Is it normal for the deck to pull 8-9 Watts just running the OS?

[Aepoh]

My Steam Deck’s battery life feels like it has greatly diminished in the last 2 months and I’m not sure why. I’ve noticed that just being on the home screen the deck seems to be pulling 8-9 watts. Running a lightweight game that pulls 1.5 w from the GPU and 0.5 w from the CPU I feel like I should be getting more playtime than I am. Can anyone else tell me if this is normal or not?

[Prezidentas]

you never told what your actual playtimes are

[Broseph Joseph]

there is more stuff using power than just cpu+gpu, there is the rest of the deck. however 9 watts idling on the home screen doesnt sound normal, unless youve changed something like maybe animated covers or anything else.

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by Prezidentas:

you never told what your actual playtimes are

I’m comparing what my playtimes are compared to several months ago. When running a lightweight game like Shiren 6 I never get more than 3 hours worth of playtime before needing to charge. That’s with something using low GPU and CPU power.

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by Broseph Joseph:

there is more stuff using power than just cpu+gpu, there is the rest of the deck. however 9 watts idling on the home screen doesnt sound normal, unless youve changed something like maybe animated covers or anything else.

No animated covers or anything like that. The same overhead applies when in game as well. What do you get on your home screen out of curiosity?

[Aepoh]

Bumping this as I’m still having issues

[Aepoh]

Bumping again

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Originally posted by Prezidentas:

you never told what your actual playtimes are

I’m comparing what my playtimes are compared to several months ago. When running a lightweight game like Shiren 6 I never get more than 3 hours worth of playtime before needing to charge. That’s with something using low GPU and CPU power.

Well, how much are you getting now?

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Aepoh:

I’m comparing what my playtimes are compared to several months ago. When running a lightweight game like Shiren 6 I never get more than 3 hours worth of playtime before needing to charge. That’s with something using low GPU and CPU power.

Well, how much are you getting now?

The same? Nothing has changed since when I first made the post. The main thing I’m wondering about is how many watts other people’s Decks are drawing on the home screen while idle or just browsing menus.

[Broseph Joseph]

Probably like half what your is or less.
Youre gonna have to install htop and ssh into the deck from another computer and see what its actually doing at idle

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Well, how much are you getting now?

The same? Nothing has changed since when I first made the post. The main thing I’m wondering about is how many watts other people’s Decks are drawing on the home screen while idle or just browsing menus.

What changed since before you've made your post?

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Aepoh:

The same? Nothing has changed since when I first made the post. The main thing I’m wondering about is how many watts other people’s Decks are drawing on the home screen while idle or just browsing menus.

What changed since before you've made your post?

Since before I started the thread I used to get higher battery life, up to 6 hours (or more if the game is really lightweight) off of a single charge when the Deck was newer. Got mine in 2022. Now even if the game is lightweight I only get about 3 hours max.

Originally posted by Broseph Joseph:

Probably like half what your is or less.
Youre gonna have to install htop and ssh into the deck from another computer and see what its actually doing at idle

And this guy is saying his deck pulls half that wattage at idle. That overhead of 7-8 Watts applies when I’m playing lightweight games too and it’s not from the CPU or GPU.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Since before I started the thread I used to get higher battery life, up to 6 hours (or more if the game is really lightweight) off of a single charge when the Deck was newer. Got mine in 2022. Now even if the game is lightweight I only get about 3 hours max.

Let's do the easy thing here: check battery health in desktop mode.

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by Aepoh:

Since before I started the thread I used to get higher battery life, up to 6 hours (or more if the game is really lightweight) off of a single charge when the Deck was newer. Got mine in 2022. Now even if the game is lightweight I only get about 3 hours max.

Let's do the easy thing here: check battery health in desktop mode.

It fluctuates around 78-82%
So not good.
But a large part of that is not necessarily from loss of capacity, but the battery drawing more power than it should be.

[Shere Khan]

You could be having a battery issue. The best thing to do is open a ticket with Valve to do some troubleshooting. One thing you can try (if you haven't already) is reimage your Steam Deck and get it to factory defaults. Perhaps there is something running in the background that is causing the decrease in overall battery life. Valve may have you try this anyway, so if you do decide to open a ticket, you'll have a head start on troubleshooting.

[Aepoh]

Originally posted by Shere Khan:

You could be having a battery issue. The best thing to do is open a ticket with Valve to do some troubleshooting. One thing you can try (if you haven't already) is reimage your Steam Deck and get it to factory defaults. Perhaps there is something running in the background that is causing the decrease in overall battery life. Valve may have you try this anyway, so if you do decide to open a ticket, you'll have a head start on troubleshooting.

I appreciate the suggestion but deleting everything off the device would be a major pain for me.