Steam Deck has become unusable

[niko81]

Had my deck since late July and all was good until about 3 weeks ago when Performance suddenly got terrible.
Steam deck home UI is lagging,
in game play there is loads of lag, unresponsive, issues with audio clipping and GPU is constantly at 99%. Often games just hang or crash when loading. Most of the games are steamdeck verified and those that aren’t were working well before this performance problem started .
I have updated to the latest steam OS version and all games are patched to latest version.

I have tried multiple things to try and resolve the performance issue, none of which have made any difference
- shutting down and restarting while connected to PSU as suggested by steam support
- hard resets, holding power button for 12 seconds
- switching OS branches, changes to beta which initially looked promising. Steam deck home UI was responsive again, but all went down hill once I tried to load a game. Performance plummeted and whole system became unresponsive again, games either took an age to load or just didn’t work

The system remains completely unusable.

All I can think of now is a factory reset, but that will mean I loose everything including all my emu deck game config. And even then I’m not confident it will fix anything as I have a feeling it’s a hardware issue

Have raised to steam support but they are very slow to respond.

Has anyone else had similar problem and can you help as it’s currently a £570 paperweight

[tappotuoppi]

I would start off with hardware diagnosis. Check CPU temps, fan rpm etc. no clicking/ticking sounds should come from the deck. Go to desktop mode and get GtkStressTesting app from discover. It shows your hardware stats, you can even run small loads for it so you see if temps go too up or something similiar. If you do stress tests, always start with short tests first, 30s or so. Report back how it went.

[BerzerkSlayer]

Dude, you don't need EmuDeck. Just install RetroArch from the Steam store, have a RA flatpak install on a live USB, download all the cores you want from there, copy the cores folder from the .var folder (make sure that hidden files/folders is enabled) where the flatpak RA installation's located onto something that can interface with the Deck, get all of the files you need to run the disc-based systems, and boom, everything is playable. No need for Steam Rom Manager, EmulationStation, etc..

Obviously, if you want to play OG Xbox, Wii U, PS3, and Switch games, you'll need to add them as non-Steam games. But if you're concerned with functionality over form, that's how you get all that ♥♥♥♥ added onto your deck efficiently. Also, have a backup of your home folder at all times ready in the event SHTF like this, because that's where a lot of this stuff is stored.

Also, SSDs shouldn't be ticking/knocking anything. They aren't HDDs.

[niko81]

Originally posted by tappotuoppi:

I would start off with hardware diagnosis. Check CPU temps, fan rpm etc. no clicking/ticking sounds should come from the deck. Go to desktop mode and get GtkStressTesting app from discover. It shows your hardware stats, you can even run small loads for it so you see if temps go too up or something similiar. If you do stress tests, always start with short tests first, 30s or so. Report back how it went.

Tried installing GtkStressTesting app.
Took an age to install and when it finally did I run a 30second test and all the applications froze.

Couldn’t close anything or force close.
Had to restart steam deck and then then it wouldn't start back up. Had to perform a hard reset to get it to boot up again.

Tried again, exactly the same thing.

[niko81]

Steam Support cam back with the following

1. Please try temporarily switching your Steam Deck into battery storage mode:

- Power the Steam Deck down normally (choose Shut Down from the Power menu). If you can't access the menu, you can force a shutdown by holding down the Power button for 10 seconds.

- Hold the "Volume +" button down and press the Power button once. Continue holding the "Volume +" button until you hear the system chime, then release and wait. The Steam Deck should boot into the BIOS menu within a couple minutes.

- Using the D-Pad and A to select, navigate to "Setup Utility"

- Navigate to the Power Menu

- Choose Battery storage mode, and confirm.

2. You should see the Steam Deck power off, and the power LED will blink three times to confirm battery storage mode has been activated.

3. Wait a few minutes, then plug the Steam Deck in using the provided power supply and turn on the Steam Deck.



I performed these steps and Home UI is a bit better, maybe slightly less laggy but it’s still not good

Only been able to get Portal 2 & metal gear solid 5 to start and both are laggy and gpu running really high regardless of graphics settings.

All other games just hang at launch or throw errors regardless of which compatibility mode i select. The games tested were all working well before i started having these problems.

[Marlock]

how are the temps?

you might have a failed fan clicking when trying to spin, and thermal throttling ruining performance

you might also have eletric issues on the hardware... I've seen this once on a smartphone and it was pretty scary, so check the fan soon

you can try booting a different OS from an external drive (SteamOS for PCs, other linux distros, even windows -blergh) as an attempt to rule out firmware/hardware issues (if a new OS doesn't cause noise)

Valve's idea of putting it in battery storage mode was a good bet too... it's unfortunate that it didn't help much

[Marlock]

OP is describing a very unusual (actually maybe unique) issue with the stuck 99% gpu resource utilisation...

I wouldn't shy away from buying the Deck because of a a single report of this extreme issue. I would however warn you of a few other much more common issues like the unstable wifi (for which there are workarounds) and the hard time people had with plugging the Dexk to 4K TVs (it just doesn't have the raw power to upscale to 4K with FSR and keep tgings smooth),but then recently Valve complied to user requests and offered a way to manually choose the exact output resolution desired even in gaming mode... a quick scan through the Deck discussion threads should give a good idea what to expect issues-wise, and IMHO nothing seems like a deal-breaker...

...if only Valve sold the damn thing in my country

[Bossman]

This seems like something to do with software.

[niko81]

It's gone back to Valve. They're replacing it with a new one.

[PrivateXTC]

Originally posted by Legangsta:

what I predicted too much AAA games stress too much this litlle machine. That s why I use it only for inde or stream. And still fine. Except joypad fragile ♥♥♥♥

AAA games arent going to kill the hardware. It's what it's made for. If temps are fine theres no issue unless it's defective from the factory.

[Qbert ⭐]

Your Deck may be overheating?

Did you check temps?

[tomk1]

My guess something got sucked into the fan, but suppose we will never know.

[knoxvilles_joker]

FYI, most of those configs are files. Just backup the containing folders to an sd card, and I would do that first pronto.

This could be a bad nvme drive.

I see similar slow performance random performance issues on laptops and desktops when the ssd or platter based hdd is about to let go of its magic genie. It is darned weird confusing conundrum causing issues too.

I would open a ticket with steam to see if there is a possibility of a warranty repair or replacement.

Regardless with the software all the configs are files on the linux file system. There are three kinds of things on a linux system hard drive:
file
daemon
directory/folder

[niko81]

Originally posted by Qbert ⭐:

Your Deck may be overheating?

Did you check temps?

It wasn't overheating and nothing was stuck in the fans, they were running fine when needed.
I went through all of this with Steam Support.
They think it was defective, but based on data I provided they couldn't diagnose without having it, so it's gone back and I'm getting as new one.

[Handsome John the Lawful]

Hey, @Niko81 I have a similar problem, what happened eventually, did they replace your deck?

[Estabilidad]

I just have 2 weeks with my steam deck I decided to install windows 11 on it but after like i week I was playing fiveM and of nowhere it just go on 86 fps to 6 i I was thinking that I was a virus and somebody was using my steam deck to mine bitcoins i just change my operating system to windows 10 and it stills the same if I want to open discord I have to wait like 10 minutes to it starts (not open)