I Work 12 hours a day so i barely stop at home and have no time to play games, ive been wanting to own a steam deck ever since It was announced but i'm Brazilian and tech is prohibitively expensive here.

I finally managed to buy a deck but after only 2 days of owning it for some fucking reason It turned itself on while inside it's case because of my bluetooth headphones, and It overheated badly to the point that the case was burning hot once i got home.

The deck still Works but it's VERY slow, even after i let It cool off for an entire night. It can't run any games and takes like 20 seconds to even open a browser. It's so slow that even typing takes like 1-2 full seconds to register each individual letter.

I'm completely devastaded, this thing was so expensive and i've wanted It for so long and now it's ruined because apparently this fucking thing Just turns on on it's own randomly. I'm so fucking angry and Sad and desperately need any help in case any of you guys know of any way to fix this.

Is this an easy fix? Any good brands when it comes to replacing these? Definitely keeping the deck in its case when I’m not using it anymore…lol

Update/Edit @ 10:32 PM, update below original post, scroll down to see :) I also added the update as a comment, not sure if it can be pinned somehow. Even if not, the update is still here.

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Hi all!

About nine months ago, I was involved in an apartment fire where my apartment had to be knocked down to contain the fire, with the rubble being run over by an excavator. Digging through the rubble, I found my Steam Deck OLED 1 TB, which, amazingly works.

It has seen better days, with the screen being cracked, the rear shell having cracked off (along with the screw mounts), controls on either side are not working, volume board up top has the motherboard connector bent and some other miscellaneous problems.

Hooking it up to a friend's computer through USB C shows that it still has life, that the unit is still working as it should, with all connections like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth working as well. The micro SD card slot was a bit bent, but I was able to bend it back in place it and the SD Card slot also works.

I was thinking of possibly buying new parts for it and slowly trying to bring it back to its former glory. I saw a really awesome purple and blue clear case that is made for the Steam Deck LCD that I would like to try to use and mod it to fit my Steam Deck OLED (I would use my broken screen as a guide to modify it to make it fit my new OLED screen). I have repaired consoles in the past and have experience fixing smaller electronic devices as well. I see that a lot of the boards are separate and connected to each other through ribbon cable connectors, so I feel like it wouldn't be super hard to fix.

What do you think? Should I try to save it? I think it would make for a neat experience. Maybe I could even make a video out of it <3

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Update/Edit 4/20 @ 10:17 PM - I just wanted to say thank you so much for the outpour of kindness and your ideas for this Steam Deck! Even before posting this, I had planned on fixing it and bringing it back to its former glory. I just wanted to see if I was right in my idea of wanting to fix it or if there was a different consensus from others here. This will always have a story, and I never plan on getting rid of it for as long as I am here (sorry, I am not interested in selling it). I am sorry I couldn't reply to each and every one of you, but I appreciate all of your replies and ideas <3 This is my plan of action. So far, already:

I have contacted Steam support, not asking for a new console, but telling them what happened and what parts they suggest I should start with. I wouldn't ever expect Steam to replace my console for free, but I am sure they could help give me direction. Thanks to some of your comments, I was also made aware that the OLED model of the blue and purple housing (Bluebell) that I wanted was recently made available as well, so thank you for that info! I ordered it and it is on the way.

With my next steps, I plan on slowly fixing the console, bringing it back to its former glory! If it can't be fixed, then I plan on turning it into a Mini PC, as suggested by a good amount of you, so thank you for that info as well!

To clarify some other things; I had renters' insurance, I was renting, but dumbly, I only had 30K of coverage and I lost an estimated 40K stuff. Lesson learned, don't skimp out on coverage. I am still working with insurance; it has been a long process.

The story of how my apartment burned down was my downstairs neighbors were smoking on their enclosed front porch. They left a blunt lit and it caused something on their porch to catch on fire, which caused their porch to start on fire, causing my upper porch to start on fire and then the rest of the apartment. I woke up to smoke alarms (since it was 11:50 PM and was asleep) and ran to the front door through the thick, black smoke, to find my only way out was completely engulfed in flames. In the end, I had to jump out my second story window. This happened at the end of July last year. Kinda a fitting story to tell considering it's 4/20, haha.

Also, when I do get to making a video and uploading it, I will be posting it here. I will also make another post when it gets to that point. - https://www.youtube.com/@ZawnFix (If this link isn't allowed, I will happily remove it).

I was just starting to get into hollow Knight too! Looked up repair options and sounds like steam can do it for ~$200USD. Not bad!

