Is the official dock worth getting?

[Yazite]

Just curious about opinions as to whether it enhances the steam deck.

[Hemjin]

it enhances the use of the deck if you have the use for a dock.

[Charade]

Mine started giving me audio errors and cracking months ago

Now the official steam deck dock that cost me $80 has stopped outputting to hdmi and even DP entirely. I've been troubleshooting it for over a day, and I'm just about ready to buy something else. I'm gonna be very cross if I buy a third party device and it works perfectly while the official one I bought disappointing me at every turn. I specifically got the official expensive one thinking it would work perfectly and now I'm cross over its failure in under 3 months of very rare use.

[Hemjin]

I bought the Ivoler for 50€ several months ago and it’s perfect.

[sivoplaka]

Buy a 3rd party dock instead. It'll do the same job as the official one and save you money.

[Charade]

Originally posted by Okhamnyl:

I bought the Ivoler for 50€ several months ago and it’s perfect.

ok I bought one on amazon, I'm ready to try a different device.

It's either the dock itself that's broken or the usbc on top no longer wants to draw power and output at the same time. sad.

[vanishedchief2021]

I've add the steam dock for a good couple of months now and it's been okay yes I've add crackling audio on it but only with certain games so I thought it was just the problem with the game not the actual dock.

[RSebire]

It is useful....

And it has had several firmware updates to enhance the "pairing" and digital handshake feature of the hdmi.

[Charade]

Okay, I fixed my problems with the dock. I was having issues with the legitimate one, so I bought an hdmi to usb-c cord and even that by itself wouldn't transmit signal through the usb-c to the television (monitor).

Restarting the steam deck didn't work, even factory resetting, I tried a lot of different things and it's even on the current firmware

It isn't the most reliable but for now I can goad the console into transmitting by holding down the power button for ten seconds, then when it boots back it initializes in a different way and that ends up convincing it to put the signal through. I might play around with it and the steam deck dock.

Also, even with just the usb-c to hdmi output cable, the sound still ocassionally peaks and crunches. I'm a bit dissapointed with that, the Nintendo switch and my regular pc have no such issues ever. As best as I can tell, the steam deck when it's just in my hands doesn't ever have audio issues/cracking.

[Aris]

Originally posted by Akka:

Mine started giving me audio errors and cracking months ago

Now the official steam deck dock that cost me $80 has stopped outputting to hdmi and even DP entirely. I've been troubleshooting it for over a day, and I'm just about ready to buy something else. I'm gonna be very cross if I buy a third party device and it works perfectly while the official one I bought disappointing me at every turn. I specifically got the official expensive one thinking it would work perfectly and now I'm cross over its failure in under 3 months of very rare use.

I saw you're having a slew of issues. As someone who's been using the deck exclusively for a year now I may be able to help.

I've noticed multiple hickups with the dock but they are all easily fixed with patients.

First thing is unplug the power from the dock and boot into the os like that, then plug it back in after you get a display,

If that doesn't work, try outputing to another tv/screen.

You can also try manually setting all the external display settings.

It's been frustrating having the dock when it doesn't want to work. But when it does, it's amazing

[bigshep]

i dont think it matters if you get a good 3rd party, but i got the official and it has firmware updates built-in that update on their own when I plug the deck in from time to time if that's a nice feature to you.

[Spooky]

I would say maybe the official if you also need another official power supply at the same time, since that makes up half the price it is hard to justify really if you don't need it ? ivolver has been decent enough for me I guess :)