I mostly use the deck in desktop mode recently as my laptop died and I have it hooked up to a dock with monitor and keyboard.
I’m having a bunch of networking issues lately. Basically the network becomes incredibly unstable after some time and a reboot fixes it. Restarting networking through systemd does not fix the issue. Same with disable / enable networking in the dropdown.
Ping is going as high as 10,000ms where after a reboot it’s 14ms and I’m getting 5-15% packet loss.
The router is about 7 metres away (22 feet or so).
I do suspend quite a bit. System is fully up to date. Just rebooted and now it’s fine.
I’ve had this issue with a crappy monitor. Whenever I plugged my laptop into the HDMI cable to that particular monitor, the WiFi practically died. I think it’s because the cable or the monitor acted like an antenna, but a properly shielded cable shouldn’t be doing that anyway, so who knows what the culprit is. All I know is it was either the old monitor or the cable itself.
I’d start by slowly excluding the hardware one by one. It you’re using some third party dock, that dock could very well be the reason why the WiFi dies.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
This was it.
Here’s my ping output. You can see where I unplugged and replugged the HDMI cable. Absolutely not in my wildest dreams would I have thought of this. Thank you so much.
(1)(deck@steamdeck ~)$ ping google.ie PING google.ie (74.125.193.94) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=1 ttl=108 time=818 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=2 ttl=108 time=674 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=3 ttl=108 time=308 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=4 ttl=108 time=289 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=5 ttl=108 time=404 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=6 ttl=108 time=25.7 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=7 ttl=108 time=17.2 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=8 ttl=108 time=19.6 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=9 ttl=108 time=18.6 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=10 ttl=108 time=19.4 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=11 ttl=108 time=17.0 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=12 ttl=108 time=16.0 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=13 ttl=108 time=17.0 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=14 ttl=108 time=17.5 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=15 ttl=108 time=25.2 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=16 ttl=108 time=17.1 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=17 ttl=108 time=15.2 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=18 ttl=108 time=19.7 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=19 ttl=108 time=14.0 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=20 ttl=108 time=21.2 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=21 ttl=108 time=20.3 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=22 ttl=108 time=18.8 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=23 ttl=108 time=13.9 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=24 ttl=108 time=18.1 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=25 ttl=108 time=12.9 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=26 ttl=108 time=17.9 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=27 ttl=108 time=16.1 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=28 ttl=108 time=19.1 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=29 ttl=108 time=15.1 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=30 ttl=108 time=16.2 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=31 ttl=108 time=16.4 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=32 ttl=108 time=18.1 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=33 ttl=108 time=21.7 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=34 ttl=108 time=23.2 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=35 ttl=108 time=411 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=36 ttl=108 time=287 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=37 ttl=108 time=412 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=38 ttl=108 time=2445 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=39 ttl=108 time=1679 ms 64 bytes from ig-in-f94.1e100.net (74.125.193.94): icmp_seq=40 ttl=108 time=666 ms ^C --- google.ie ping statistics --- 41 packets transmitted, 40 received, 2.43902% packet loss, time 40064ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 12.890/223.052/2445.465/478.256 ms, pipe 3Would have never expected that, I’m glad I came back to this thread to see if you had made any progress. Searching online about that, sounds like it’s actually a somewhat common issue (that I had never heard of before now). Basically the advice is to try a better quality hdmi cable, swap to 5ghz wifi (which is less likely to get interference from this than 2.4Ghz), route the hdmi cable different to have more space between it and the deck, or add ferrite cores around the ends of the hdmi cable.
Tech is silly sometimes.
You can also try a quick and dirty fix, by slapping a ferrite bead on the HDMI cable. That’s an old trick from the analog world. Depending on how it is picking up interference, this may easily fix it without needing to rebuild your entire setup. Worst case scenario, you’re only out like 10 cents for the bead.
I would recommend disabling wifi battery optimization. I know you can do it from settings in game mode, I’m guessing there may also be a KDE setting for it.
Thanks. I can’t see it in the KDE settings but will give that a whirl.
Are you using it via cable or wifi?
The official dock or 3rd party?
Even with the reboot, it could still be that the IP is renewed, it would help if you could find out how frequently it happens. What kind of router are you using?
Have you been keeping the OS up to date?
It’s WiFi, 3rd party dock (but deck WiFi), ISP router which is unaffected on other devices, OS is right up to date.
I did reboot the ISP router just before posting and the issue still persisted until I rebooted the deck at which point it was gone.
edit: It’s gone to shit again. I got a network analyzer on my phone and ping is clean as a whistle on it while the deck is averaging 400ms.
Can you test if this happens when you use a network cable or does your dock not come with a network port?
Do you know what wifi does your ISP router use? Is it 5 or 6? Is it set to 2.4, 5, or 6Ghz?
How far is it from the router? Does any other device drop connection?
You’re not going to believe this but someone else commented above that it might be the HDMI cable or monitor and unbelievably they were correct. Ping immediately restored once I unplugged it then went bad again when I replugged.
I’ve rotated the deck 90 degrees and it’s a lot better.
Slap a ferrite bead on the cable. It will likely solve the interference issue, and they’re super cheap. You can get a variety pack for like $10 on amazon. They’re handy to have on hand, because an unbelievable amount of consumer-grade electronics are just fucking rawdogging the EM spectrum with unshielded cables and hoping for the best.
Oh man. I’m glad it solved it but I’m also very confused.