So idiot me was trying to be nice a few nights ago and gave a friend a ride to the airport in the middle of the night. He's a bit of a character and as he was lifting his giant suitcase into the backseat, I saw my steam deck's life flash before my eyes so I grabbed it quickly. Well the quick 2am grab ended up being the real mistake because I fumbled the stock case and it landed on the ground from maybe 4 or 5 feet (pretty directly on the left end).

I booted it up the next morning, and after a quick visual inspection (quick enough to miss the damage) i played a bit of windrose docked with no issues. Work week starts, no time for games :( but now it's Saturday and I have the day off so I take it out of the case and lo and behold the drop did some damage (as pictured)...

I'm hoping it is mostly cosmetic, since the thing worked for a bit on Monday, but I also don't want to mess something up by trying to click it back into place (especially with the recent price increase).

I included the shot of the back just to be sure there's no spicy pillowing, because it doesn't look funky to me, but as already established I'm an idiot so a non-idiot thinking the same would be aces

Also I suck at reddit so cheers if there're no photos and this thing gets down voted to oblivion

EDIT I'm adding this instantly because I want you guys to know this community response within two minutes has literally been the big highlight in a really crap week for me. You guys all deserve a good slap on the back and infinite attaboys.

EDIT 2 HOLY SHIT WHAT A FUCKING SNAP LET'S GO

Noticed a strange curvature on the back side of my deck yesterday, immediately shut off and just opened it up. Is my battery cooked?

Battery ended up going off…. fml 😭

I've gotten it pretty loose but it won't fall out, any ideas on how to get this fill out safely?

It slept next to me on a small table. Neither me or my partner saw any incidents.

A few days ago the Dock I have fell from the table and the cable hold it from falling to the ground. After that, my monitor didn't register image anymore. Now, this happened and I'm unsure if both incidents are corelated.

Also,can this be fixed? Is it an DIY job?

Edit: the glass itself is OK, it isn't broken. It's an LCD deck.

I think my deck's battery is swollen.... Although it says battery health 100%. what can I do in this situation? I'm from a country where the deck is not officially sold. I bought it from someone that bought it from the UK and sold it in my country (fully intact not 2nd hand).

Importing a lithium battery is probably not a good idea as that would incur extremely high shipping costs ($500+), what can I do in this situation? my luck is so bad 🙃

So a couple month ago I bought this then broken steamdeck for 80€ Nearly all of the buttons were broken and didn’t work The previous owner tried to desolder the old ones and solder in new ones . But ripped the pads on 70% of them So after many sleepless hours repairing the traces and replacing the buttons The only broken thing left was the right trackpad . Found one from China for 30$ Took a couple months to arrive but now the steamdeck finally works perfectly and I can safely strap it to an airplane seat 🙃

I have to hand it to Valve for making a super user serviceable device that they know and planned for half of us to get into. This is the easiest device to service I’ve ever been in, better than a MacBook. Everything only goes in one way, is located with pegs and screws, including all the button inserts, and there are only a few types of screws on the inside. I cracked it open again to clean out the trackpads, and I thought it would be major surgery to dig this deep, but it was almost painless.

Thank you Valve for actually caring about your technically savvy consumers!

Should I buy like a new charger? I was also thinking shrink wrap. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks :)

I'm replacing my battery. I didn't realize how swollen my current one was! I need to find a safe way to dispose of it. Glad it won't be next to my fingers anymore!

Like the title says, I think I might need to replace the battery. Any way to do it without heating the battery?

I can't believe I just did this. I've taken my steam deck apart so many times and I've always made sure to take the SD card out. I've seen SO many posts about it; that the last couple I saw I asked myself, "how can they still leave it in there after seeing a different post about it every day?" Well lol it happens to the best of us, cus I know better, we all know better, and I still just managed to snap my SD card. My dog bumped into the coffee table next to my couch where my steam deck was sitting on the dock and I had a full glass of milk right on the table too and some splashed out and landed on my steam deck; not a lot, but enough to concern me. So I frantically started unscrewing the back, took it off, and was like, "F*CK!" Lol. Oh well; it was only a 512 and I was gonna upgrade to the 2 tb one that SanDisk makes now soon anyways. Already upgraded my SSD to 2tb so then I'll have 4tb and that should be able to fit all my games. Anyways just thought I'd contribute to the cautionary tales that everyone sees and thinks 'dummy' until they do it themselves 🤣😂🤣. Happy gaming everyone and be careful!

