Steam deck 30 minute battery life.

[Bruteforce01]

I received my SD 10 days ago or so and opened it last wednesday.

Ever since my battery life has been terrible. I tried different tdp, fps, gpu clocks and switching between beta channel and stable channel of steam os. all without succes. Without any real use the battery is drained.

Has anyone experienced this before?
Can i do something about it?

Looking forward to any tips.

Originally posted by Brute Zedong:

THIS WAS SUGGESTED TO ME AND WORKED.

STEAM SUPPORT:

"

Before proceeding with the RMA. We have one last troubleshooting to try:

Please follow the steps below to resolve the issue. This process is temporary while we work on releasing a firmware fix to address this behavior.

Make sure your Steam Deck is off and plug it in using the charger. Make sure the white LED is on.
Hold Volume+ and press the power button once to boot into BIOS.
Once in the BIOS menu, unplug the power supply. The system will not go to sleep in this mode.
Let your Steam Deck sit overnight until it has shut down on its own.
After the unit is on a black screen press the power button to ensure it does not boot and is fully discharged.
Plug in the power supply and boot normally right away. Your charge level should be less than 5%.
Leave the charger plugged in until the unit reaches 100%.
Checking from the Desktop Mode, your battery health should now display above 90%.

Let us know if you have any trouble completing this process, or if your battery health still displays as lower than 90%.

Steam Support

"

[Cindarr]

I had the same problem when i got mine last week.
Go into desktop mode and check battery health, not battery charge lvl.
Mine was at 13% health. RMA'd it and have another one on the way

[Marlock]

basic calibration process
1) discharge it completely (until it dies off)

2) rechargeit completely without turning it on (yes, i know... several hours without your new toy is a painful price to pay when it has just arrived)

3) turn it back on and test it


ps: calibration is not magic... it only helps if the % is inferred wrong but the actual battery is healthy... usually this means the useful uptime is long despite the measured % dropping suddenly

[Bruteforce01]

Hello everyone, thanks for the advice. My device has a battery health of 7%. So i will be RMA'ing it. So, yes. I will not be able to use my shiny new toy. ;)

[ILIKESCIFI Games]

Hi guys! I just got mine and have the same problem - 7% - i already contacted steam and sent a screenshot of my desktop mode. I hope i get the RMA papers that way. Or do i find those somewhere else?

[Bruteforce01]

THIS WAS SUGGESTED TO ME AND WORKED.

STEAM SUPPORT:

"

Before proceeding with the RMA. We have one last troubleshooting to try:

Please follow the steps below to resolve the issue. This process is temporary while we work on releasing a firmware fix to address this behavior.

Make sure your Steam Deck is off and plug it in using the charger. Make sure the white LED is on.
Hold Volume+ and press the power button once to boot into BIOS.
Once in the BIOS menu, unplug the power supply. The system will not go to sleep in this mode.
Let your Steam Deck sit overnight until it has shut down on its own.
After the unit is on a black screen press the power button to ensure it does not boot and is fully discharged.
Plug in the power supply and boot normally right away. Your charge level should be less than 5%.
Leave the charger plugged in until the unit reaches 100%.
Checking from the Desktop Mode, your battery health should now display above 90%.

Let us know if you have any trouble completing this process, or if your battery health still displays as lower than 90%.

Steam Support

"

[ParasiteX]

Yeah, they are basically recommending you try a calibration first. But considering how fast it discharges you can skip leaving it overnight and just play something until it shutdowns. Then charge it to 100% while shutdown.

[Marlock]

Originally posted by ParasiteX:

Yeah, they are basically recommending you try a calibration first. But considering how fast it discharges you can skip leaving it overnight and just play something until it shutdowns. Then charge it to 100% while shutdown.

it will shutdown/sleep/hibernate before reaching actuall zero battery charge that way... their advice looks like it's meant specifically to recalibrate the battery with a true zero charge

you can make it discharge MOST of the baterry as you said and THEN do as they said to finish it off... that should speed up the process a lot without messing up the result

[ParasiteX]

Ahh, in that case you should just do as Valve recommended to ensure it's properly discharged. I hope it fixes it!

[badboyec24]

Hopefully the firmware update addressing this is released before I get my Steam Deck in the off chance I am away from my charger.

[ILIKESCIFI Games]

I just got the same reply by Steam. Lets see if it works!

[Bruteforce01]

Originally posted by 76561198020988146:

I just got the same reply by Steam. Lets see if it works!

I am sure it will. I only had the same problem return to me. But i repeated the steps and this fixed it agian.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by Brute Zedong:

Originally posted by 76561198020988146:

I just got the same reply by Steam. Lets see if it works!

I am sure it will. I only had the same problem return to me. But i repeated the steps and this fixed it agian.

Issue repeating means that the battery is losing calibration? that should never happen.

[Bruteforce01]

Originally posted by Red Star Gopnik:

Originally posted by Brute Zedong:

I am sure it will. I only had the same problem return to me. But i repeated the steps and this fixed it agian.

Issue repeating means that the battery is losing calibration? that should never happen.

Yep, happend once. When i was finished with the first charge i left the battery dead for a day and a half or so. Then charged it and ran in to the same issue again where my battery health was low and the battery would drain in half an hour.

But like i said. I repeated the steps mentioned above and that fixed it. I haven't really tested that scenario again.

[ParasiteX]

If it keeps repeating, then the battery is more than likely defective and you should RMA it.
A battery calibration is something you should only do very rarely, when battery levels aren't showing correct values. You want to avoid discharging a battery below 20%, as it will wear out faster then.

While i'm on the topic. A few good tips for extending lifetime of lithium batteries is to avoid charging it higher than 80%, and never below 20%.
Also avoid leaving it on charge over night. As just having a battery at constant 100% will wear it out faster.
What i usually do when charging most of my devices. Is to plug it into a timer and only charge for an hour or 2 max.
Heat will also wear the battery out faster, but this is hard to avoid as process of charging it will also heat it up. But avoid charging it in a very hot area for example.
Fast chargers will also wear it out faster. But considering how big the capacity on the Steam Deck battery is, it would take quite a while to charge it on a standard charger. So this isnt very practical to charge it with standard chargers.
Doing this you can greatly extend the life time of your battery.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by ParasiteX:

If it keeps repeating, then the battery is more than likely defective and you should RMA it.
A battery calibration is something you should only do very rarely, when battery levels aren't showing correct values. You want to avoid discharging a battery below 20%, as it will wear out faster then.

While i'm on the topic. A few good tips for extending lifetime of lithium batteries is to avoid charging it higher than 80%, and never below 20%.
Also avoid leaving it on charge over night. As just having a battery at constant 100% will wear it out faster.
What i usually do when charging most of my devices. Is to plug it into a timer and only charge for an hour or 2 max.
Heat will also wear the battery out faster, but this is hard to avoid as process of charging it will also heat it up. But avoid charging it in a very hot area for example.
Fast chargers will also wear it out faster. But considering how big the capacity on the Steam Deck battery is, it would take quite a while to charge it on a standard charger. So this isnt very practical to charge it with standard chargers.
Doing this you can greatly extend the life time of your battery.

But you still will have to replace it