Networking issues (desktop mode)

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

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?

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

Thanks. I can't see it in the KDE settings but will give that a whirl.

[email protected]

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

[email protected]

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 3

[email protected]

Tech is silly sometimes.

[email protected]

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?

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

Oh man. I'm glad it solved it but I'm also very confused.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

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.

[email protected]

Would 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.

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Networking issues (desktop mode)