Wifi dropping when connecting to a access point with 5ghz and wifi 6

[Vain]

my wifi constantly drops when connecting to my router access point that has both 5ghz and wifi 6 support. Its basically unuseable.

[[KAMI] RedWyvern]

Originally posted by DON'T PANIK:

I have a FRITZ!Box 7530 and I have the same problem. Very annoying if you are downloading huge games.

My Deck is connected to a Fritz!Box 7530, on the 5GHz band, on nearly the defaults my ISP gave it with.
It is extended with a mesh access point, but the Deck connects reliably to both.
The only thing that might be different is that it's 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks have different names, my Deck is unable to connect to the 2.4GHz one as I have not set this up.
Not sure where the difference lies, for me it is stable with downloading games and streaming over Steam Link in either direction.

[bad1080]

Originally posted by KAMI RedWyvern:

The only thing that might be different is that it's 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks have different names, my Deck is unable to connect to the 2.4GHz one as I have not set this up.

can confirm, 5ghz only works fine for me as well

[GaugedR34gtr]

I have this issue when trying to connect to my 5 ghz in desktop mode as well.

[randomic]

Seems to be resolved for me on latest beta. Router: Amplifi HD

[autoexec04]

Originally posted by randomic:

Seems to be resolved for me on latest beta. Router: Amplifi HD

You had me excited, but alas - no go for me (also using Amplifi HD mesh routers). With the stable branch, my Steam Deck appears to get to the usual 10-12MB/s before it degrades and is unable to reach Steam servers... with the Beta branch, the symptoms occur almost immediately (download starts, connection drops out and can't reach Steam servers).

Guess if it's still working as expected for you on 5Ghz Wifi, I'd be curious if you have any specific settings you've changed on your router that I should check out?

[randomic]

Originally posted by autoexec04:

Originally posted by randomic:

Seems to be resolved for me on latest beta. Router: Amplifi HD

You had me excited, but alas - no go for me (also using Amplifi HD mesh routers). With the stable branch, my Steam Deck appears to get to the usual 10-12MB/s before it degrades and is unable to reach Steam servers... with the Beta branch, the symptoms occur almost immediately (download starts, connection drops out and can't reach Steam servers).

Guess if it's still working as expected for you on 5Ghz Wifi, I'd be curious if you have any specific settings you've changed on your router that I should check out?

No non-default router settings, I don't think:
- Combined 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz SSID
- IOT Network off (this is a new setting to me, must've been a recent update)
- Band Steering on
- Router Steering off
- 2.4 GHz channel 11, 20 MHz bandwidth
- 5 GHz channel 48, 80 MHz bandwidth
- UPnP on
- Clone MAC Address off
- VLAN ID off
- IPv6 off
- Bridge Mode off

Might be worth mentioning I don't use mesh points, only the main router and I have a separate device doing DNS which the router points clients to.

The steam deck has the Wifi power management developer setting disabled (but that didn't do anything previously). Managing to maintain ~250 mbps download speeds whereas previously it'd stall at about 15.

HTH

[Ostrowiak]

it's absurd how often my 5G drops, constantly showing the exclamation mark and refusing to connect with steam servers

[qfoxb]

Having this issue as well, wifi 6 and 5ghz.
Edit: As a temporary workaround, i used a 2.4ghz wifi extender and my deck is able to connect to it just fine

[Gambloide]

Same issue here.
AVM FRITZ!Box 6591 5Ghz
No other devices have any issue with this connection.

A restart did not help.
After turning off Wifi Power Management in the developer options the problem seems to have been resolved.

It has been 10 months since at least this thread was made and got attention.
Why is that not the default setting yet and why is that toggle still hidden behind the developer options toggle?

[Aletheia]

Originally posted by Gambloide:

Same issue here.
AVM FRITZ!Box 6591 5Ghz
No other devices have any issue with this connection.

A restart did not help.
After turning off Wifi Power Management in the developer options the problem seems to have been resolved.

It has been 10 months since at least this thread was made and got attention.
Why is that not the default setting yet and why is that toggle still hidden behind the developer options toggle?

Because you're lucky to have it resolved with disabling Wifi power management. It doesn't work for everybody sadly.

[resibik]

We have been working on WiFi disconnections and have some improvements that we would like the larger community to test as these issues are affected by the environment that various customers are in. Please enable WiFi Power Management (as the fixes are related to this mode) and try connecting to 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks during testing. Also note that Main OS could have other issues that are currently being worked on, so please back up your data before switching to Main OS.

