CEC & General Sleep Issues

[PeeJaySpear]

TV: LG OLED65CXPUA TV

Plugged into HDMI 3. All 4 HDMI ports occupied. HDMI 2 eARC port used by Sonos Arc Soundbar. Flawless CEC function on HDMI 1 and 4 for Switch 2 and Apple TV 4K
Troubleshooted with multiple HDMI Cables.

Consistent issues across cables and so switching back to included HDMI cable

Steam Machine is super awesome but a lot of work is needed with CEC and just sleep in general. Here are all the issues I have been experiencing:

- Steam Machine goes to sleep but then wakes up within a minute. Only fix when this happens is to restart. This happens most of the time when a game is playing.
* this is probably my biggest, most consistent, most annoying bug. I have tested it a lot and it mostly happens in game near full GPU Load but can still happen during non demanding titles or when nothing is playing. It’s making it so that I now need to think about if I’m near a save point to put the console to sleep because so many times I just end up having to exit the game and do a full shut down. I have confirmed my controller or TV remote aren’t triggering the turning on because I leave them completely still on the table when hitting the sleep button

- Steam Machine resumes from sleep at very low performance. Only fix is to restart.

- Steam Machine goes to sleep but does not wake up via controller or button. Have to hold button for a full shutdown and then turn on again.

The CEC specific issues are less important to me than the above 3 but are still very important to me as a key reason why I purchased the Steam Machine:

- Steam Machine can’t turn off TV when sleep is activated

- Steam Machine inconsistently doesn’t turn on the TV when turning on from a powered off state. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t

- Steam Machine inconsistently doesn’t switch to my proper HDMI input when turned on from sleep

[alexxedo]

Have similar issues with Samsung TV. This CEC functionality is clearly undercooked. At that price point I hope they will fix this.

[PeeJaySpear]

Originally posted by alexxedo:

Have similar issues with Samsung TV. This CEC functionality is clearly undercooked. At that price point I hope they will fix this.

It’s early enough. I am very optimistic that Valve will be quick with updates judging by how the Steam Deck was handled in its first few months after launch! Having a ton of fun with my Machine but just these few hiccups need some work

[Squid McNasty]

Excellent write-up, was just about to come post the exact same symptoms, descriptions, and workarounds as my experience with Sleep/Wake functionality. (SteamOS 3.8.22, Beta Update Channel)

Glad it's not just me/my Machine.

And agreed - based on my experience with Steam Deck I'm sure this will get ironed out in due time.

[PeeJaySpear]

Have done a lot more testing specifically for when the Steam Machine immediately wakes up from sleep 10-15 seconds after going to sleep. When this glitch occurs, it happens everytime until the console restarts. I started messing with the “Power” CEC settings one by one, and I figured out that “Turn off TV when going to sleep” is the culprit. Once that is turned off, this isn’t an issue anymore. It’s interesting because every time I turn my Steam Machine off, it always turns off the TV and then the TV turns back on. In these instances, sometimes the sleep works, and sometimes it immediately wakes up again.

Nonetheless, since even when sleep works properly my TV doesn’t turn off, I have disabled this setting so that I can get a functioning sleep button. Hope this helps!

[PeeJaySpear]

Have more experience and honestly, I’m just even more perplexed now. I thought disabling “Turn TV Off When Going to Sleep” fixed my big issue but that isn’t the case. Someone on Reddit mentioned that moving the controller while it’s in the process of sleeping triggers it and I tested that too in case the side sensors or gyro were triggering it and that’s not it either.

I did however find a new behavior that fixes it when the Steam Machine immediately wakes up again. Since by default in the CEC settings the Steam machine accepts my TV remotes input, if I put my Machine to sleep, wait a moment for it to power back on, then sleep it with my TVs remote control, it will stay asleep. Either that, or I manually put it to sleep via the button on the Machine. Who’s to say if I come back in a few days and figure out that this isn’t definitive either but it’s working thus far. So maybe the Steam Controller is the culprit on shutdown? Will keep documenting new developments as I see them

[さゆみ]

I turned off the CEC function because after putting it to sleep and switching the HDMI of my TV to watch something via my shield TV the Steam Machine Turms back on (it does not switch the HDMI like my Shield is doing) its just turn on and since I switched "channels" I had to get up and press the button on the Steam Machine to put it back to sleep.

But even with CEC functionality off the Steam Machine is turning on again after switching HDMI. Don't know how to get rid of that Behavior

[kastenfresse]

Originally posted by alexxedo:

Have similar issues with Samsung TV. This CEC functionality is clearly undercooked. At that price point I hope they will fix this.

