Why it issues: For a first-gen system, Valve’s Steam Deck is fairly versatile in the case of DIY repairs and upgrades. Although Valve won’t need you to do a boatload of tinkering, it’s doable to improve the hand-held’s SSD with out an excessive amount of fuss. iFixit additionally sells quite a lot of alternative components however these actually solely scratch the floor of what is doable. With a little bit of creativeness (and a few quality-of-life compromises), it is doable to additional construct on Valve’s imaginative and prescient as Linus Tech Tips not too long ago demonstrated.
To create the “Ultimate” Steam Deck, Linus Sebastian and crew began by including a 1TB SanDisk Extreme reminiscence card to the hand-held. They additionally managed to get their arms on a 30mm Micron 2TB NVMe SSD engineering pattern. Micron stated they weren’t certain if it might even work within the Steam Deck however spoiler – it does.
The group additionally upgraded the Steam Deck’s thumbsticks, choosing a set of electromagnetic joysticks from GuliKit. The default Steam Deck thumbsticks are potentiometer-based and might put on down over time, resulting in points like drifting. GuliKit’s sticks use magnets which ought to eradicate such points and are extra exact.
In a earlier video, the group added a large passive cooler from Thermalright – the HR-09 2280 – to their Steam Deck. The mod kind of labored, however not as totally supposed. Rather than maintaining the system cooler, it simply extended how lengthy it took to warmth up. After about half an hour, it received simply as scorching as earlier than.
With the most recent spherical of upgrades, they added a cooling fan to the passive sink. Another small passive heatsink was affixed to a tiny battery administration chip that will get very toasty underneath load.
(iFixit has a great tutorial on tearing down the Steam Deck)
Continuing on, Linus and crew added a dbrand Kill Switch to guard the console. Some modifications have been wanted for the case to suit with the heatsink protruding the again however this was simply dealt with with a rotary slicing instrument. They additionally made customized thumbstick protectors and added a tempered glass display screen protector in addition to physique skins to reduce scratches.
The group moreover affixed a ten,000mAh energy financial institution to the rear of the Steam Deck for added battery life.
To say the construct is overkill can be an understatement however it does handle a number of of the hand-held’s shortcomings. Not the entire mods are sleek and so they definitely add some additional weight to the general package deal, pushing it from 1.49 kilos inventory to 2.42 kilos. Still, it exhibits what’s doable in the event you’re keen to take a position a little bit of money and time into the hand-held and with a bit of luck, perhaps Valve will incorporate a few of these concepts into future builds.
I’m personally trying ahead to seeing what the modding neighborhood can pull off as soon as the Steam Deck Dock launches. Water cooling, anybody?
