I have the same problem with Ubuntu 25.04 where on Power mode Balanced my wifi drops tremendously even if I have the power saving off on my wifi (I used iw command). I have to keed my laptop pluged-in and on Power mode Performance in order to get a good wifi speed.
Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse 
I have moved your post to its own topic since the issues are not exactly the same as described in the other topic.
As a general note, it is always best to create your own topic to get the best possible support.
Thanks.
1 Like
“Balanced” in Ubuntu 25.04 uses power-profiles-daemon.
When that service switches to balanced it tells NetworkManager to put all Wi-Fi
interfaces into powersave=3 (max-power-save). Some Intel and Realtek cards
interpret that as “cut throughput to ~5 Mbps.”
Fix it once by overriding the Wi-Fi powersave setting; the profile can still
toggle CPU and screen power, but Wi-Fi stays full-speed.
# 1. Create a small NM override
sudo mkdir -p /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d
echo -e "[device]\nwifi.powersave = 2" | sudo tee /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/99-no-wifi-powersave.conf
# values: 0=default, 1=on, 2=off, 3=auto
# we want 2 → powersave off
# 2. Reload NetworkManager (no reboot needed)
sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager
Now unplug the laptop, pick Balanced in the GNOME power menu, and run a
speed-test: Wi-Fi should stay at the same rate as in Performance while the
rest of the system still saves battery.
If you ever want to revert, just delete the file and restart NetworkManager.
What is the output of
sudo lshw -C network; lsb_release -a; uname -a
Thanks
Thanks, I will
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: Tiger Lake PCH CNVi WiFi
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 14.3
bus info: pci@0000:00:14.3
logical name: wlp0s20f3
version: 11
serial: 80:38:fb:88:67:dd
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=6.14.0-15-generic firmware=77.2753b721.0 QuZ-a0-hr-b0-77.u ip=192.168.2.58 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
resources: iomemory:600-5ff irq:16 memory:607319c000-607319ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 25.04
Release: 25.04
Codename: plucky
Linux colonel-Precision-5560 6.14.0-15-generic #15-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun Apr 6 15:05:05 UTC 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
-network
description: Wireless interface
product: Tiger Lake PCH CNVi WiFi
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 14.3
bus info: pci@0000:00:14.3
logical name: wlp0s20f3
version: 11
serial: 80:38:fb:88:67:dd
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=6.14.0-15-generic firmware=77.2753b721.0 QuZ-a0-hr-b0-77.u ip=192.168.2.58 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
resources: iomemory:600-5ff irq:16 memory:607319c000-607319ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
I tried and it worked until I reboot the computer. The speed droped again.
I had to do sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager after reboot so that the wifi speed comes back to normal
power-profiles-daemon flips the connection setting every time it starts, so our device-wide tweak gets overwritten at boot.
Set the same flag inside the connection profile itself and the change will stick.
# list your Wi-Fi connections
nmcli connection show
# pick the profile that matches your SSID, then:
sudo nmcli connection modify "<profile-name>" 802-11-wireless.powersave 2
# activate it right away (or just reboot)
nmcli connection up "<profile-name>"
wifi.powersave = 2 is now baked into that profile, so even when GNOME switches to Balanced at startup, NetworkManager leaves the card in full-power mode and your speed stays normal without an extra systemctl restart.
(If you connect to other networks, repeat the nmcli … powersave 2 step for each saved Wi-Fi profile.)
It is returning an error : sudo nmcli connection modify “wlp0s20f3” 802-11-wireless.powersave 2Error: unknown connection ‘wlp0s20f3’.
nmcli connection show
NAME UUID TYPE DEVICE
BELL060 0316770c-ac48-42d4-abdb-9a7af911d995 wifi wlp0s20f3
lo 2a21228c-b187-49cb-aff1-194350fd8211 loopback lo
nmcli needs the connection profile name, not the interface name.
In your list the saved profile is “BELL060” and the interface is wlp0s20f3.
So run:
sudo nmcli connection modify "BELL060" 802-11-wireless.powersave 2
nmcli connection up "BELL060" # or just reboot
If you later connect to a different SSID, repeat the same nmcli connection modify … powersave 2 for that new profile as well.
Try:
echo "options iwlwifi swcrypto=1 power_save=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe./iwlwifi_fix.conf > /dev/null
Reboot to test. If it’s not better, then run:
rm -f /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi_fix.conf
Then reboot to complete the rollback
For myself it’s this easy:
iw wlan0 get power_save
Power save: on
sudo iw wlan0 set power_save off
[sudo] password for me:
iw wlan0 get power_save
Power save: off
Replace < wlan0> with your device, hint ip a should give the correct name.
If nVidia is installed, coming out of suspend or sleep resets it to default.
If you decide on this method and want to make it permanent across reboots, just let me know.
Post results from terminal for ls /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/
