Aggressive battery drain when steamdeck goes on standby

[mputtr]

I'm running into an odd issue. I am currently playing Dishonored 2 and noticed that when I put the steamdeck on standby, the device acts like it's sitting on the game screen and drains the battery pretty aggressively. From the testing that I did, I'm seeing 6% loss every hour.
All I did was start the game, and then when the game loads, I would pause it and put the device on standby by pressing the power button once. Then I place it in the case and I ignore it until I am free (usually in the late evenings). When i take it out, I immediately noticed the fan is running and the device is warm (not hot, just warm).
At first I thought this might be an issue with Dishonored 2 specifically.. but I noticed that when I take the device out of standby, the game is sometimes quitted out, but the battery drain is still happening. I tried this with Trine - Enchanted Edition and same issue.
I'm not sure what is causing it since the device is as close to stock as it gets (other than logging into wifi and my account and downloading some games). I haven't even turned on bluetooth.
Steam support says to try the beta channel.. which I did, but same issue. The only way to temporarily stop the drain is to shut down the device, wait a moment, and turn it back on and do not start any game.. which doesn't make sense to me. This hasn't been an issue when i first got the device.
Any advice?

[mputtr]

bumping this because this is absolutely infuriating.
steam support went from telling me that the normal drain for standby is ~16% a day... to now this agent named Russ claiming that 6-7% loss an HOUR is normal and that this is normal with all steamdeck devices.
I am absolutely livid about this because they wasted all my time having me factory reset, bios reset, re-image, battery storage mode, get battery status, and all this boiler plate response then straight up lie to me saying that it's normal to lost 6-7% an hour.
I wish there is a way to get someone who actually knows what the heck they're talking about instead of straight up lying. at this point, i'd rather return the device.

[deaddoof]

Do you have an OLED? Did you change the SSD etc?


https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/monitoring_and_managing_system_status_and_performance/managing-power-consumption-with-powertop_monitoring-and-managing-system-status-and-performance#optimizing-power-consumption-with-powertop2tuned_optimizing-power-consumption

I am not sure whether powertop is installed on default in steam os.

I wish there is a way to get someone who actually knows what the heck they're talking about instead of straight up lying. at this point, i'd rather return the device.

Lying? Power management is straight up black magic in may cases. The sheer surface area and the amount of bugs drives any experience engineer insane.

Linus Torvalds set up an official policy about not breaking hardware feature expectations because ACPI developers keep biting their own tail and regressing features. The problem has gotten worse ever since he created that policy over a decade ago.

[deaddoof]

Btw, here is an old link about the goal for power management. Run fast and pass out wasted

https://lwn.net/Articles/384146/

Either the SSD have a bad power management policy or the radio keep waking up.

[mputtr]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Do you have an OLED? Did you change the SSD etc?


https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/monitoring_and_managing_system_status_and_performance/managing-power-consumption-with-powertop_monitoring-and-managing-system-status-and-performance#optimizing-power-consumption-with-powertop2tuned_optimizing-power-consumption

I am not sure whether powertop is installed on default in steam os.

I wish there is a way to get someone who actually knows what the heck they're talking about instead of straight up lying. at this point, i'd rather return the device.

Lying? Power management is straight up black magic in may cases. The sheer surface area and the amount of bugs drives any experience engineer insane.

Linus Torvalds set up an official policy about not breaking hardware feature expectations because ACPI developers keep biting their own tail and regressing features. The problem has gotten worse ever since he created that policy over a decade ago.

yes I have the oled version
the steamdeck is 100% stock. I haven't even added a sd card to it. the most i did was add grip stickers on the sides.
the thing that pisses me off id that all the other agents say that's not normal, then all of a sudden, this clown says it's totally normal.
I don't know what is causing it to drain. I think when the device goes on standby, it doesn't actually go on standby but just turns the screen off while still running everything like normal without going into standby.
I'll take a look at your link in a moment so I have time to read it.
I can definitely prove that the battery drain is not normal though.
all I have to do is shut down the device, start it back up again, and leave it alone. the difference in drain is absolutely night a day. I see about 1% or less an hour. the moment I start a game, boom! 6-7% an hr.