I have a 64gb LCD Deck that I bought about two years ago.

A little while ago, I noticed the back buttons on the left side of my Deck were getting a bit hard to press. I didn't think anything of it, because I have a connective tissue disorder that makes it hard for me to press buttons sometimes, so I just assumed the angle my hands were at to hit those buttons just was being difficult for me.

Two days ago I noticed my screen beginning to bulge outwards, no longer adhering to the shell in the bottom left corner. That made me realize what the problem actually was: a spicy pillow.

I immediately unplugged my deck and drained its battery, then put the deck into battery storage mode in the bios right before the battery died.

It took me a couple days to get together all the tools I needed for this extraction. Thankfully, I already had a couple tools from iFixit.

The extraction itself was the one of yhe most gruelling and scary three and a half hours of my life. Starting with the extreme frustration of the shell screws being sealed with locktite. The screw at bottom-center-right (when looking at the back of the shell) almost stripped on me. It took a rubber band and a prayer to get it to budge.

I am extremely grateful for the iFixit guide that walked me through the removal process. The adhesive that held the battery in place was very stubborn and I was extremely scared of the battery, so I used my hairdryer very cautiously to try to ensure I wouldn't cause a disaster.

I've done a lot of computer repairs over the years, and this was by far the most difficult and scary repair I have ever done.

I hope iFixit stocks more batteries soon. For now, I will use my Deck by just keeping it plugged in all the time, battery-less.

After keeping it permanently docked for more than 2 years, I started noticing immense swelling on both faces of my Steam Deck while I was doing some house cleaning on Sunday. Thank god I checked Reddit out yesterday & realised that this might be a fire hazard at my home.

Started opening up my Steam Deck & checking out the condition of the battery last night, and oh my it’s really spicy. Had to spend a solid couple hours just slowly prying and heating away with my hairdryer at the black tape adhering to the battery pack.

Checked out other Reddit posts and I can confirm that I got the VDL battery that was part of the bad batch of Steam Deck batteries out there. Starting to realise that, that’s probably the reason that I got a fairly steep discount from my retailer back then.

Oh well, I will probably make do with using it while it’s plugged in like usual. It can work without a battery pack, and I’m glad to have this absolutely mind blowing tech from Valve. They really did a good job fine tuning this tiny piece of hardware to suit a myriad of customers’ needs well.

This is my mother’s Steam Deck, she mainly plays wobbly life with my son so it doesn’t a ton of use. I know that batteries can inflate and push open the case, but I guess the question is does this pattern fit that? It’s only open on the sides and not the top or bottom. It’s also possible it was dropped by a few feet as it hangs out on a side table. I’ve already unplugged it.

Edit: I don’t have my tools here but the consensus is to open her up. Thanks y’all.

Edit 2: Removed the back panel, battery looks fine to me. I think the shell had just come loose from a drop. Saved me from buying a new battery. Also, there was no SD card inserted, but thanks for the hyper vigilance!

Hello! I had a "fight" with my older sister recently. Long story short she got mad and threw my Steam Deck down at the ground. The front shell is pretty broken, especially along the left bumper, whereas the left bumper is now also rendered completely useless since I can't press down on it (think it's because of the shell/the impact constantly pushing down on it). Otherwise it seems to work pretty well.. I contacted support and they said repairs would cost likely around 225€, but that's kinda out of my budget considering I'm 16 and had to sell my PC(which I bought by myself) for my steam deck and money isn't really something I have a large sum of, or at least for right now. I could maybe fix it by myself but I heard the front shell is the hardest part on the steam deck to fix independently (in Germany we say: "Pech gehabt", basically saying the worse case scenario happened/tough luck). It also looks quite fugly with the scuffs and cracks.. but it's the beauty in the inside that counts!! Does anyone have any recommendations? Is it really that insanely difficult to replace the shell? I could scrap up some stuff to maybe sell for a replacement shell but I don't really have that much experience with tech. I'm kinda a tech geek in theory (but also a noob so don't expect that much), which is why I love my steam deck so very much and would hate to see it go😿 Thank you in advance!

I was playing games on my deck, nothing that was straining the system at all and now suddenly it wont charge, I took some pictures and I think the charge port got fried somehow .

What can I do to fix this that doesnt require sending it in somewhere to be fixed, i cant afford it

Opened my Steam Deck because I was curious that my left back buttons weren't being pressed down right while my right back buttons were working fine. I thought it was going to be a quick fix, now I'm just sad. Oh well, spicy pillow.