Additionally in Steam Deck information, Valve’s Lawrence Yang – a designer who labored on the on the hand held PC – has weighed in on a extensively shared mod that replaces the pre-installed SSD with a bigger, sooner mannequin. His recommendation: don’t do it.
The mod, by Twitter consumer Belly Jelly, swaps out the dinky default M.2 2230 SSD for a barely longer M.2 2242 drive. It appears to largely work nice aside from making “the warmth spreader bow a bit.” It was subsequently shared by PC Gamer, GameSpot and others earlier than Yang tweeted a warning that such a change would “considerably shorten the lifetime of your Deck” by shifting thermal pads very important to cooling the charger IC (built-in circuit).
Whereas Yang did not ask anybody to chorus from swapping their Steam Deck SSD in a normal sense, he did add that “most 2242 M.2 drives draw extra energy and get hotter than what Deck is designed for,” echoing a warning that Valve beforehand expressed in their very own Steam Deck teardown video. “Off the shelf” SSDs, it defined, might trigger issues starting from overheating to decrease battery life to diminished wi-fi networking efficiency.
I’ve at all times discovered that video deeply unusual, the voiceover adamantly advising towards making any inner modifications whereas additionally exhibiting – step-by-step – precisely how to take action. Different members of Valve’s design crew additionally advised me in an interview that repairs and elements replacements are greatest left to professionals, however official spare Steam Deck parts can be found from iFixit for anybody to purchase and set up themselves.
Hello, please don’t do that. The charger IC will get highly regarded and close by thermal pads shouldn’t be moved. As well as, most 2242 m.2 drives draw extra energy and get hotter than what Deck is designed for. This mod might seem to work however will considerably shorten the lifetime of your Deck. https://t.co/Kmup7Zov13
— Lawrence Yang (@lawrenceyang) June 25, 2022
I suppose you might sum up Valve’s general stance on Steam Deck modding as “be it in your head,” however on this case the obvious threat of overheating and energy mismanagement was seemingly simply an excessive amount of for a completely hands-off strategy. Yang’s tweets on his private account don’t essentially make for official Valve statements, after all, however they’re arguably price listening to, even in case you ultimately determine to seize the screwdriver and probability it.
Personally, I feel the Steam Deck’s openness and self-repairability are constructive traits, even when Valve aren’t at all times that eager on customers benefiting from them, And there could possibly be some worthwhile mods on the market when it comes to thumbstick and shoulder button swaps, or possibly even alternate chassis designs. With storage particularly, although, I’d nonetheless argue that almost all people are higher off simply getting a microSD card. These are solely barely slower than the Deck’s inventory SSD for recreation load occasions, are a lot simpler to put in and swap out, and don’t value way more than M.2 SSDs even in case you go for a roomy 1TB mannequin.