How to Disable Wi-Fi Power Saving on Ubuntu to Prevent SSH Lag

If you’ve noticed that SSH connections become very slow or unresponsive after your Ubuntu laptop has been idle for a while, this often happens because your Wi-Fi card enters power-saving mode.

Here’s how to check and disable Wi-Fi power management to ensure fast access to services like SSH, Telnet, and FTP.

Step 1: Identify Your Network Interface

Run the following command to find your WiFi network interface:

$ iw dev
phy#0
        Interface wlp3s0
                ifindex 3
                wdev 0x1
                addr d4:d2:52:96:ff:6e
                ssid ABCD1234

Here, wlp3s0 is your Wi-Fi interface name. You’ll use this in the following steps.

Step 2: Check Power Management Status

Use iwconfig to check if power saving is enabled:

$ iwconfig wlp3s0
wlp3s0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"ABCD1234"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.26 GHz  Access Point: 38:06:E6:28:76:75
          Tx-Power=22 dBm
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=65/70  Signal level=-45 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:7  Invalid misc:2548  Missed beacon:0

If you see Power Management: on, then your Wi-Fi card is going to sleep when idle, causing the SSH delay.

Step 3: Disable Power Management Temporarily

To turn off power-saving mode immediately (for the current session), execute the following command:

$ sudo iwconfig wlp3s0 power off

Step 4: Disable Power Management Permanently

To make this change persistent across reboots, you need to configure NetworkManager.

1. Edit NetworkManager configuration

Open the wifi powersave configuration file (usually named default-wifi-powersave-on.conf):

$ sudo vim /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

Find the [connection] section and set wifi.powersave to 2.

[connection]
wifi.powersave = 2

Understanding the Values:

Value	Identifier	Description	Use Case
0	DEFAULT	Default setting (depends on internal policy or driver)	When you don’t want to customize the setting
1	IGNORE	Don’t touch (keep current setting)	Not commonly used for forcing changes
2	DISABLED	Disable power saving mode	When connection stability is important (e.g., avoid SSH timeouts)
3	ENABLED	Enable power saving mode	When saving power is important (e.g., on laptops)

(Note: In typical NetworkManager docs, 1 is ‘Ignore/Don’t touch’, 2 is ‘Disable’, 3 is ‘Enable’. Please verify your specific version docs, but 2 is standard for disabling.)

2. Restart NetworkManager

$ sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

Step 5: Check Power Management Status after Reboot

Verify that power management is now off:

$ iwconfig wlp3s0
...
Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
...

If you see Power Management: off, your SSH connections should now remain responsive even after the laptop has been idle.