Same here on Samsung S95F (2025 Model)

[PeeJaySpear]

Reporting back - really starting to think it is something about the controller putting it to sleep. When the controller puts it to sleep, the LED on the controller stays on for like 5-10 seconds after the LED bar on the Machine goes to sleep and then the Machine turns back on. But then every single time I use my TV remote or the button on the machine to put it to sleep the second time, it never wakes up again.

This leads me to believe the Steam Controller is in some way at fault here. It’s only been a couple more days of testing but with how frequent this issue occurs and getting a solid 10+ successful turn offs with TV remote, I think it’s safe to say something is hear.

I also mentioned earlier about success rates for the controller putting the machine to sleep changing if you hold down the Steam button on the controller then hit sleep vs going into the power settings and hitting sleep. It seems going into the power settings and hitting sleep is a bit more consistent although this could just be coincidental.

[PeeJaySpear]

After more days of testing, the TV remote method eventually did fail last night. I tried turning off all CEC settings and did more testing and it still failed. Really running out of ideas but then I saw this Reddit post a couple hours ago.

From my limited testing today, this Reddit Users fix seemingly does appear to work. It’s potentially the controller disconnected notification waking the console and you can disable it here:

settings --> notifications --> controller disconnect.

Can’t be 100% sure but I’m going to keep testing this

https://www.reddit.com/r/steammachine/s/b6mwOvVddg

[The Unknown]

Originally posted by さゆみ:

I turned off the CEC function because after putting it to sleep and switching the HDMI of my TV to watch something via my shield TV the Steam Machine Turms back on (it does not switch the HDMI like my Shield is doing) its just turn on and since I switched "channels" I had to get up and press the button on the Steam Machine to put it back to sleep.

But even with CEC functionality off the Steam Machine is turning on again after switching HDMI. Don't know how to get rid of that Behavior

Did ya try disabling tv remote control? (And toggle the setting on and off again)

That stops this behavior for me anyways.

[さゆみ]

Originally posted by The Unknown:

Originally posted by さゆみ:

I turned off the CEC function because after putting it to sleep and switching the HDMI of my TV to watch something via my shield TV the Steam Machine Turms back on (it does not switch the HDMI like my Shield is doing) its just turn on and since I switched "channels" I had to get up and press the button on the Steam Machine to put it back to sleep.

But even with CEC functionality off the Steam Machine is turning on again after switching HDMI. Don't know how to get rid of that Behavior

Did ya try disabling tv remote control? (And toggle the setting on and off again)

That stops this behavior for me anyways.

I turned off everything but even after restarting the behavior stays. It seems for now I can't get rid pf the broken CEC behavior ;(

[さゆみ]

Originally posted by PeeJaySpear:

This leads me to believe the Steam Controller is in some way at fault here. It’s only been a couple more days of testing but with how frequent this issue occurs and getting a solid 10+ successful turn offs with TV remote, I think it’s safe to say something is hear.

When im back home I have to check that behavior too when using the Steam Controller. Usually I turn the machine off with it but i will try to connect a second gamepad and see how it will behave

[Carrylex]

Originally posted by author:

- Steam Machine resumes from sleep at very low performance. Only fix is to restart.

- Steam Machine goes to sleep but does not wake up via controller or button. Have to hold button for a full shutdown and then turn on again.

Have the exact same problems.
Easy sleep mode and resuming was one of the reasons for me to get this machine.
Don't know if I should hope for fixes or return it.

[HeikkiH]

I have similar CEC problems with a setup that has a LG 55" OLED evo C5 and Onkyo amplifier (ARC connected) where turning off the TV turns off TV, Onkyo and the Steam Machine but after few seconds the machine wakes up and also TV and Onkyo wake also.

[PeeJaySpear]

I think this will be my final update. Essentially, nothing 100% resolved the random immediate rewake from sleep issue entirely. Disabling all forms of CEC, turning off controller notifications, and even updating to the latest SteamOS that supposedly fixed a bug with the Steam Controller waking the console from sleep.

It’s at a point where when it works I get so excited but when it doesn’t, it can potentially lead to the extreme performance loss on sleep glitch that only resolves with a full restart. I now know if I have limited time to play, I need to always be at a save point and decide if I want to risk a quick resume with sleep or troubleshooting a wake issue and completely shutting down instead.

Honestly, the shut down and startup time is so fast it’s not terrible… but as a huge SteamOS fan since the deck and its flawless sleep features, I really hope improvements can be made here. Seems like a lot of people affected have LG TVs and Apple TVs and I wonder if there is some overlap in the function failing due to these devices. I don’t think I’m going to experiment anymore but I will actively monitor SteamOS updates that mention improvements to sleep/CEC