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On multiple occurences, long downloads that were meant to run over night didn't do so properly. What these cases had in common was that the lid of my laptop was closed. I just tested it like this:

  1. started download of a 40GB file (Google Takeout) in Chrome and upload of some files to Telegram
  2. closed lid and did nothing with the laptop for 2 hours
  3. opened and checked both progresses

The results:

  • I got no system notification of the network connection disconnecting or reconnecting. On a previous occurrence, I checked the log of the router and it said that it was in use 24 hours on one day, so apparently my laptop never disconnected for long.
  • The Telegram upload didn't even finish one of the 1.5GB uploads in the two hours, while it previously took about 15 minutes for these files. But it did not show the usual "reconnecting" popup that indicates that it was disconnected before.
  • The Takeout download seemed to not have progressed too much, but it also didn't stop.

I recently remote-controlled my laptop while its lid was closed, so either this didn't happen that time or the speed was enough for that.

This seems to me like the WLAN connection just becomes very slow (a few percent of the usual speed) when the lid is closed. What could be reason for this?
I'm not very close to the router, could maybe metal in the lid interfere with the WLAN signal? Or is there some hidden setting to save battery by limiting the network speed while the lid is closed or the CPU is not busy or something like that? I already checked all related options in the system settings and in gnome-control-center, they are all set to do absolutely nothing when the lid is closed or the laptop is inactive. I also have no other power saving options active, as far as I know.
A long time ago I was able to upload and download things just fine over night, but since then most parts of the laptop were switched out (by the manufacturer), the system was reinstalled, I'm using a different network and so on.

Debian 9.8, Cinnamon 3.2.7, Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 24fd (rev 78)

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    I let my laptop lit open over night now and the Telegram upload was done without problems. – Fabian Röling Mar 31 '19 at 15:12
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not U&L related at all since this behavior (bad wifi signal with lid closed) could be present on Windows or macOS too... – user34720 Apr 2 '19 at 20:48
  • It wasn't the case before I reinstalled the system, so I suspect a software issue. – Fabian Röling Apr 2 '19 at 23:21

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