If you are experiencing internet issues when using the Steam Deck, then you may want to consider disabling the Wi-Fi power management feature. To find out how you can turn off this function, then you can follow this step-by-step tutorial from Seeking Tech.
How to turn on the developer mode on the Steam Deck
In order to be able to disable the Wi-Fi power management feature of your Steam Deck, you first need to turn on the developer mode. To do so, you should take the following steps:
1. If you haven’t done so already, turn on your Steam Deck.
2. Next, you need to open the Steam menu, which you can do by pressing the Steam button.
3. From the Steam menu, you need to select Settings.
4. Inside the Settings menu, you need to first select System from the left column.
5. On the right side of the same screen, you then need to make sure that the Enable Developer Mode setting is turned on. You can find this setting right underneath the System Settings section.
How to turn off Wi-Fi power management on Steam Deck
After enabling the developer mode, you need to do the following in order to disable Wi-Fi power management for your Steam Deck:
1. Go back to the Settings menu of your portable system.
2. From the Settings menu, scroll all the way down and then select Developer.
If you don’t see this option, then you didn’t turn on the Developer Mode previously. Refer to the first part of this guide to see how you can enable this menu option.
3. In the Developer menu, scroll down to the Miscellaneous section.
4. Inside of the Miscellaneous section, make sure that the Enable Wifi Power Management setting is turned off.
5. After disabling the Enable Wifi Power Management, you will get a pop-up notification saying that you need to restart the Steam Deck in order for the change to take effect.
Here, you need to select the Restart Now option.
6. Once the portable system has restarted, the Wi-Fi power management feature should be disabled.
To enable it again, you need to go to Settings and then Developer. Afterwards, make sure you turn on the Enable Wifi Power Management setting.