[Mahjik]

Let's do this the scientific way.. Pick 3 games of different types (i.e. a AAA game, a pixel art game, etc). Post the finding here and we'll see if we can get others to help with the testing.

Fully charge the Deck, start the game and actually start it playing. Have the Quick Access Menu open to verify the battery charge. Put the Deck to sleep and time it for 1 hour exactly. Wake it up and after 1 hour and check the battery percentage. Do that with 3 different game and post what your percentage of lose is within 1 hour.

Depending on what games you use, if I have 1 or all of them, I'll do the same. If this shows a delta between you and others, you can show support this thread.

[mputtr]

I've done this with 2 games that runs the steamdeck hard enough that settings need to be turned down::
Dishonored 2
Batman Arkham Knight

I'm seeing 6-7% battery drain per hour on both games.

I did this on a less demanding game: Trine - Enchanted edition. drain is a bit less at about 4-5% an hour but the drain is there.

I can try other games that would max out the device's capabilities as well. In my opinion, I think this is a firmware issue. For some reason the steamdeck is keeping the games running in the background even when you "quit" out of the game. It is almost as if "standby" is simply another word for turn the display off but keep everything running as if it's idling.
This is simply my observation. I know that the standby time goes back down to ~1%/hr if I shut down the steamdeck (as in, from the power menu, full shutdown) and started it back up and not launch a single software.
That variance tells me that there is an issue with how the device handles "standby" and infact it doesn't go on standby, it just turns off the screen. (in my humble opinion)

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by mputtr:

I've done this with 2 games that runs the steamdeck hard enough that settings need to be turned down::
Dishonored 2
Batman Arkham Knight

I'm seeing 6-7% battery drain per hour on both games.

Just to clarify, you started the games, put them to sleep, started a timer on your phone, and then checked them at 1 hour?

[Nikaas]

Do you use some bluetooth devices with the deck?

[mputtr]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Originally posted by mputtr:

I've done this with 2 games that runs the steamdeck hard enough that settings need to be turned down::
Dishonored 2
Batman Arkham Knight

I'm seeing 6-7% battery drain per hour on both games.

Just to clarify, you started the games, put them to sleep, started a timer on your phone, and then checked them at 1 hour?

yes. i start the game, load it up as if i would start playing, check the time and battery level, then press the power button to go into standby. then i check back later in an hour to see how much battery is lost

[mputtr]

Originally posted by Nikaas:

Do you use some bluetooth devices with the deck?

none. the only radio that i use is wifi. nothing else

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by mputtr:

Originally posted by Nikaas:

Do you use some bluetooth devices with the deck?

none. the only radio that i use is wifi. nothing else

Meh, all I can think about is RMA at some point. Some decks may be lemons.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by mputtr:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Just to clarify, you started the games, put them to sleep, started a timer on your phone, and then checked them at 1 hour?

yes. i start the game, load it up as if i would start playing, check the time and battery level, then press the power button to go into standby. then i check back later in an hour to see how much battery is lost

I don't have Dishonored 2, but I do have Batman Arkham Knight. I'll install it tomorrow and run the same test to give you comparisons to send to Valve support.

[mputtr]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Originally posted by mputtr:

none. the only radio that i use is wifi. nothing else

Meh, all I can think about is RMA at some point. Some decks may be lemons.

i had to lose my temper with the agent for them to do a rma... they were literally trying to feed me bs about how it's normal to lose that much battery with the steam deck doing absolutely nothing.
i would love to post the screenshots of the conversation because man it is exhausting.

[Mahjik]

If you need them, here's before:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350993371

and after:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350993284

It's 61 minutes as it took a minute for the clock to update after unsuspending.

[mputtr]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

If you need them, here's before:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350993371

and after:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3350993284

It's 61 minutes as it took a minute for the clock to update after unsuspending.

Thank you so much. it definitely proves that my steamdeck was indeed defective. i wish there was a way to get the device's activity log during the hour to see why mine is draining like it did...
I have a feeling it's a hardware issue. something is preventing the steamdeck from going into standby. if valve can figure it out.. that would be a huge thing.