Steam Deck Wifi Issue

Do you have a problem with your Wi-Fi on your Steam Deck ?

Does it loose connection and spawns a little orange triangle indicating you that your connection is limited and so you cannot play any games online or download additional ones ?

Well, you’ve come to the right place for a little troubleshooting session.

I have had the same problem as yourself and spent time with the very friendly Steam Support in order to get my Deck back on track, Support steps and solutions that I will share with you in this article.

Level 1 - Basic Troubleshooting 🔗

First, think to check the Network + WiFi Troubleshooting Guide for inital troubleshooting steps

Try to identify any discriminant by ruling out problems that could come from the environment you’re in:

• Are you experiencing this issue on a home network, professional one or campus network ?
• What is the make and model of your router ?
• What security protocol does your network use ?
• Do you have both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz connection available ? If yes, make sure to try both of them
• Reproduce the issue on one (or multiple) networks
• Try disabling WiFi power management on your Steam Deck and confirmed that the problem persists. You can find this option in Settings > Developer menu. You may need to enable Developer Mode in Settings > System first for the option to show.

Level 2 - Reset firmware and BIOS 🔗

We’re going to reset the Deck’s firmware and BIOS.

• Ensure the device is fully powered down by holding the power button for 19 seconds or if possible select shutdown from the Power menu.
• Once the device is shutdown, hold down both the volume - button and the “…” button, then press the power button once. Then you can release all the buttons.
• You will hear a chime and then the white LED light will begin to blink (it may take 5 or more seconds before the blinking begins), which confirms this process is working.

Note: This process may take 1-2 minutes to start the Deck again during which the display will remain black.

Level 3 - Switching into battery storage mode 🔗

• Power the Steam Deck down normally (choose Shut Down from the Power menu). If you can’t access the menu, you can force a shutdown by holding down the Power button for 10 seconds.
• Hold the “Volume +” button down and press the Power button once. Continue holding the “Volume +” button until you hear the system chime, then release and wait. The Steam Deck should boot into the BIOS menu within a couple minutes.
• Using the D-Pad and A to select, navigate to “Setup Utility”
• Navigate to the Power Menu
• Choose Battery storage mode, and confirm.

You should see the Steam Deck power off, and the power LED will blink three times to confirm battery storage mode has been activated.

Wait a few minutes then plug the Steam Deck and turn it on.

If it doesn’t work, let’s go to Level 4

Level 4 - Re-imaging your Steam Deck 🔗

⚠️ Re-imaging your Steam Deck is akin to a factory reset, which means that all of your game, data, sessions, files, … will be deleted. ⚠️

You can find all the official instructions in the Steam documentation available here

Please note that you will need

• The recovery image (provided by Steam)
• A USB key or SD Card that is at least 8GB
• If you’re using a USB key, you’d need a USB-A to USB-C converter to plug it in or using a dock (like the JSAUX docking station which works perfectly (not affiliated))

Note: I had problems in my first attempt at booting the image because I was using a poor quality hub that failed every time I launched the process.

Solution was to plug my usb key directly into the JSAUX docking station and my Steam Deck on it.

Level 5 - RMA 🔗

If after all the preceding steps, nothing is working, Steam is likely to propose you a RMA, meaning sending your Steam Deck to the Customer Support and possibly getting a replacement unit, it usually arrives under 10 working days (EU -> EU)