Instructions:
• Enable Developer Mode if you have not yet (Settings -> System -> Enable Developer Mode)
• Show Advanced Update Channels (Settings -> Developer -> Show Advanced Update Channels - toggle to On)
• Enable WiFi Power Management (Settings -> Developer -> Enable WiFi Power Management). System will reboot if you just toggled to Enable this setting.
• Switch to Main OS Update Channel (Settings -> System -> OS Update Channel - select Main). The system will apply the SW updates and reboot the system.
• Please verify the OS Build version to be 20221223.1000 (seen in System -> Settings)

There are 2 issues here that are mixed together. First is WiFi disconnections with the Steam Deck just sitting idle or usage without game downloads (e.g. browsing the store) and the second is WiFi disconnections when downloading games. Please test the two different scenarios listed above and report back on WiFi disconnections with this OS version. For the first scenario, let the Steam Deck sit idle for ~2 minutes between browsing and see if you get any disconnects. If you were having disconnections before, please try to provide an assessment if it's any better with this OS version.

If you still have disconnects, please provide the country you are in, AP make and model you are using, 2.4GHz/5GHz/Auto band, 20/40/80MHz/Auto bandwidth.

[Dethjonny]

Originally posted by resibik:

We have been working on WiFi disconnections and have some improvements that we would like the larger community to test as these issues are affected by the environment that various customers are in.

Instructions:
• Enable Developer Mode if you have not yet (Settings -> System -> Enable Developer Mode)
• Enable WiFi Power Management (Settings -> Developer -> Enable WiFi Power Management). System will reboot if you just toggled to Enable this setting.
• Switch to Main OS Update Channel (Settings -> System -> OS Update Channel - select Main). The system will apply the SW updates and reboot the system.

Please go ahead and use as normal and report back on WiFi disconnections with this OS version.

I've had my power management disabled to try and fix this issue, but it's still spotty. The description on the setting is that it may stabilize 5Ghz connections if it's disabled. Now you want me to enable it?

Also the OS update channel is either Stable, Beta, or Preview, not Main.

[resibik]

Originally posted by Dethjonny:

Originally posted by resibik:

We have been working on WiFi disconnections and have some improvements that we would like the larger community to test as these issues are affected by the environment that various customers are in.

Instructions:
• Enable Developer Mode if you have not yet (Settings -> System -> Enable Developer Mode)
• Enable WiFi Power Management (Settings -> Developer -> Enable WiFi Power Management). System will reboot if you just toggled to Enable this setting.
• Switch to Main OS Update Channel (Settings -> System -> OS Update Channel - select Main). The system will apply the SW updates and reboot the system.

Please go ahead and use as normal and report back on WiFi disconnections with this OS version.

I've had my power management disabled to try and fix this issue, but it's still spotty. The description on the setting is that it may stabilize 5Ghz connections if it's disabled. Now you want me to enable it?

Also the OS update channel is either Stable, Beta, or Preview, not Main.

I edited my post to provide a missing step and some more information on the changes.

[Kitsune]

Reporting about the instructions given.
I have a single router that distributes both a 5GHz and a 2.4GHz signal to two different respective networks. Connecting to either of these networks before following the instructions netted the No Secrets Given bug. After the instructions, attempting to connect to the 5GHz network still does not work. However, connecting to the 2.4GHz network is now completely fine.
My smartphone and my laptop are next to my Deck and have connected to both networks with no issues at all.

[owczyped]

Originally posted by resibik:

We have been working on WiFi disconnections and have some improvements that we would like the larger community to test as these issues are affected by the environment that various customers are in. Please enable WiFi Power Management (as the fixes are related to this mode) and try connecting to 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks during testing. Also note that Main OS could have other issues that are currently being worked on, so please back up your data before switching to Main OS.

Instructions:
• Enable Developer Mode if you have not yet (Settings -> System -> Enable Developer Mode)
• Show Advanced Update Channels (Settings -> Developer -> Show Advanced Update Channels - toggle to On)
• Enable WiFi Power Management (Settings -> Developer -> Enable WiFi Power Management). System will reboot if you just toggled to Enable this setting.
• Switch to Main OS Update Channel (Settings -> System -> OS Update Channel - select Main). The system will apply the SW updates and reboot the system.

Please go ahead and use as normal and report back on WiFi disconnections with this OS version.

Hey thanks for instructions. I tested these settings (Main channel, WiFi Power Management On/Off, 5GHz network) but still got instant disconnects as soon as download starts. I also get disconnects when downloading through browser (though delayed compared to steam), but no disconnects when downloading over local lan or win10 hotspot.
Only thing that mitigates the issue is when I throttle download speed (limit bandwidth in download settings, setting channel width to 40hz instead of auto 20/40/80hz, switching to 2GHz, etc). The disconnects still happens but gets delayed in time.