is aware of some issues as I pointed out when I reached to the support, but it was like 1 month ago and still no ETA on this.

Especially if you want to stream games (I'm playing Judgment which doesn't have a proper PC port so i'm playing the Stadia port), the poor bandwitdh of the simple fact you can't use a stable wifi could be problematic (and you lose the "game on the go" side of the deck which is mainly why people bought it lol).

Best thing is to contact support and aknowledge them of your issue ;)

I agree, a hub is definitely more ideal and something i'll be purchasing in the near future :p

haha omg 50+gb with wifi XD that wait time must be huge lol i limited myself to games that are only 2-6gb for wifi as those tend to download decently fast but anything larger then that, definitely switching to ethernet.

Yea when i was looking around on the internet some people don't even have wifi issues, while others constantly have issues and some people can't even connect to their wifi at all. Imagine not being able to connect to wifi on first boot and not being able to get the required update, so you can't even boot the deck at all lol that's horrible.

I agree, streaming or game on the go is kind of worthless if the wifi doesn't properly work v_v

Yup after tinkering with the wifi myself for some time and posting in a few forums to see if anyone has found a good solution, it seems the next step would be to contact support, as i haven't found anything that's provided a permanent solution yet.

[Marlock]

here is my list of common Steam Deck wifi workarounds... some you tried, some might not apply, some may still help:

1) enable developer mode, then go to the new "developer" tab in steam settings and disable wifi power savings

2) unhide your wifi ssid if hidden (hiding it is well know to not really be useful for privacy nor for security, by the way)

3) if 2,4GHz and 5GHz bands are joined in a single ssid, split them in the router configs and use only one of them

4) choose a fixed wifi channel instead of leaving it in auto (configure the same channel in both the router and the deck)

5) try a different router brand/model or a smartphone wifi hotspot... some people have issues only with certains devices but not with others

6) try an ethernet dongle instead of the deck's wifi

7) try a wifi dongle with well-known good linux support instead of using the built-in wifi chip

[Aletheia]

Originally posted by Dizzy Media:

Originally posted by Aletheia:

You could invest in some USB-C hub with a Power Delivery port, I'm searching for one with a 1gbps Ethernet port actually, I'm tired of playing the waiting game every time I want to download a 50+gb game haha!

Actually, some people are experiencing diverse issues with their Wifi and looks like Valve is aware of some issues as I pointed out when I reached to the support, but it was like 1 month ago and still no ETA on this.

Especially if you want to stream games (I'm playing Judgment which doesn't have a proper PC port so i'm playing the Stadia port), the poor bandwitdh of the simple fact you can't use a stable wifi could be problematic (and you lose the "game on the go" side of the deck which is mainly why people bought it lol).

Best thing is to contact support and aknowledge them of your issue ;)

I agree, a hub is definitely more ideal and something i'll be purchasing in the near future :p

haha omg 50+gb with wifi XD that wait time must be huge lol i limited myself to games that are only 2-6gb for wifi as those tend to download decently fast but anything larger then that, definitely switching to ethernet.

Yea when i was looking around on the internet some people don't even have wifi issues, while others constantly have issues and some people can't even connect to their wifi at all. Imagine not being able to connect to wifi on first boot and not being able to get the required update, so you can't even boot the deck at all lol that's horrible.

I agree, streaming or game on the go is kind of worthless if the wifi doesn't properly work v_v

Yup after tinkering with the wifi myself for some time and posting in a few forums to see if anyone has found a good solution, it seems the next step would be to contact support, as i haven't found anything that's provided a permanent solution yet.

Did you try using your phone as a wifi hotspot ? Just to be sure there isn't some weird setting on your network at your place, you could probably see if there's an issue with this too! I think I actually managed to get the 5GHz network working with my phone as a hotspot, but since my internet has a box which is also a router, I'm out of luck as to find a replacement haha

[Bene]

Guys, you are missing the point. There should be no workaround or the like, we paid honest good money and this should have worked from the very beginning. I‘m so annoyed by this and what‘s Valve doing? Absolutely nothing. What a joke.

[Dizzy Media]

Originally posted by Bene:

Guys, you are missing the point. There should be no workaround or the like, we paid honest good money and this should have worked from the very beginning. I‘m so annoyed by this and what‘s Valve doing? Absolutely nothing. What a joke.

I agree, i mean i get some of the stuff like turning off the wifi for power saving but wouldn't that be up to the user to set and not automatic? Most people are going to want the wifi going most of the time, especially for achievements and the like.

[Dizzy Media]

Originally posted by Marlock:

here is my list of common Steam Deck wifi workarounds... some you tried, some might not apply, some may still help:

1) enable developer mode, then go to the new "developer" tab in steam settings and disable wifi power savings

2) unhide your wifi ssid if hidden (hiding it is well know to not really be useful for privacy nor for security, by the way)

3) if 2,4GHz and 5GHz bands are joined in a single ssid, split them in the router configs and use only one of them

4) choose a fixed wifi channel instead of leaving it in auto (configure the same channel in both the router and the deck)

5) try a different router brand/model or a smartphone wifi hotspot... some people have issues only with certains devices but not with others

6) try an ethernet dongle instead of the deck's wifi

7) try a wifi dongle with well-known good linux support instead of using the built-in wifi chip

I tried the developer mode one as well but that doesn't seem to do anything.

2, 3 and 4 i haven't tried but good suggestions, thanks.

5, i tried 2 different routers so far, same issue with both and the first one had separate 2g and 5g connections already, which i was using the 2g connection and had issues with that one.

6 yup i usually revert to ethernet when necessary

7 interesting but more money down the drain lol

[Marlock]

We know from previous threads tha Valve received some known malfunctioning wifi units back from RMA and that they have put their devs to work with help from a couple more tech-savvy users that are helping debug their issues

This seems to have resulted in a couple OS updates mentioning wifi improvements, but the biggest issues are still unfixed, so they're not trivial


IMHO Valve should have chosen a more expensive wifi chip with known-good linux support out-of-the box (like most linux-oriented hardware manufacturers) instead of betting on a (most likely cheaper) chip and betting they could fix things quickly on the go...

...but maybe the issues flew under their radar, because they're all inconsistent (not affecting everyone equally, only some units in some usages, paired with some routers, etc)... no amount of in-house testing covers the full variety found in people's homes all over the world

[Dizzy Media]

Originally posted by Marlock:

We know from previous threads tha Valve received some known malfunctioning wifi units back from RMA and that they have put their devs to work with help from a couple more tech-savvy users that are helping debug their issues

This seems to have resulted in a couple OS updates mentioning wifi improvements, but the biggest issues are still unfixed, so they're not trivial


IMHO Valve should have chosen a more expensive wifi chip with known-good linux support out-of-the box (like most linux-oriented hardware manufacturers) instead of betting on a (most likely cheaper) chip and betting they could fix things quickly on the go...

...but maybe the issues flew under their radar, because they're all inconsistent (not affecting everyone equally, only some units in some usages, paired with some routers, etc)... no amount of in-house testing covers the full variety found in people's homes all over the world

The downside to having so many different brands? XD

[AquaDuck]

+1

Incredibly annoying, every time I put it to sleep I have to restart Steam (not the console).
Worked fine a few weeks ago.

[Marlock]

Originally posted by Wenhop:

+1

Incredibly annoying, every time I put it to sleep I have to restart Steam (not the console).
Worked fine a few weeks ago.

That's a different issue...

Putting the device to sleep stops everything... when the device wakes it has to reconnect... and the Steam app is not designed to tolerate a single second disconnected, not unless you put it in offline mode in advance... and the Gaming mode interface IS Steam so...