This is probably old news to most people but I’m posting here in case it helps anyone else! Turns out there’s a power management setting you can disable that really improved the wireless reliability for me.

You first have to enable Developer Mode in Settings > System. Then you should see a new menu right at the bottom of the settings list called Developer. Under Miscellaneous you should see the option Enable Wifi Power Management.

Turning this off completely solved the problems I was having with Wifi being either really slow or dropping out completely to the point where it was almost unusable.

  • Derin@lemmy.beru.co
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    1 year ago

    Holy shit, thank you. I’ve been occasionally toggling the wi-fi on and off to fix it, basically dropping the connection!

    • Fubarberry@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’ve had it turned off for awhile now, and I haven’t noticed any battery difference. I didn’t do benchmarks or anything though.

      • Papa_Samu@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s good to know. It probably has only a small effect, maybe only 1-2% over the course of an entire battery cycle.

        • EK13@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          So I’ve done a small amount of testing this morning and had the same drop in battery over the same amount of time with it on vs with it off. I’d say you’re probably right that it’s only a few percent!

          • Papa_Samu@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That’s awesome and it makes it sense. I didn’t imagine it to be very much but I also understand how Valve would want to take advantage of every energy saving feature by default.

    • EK13@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Good question! I assume there’s some trade-off but I haven’t properly tested it yet since I was just excited to see it working properly. I can try running some experiments tomorrow.

      • Papa_Samu@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I totally understand about being excited to see it working properly. No pressure but any testing would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

  • BigJim@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’ve had this disabled for months but I still have frequent wifi connectivity issues