Steam deck won't charge beyond X% after running out of battery

[No-one Special]

EDIT: For anyone stumbling across this, the solution for me ended up being that I needed to completely exhaust the battery several times. Each time allowed it to charge a bit more.

Howdy all! Hoping someone may have encountered this and can potentially suggest the solution.

I've had a deck for a few months now. About 2 days ago I played my Steam Deck until it completely ran out of battery. I put it on to charge overnight. The next morning it had only charged to 25%. I thought that was odd, but played until it gave me the '10% battery' warning, then put it on to charge.
Again it only charged up to 25% max battery. I thought maybe it was pure coincidence that I just happened to check too early, but several hours later it was still 25%.

I troubleshooted a bunch of things online like adjusting performance settings, making sure it was up to date, rebooting in OS, checking the battery health (it still say it's 100% healthy). One suggestion was to completely exhaust the battery again and then leave it to charge.

So I did that, left it to charge overnight again, and now it only charges to 64%. I tried completely exhausting it again, but now it doesn't appear to be charging at all. I turned it on after several hours of charging and it was '0% battery'

Some additional info is I'm in Aus and so the wattage would be different, but as far as I've found the only issue that would cause is a slower charge rate, which I've been fine with.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Prezidentas]

i don't see how you being in australia would cause any charging to slow down. it's probably not related.

[No-one Special]

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

i don't see how you being in australia would cause any charging to slow down. it's probably not related.

It's because the charge rate is a different wattage. I've gotten the warning of slower charging when I first got it, but it stopped a while back. I just accepted that I basically had one play session a day haha.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by No-one Special:

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

i don't see how you being in australia would cause any charging to slow down. it's probably not related.

It's because the charge rate is a different wattage. I've gotten the warning of slower charging when I first got it, but it stopped a while back. I just accepted that I basically had one play session a day haha.

oh so you are using a different charger? I'd try getting the official brick working, maybe that's all there is.

[No-one Special]

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

Originally posted by No-one Special:

It's because the charge rate is a different wattage. I've gotten the warning of slower charging when I first got it, but it stopped a while back. I just accepted that I basically had one play session a day haha.

oh so you are using a different charger? I'd try getting the official brick working, maybe that's all there is.

It's an official Steam Deck charger, but that came with a US power cable. I just swapped out the US one for an Aus one as they're a different socket. It's been working for months.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by No-one Special:

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

oh so you are using a different charger? I'd try getting the official brick working, maybe that's all there is.

It's an official Steam Deck charger, but that came with a US power cable. I just swapped out the US one for an Aus one as they're a different socket. It's been working for months.

so you just have an adapter for the socket? there should not be any warnings about anything with that charger, perhaps it's simply defective?

[No-one Special]

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

Originally posted by No-one Special:

It's an official Steam Deck charger, but that came with a US power cable. I just swapped out the US one for an Aus one as they're a different socket. It's been working for months.

so you just have an adapter for the socket? there should not be any warnings about anything with that charger, perhaps it's simply defective?

Sorry for being unclear.

The cable that comes with the Steam Deck is type C power supply (ie one end is USB-C that plugs into the dock, and the other end is a plug for the wall). Because the plug end is US it doesn't fit in an Aus socket. So I swapped it out for a USB-C with an Aus wall plug.

Again it's been charging with no issues for months, just slower, which is apparently not uncommon.

I've tried other USB-C cables and it's still wasn't charging above the percentages I mentioned. It seems like it would be a battery thing more than anything.

[Prezidentas]

How slow is your brick? Does it use C to C cable or an A to C cable? I'd try to get a socket adapter for the original charger. If it's not the charger then I'd think it's a software issue on the deck.

[No-one Special]

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

How slow is your brick? Does it use C to C cable or an A to C cable? I'd try to get a socket adapter for the original charger. If it's not the charger then I'd think it's a software issue on the deck.

From what I've read it's pretty standard 'slow charge' It will take 8-12 hours. The time is never accurate. It's an A to C cable.

I was thinking of getting an adaptor, but I wanted to see if it was something else first given that the charger hasn't been an issue so far.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by No-one Special:

Originally posted by Škoda 14Tr:

How slow is your brick? Does it use C to C cable or an A to C cable? I'd try to get a socket adapter for the original charger. If it's not the charger then I'd think it's a software issue on the deck.

From what I've read it's pretty standard 'slow charge' It will take 8-12 hours. The time is never accurate. It's an A to C cable.

I was thinking of getting an adaptor, but I wanted to see if it was something else first given that the charger hasn't been an issue so far.

A to C is unsupported on the deck, it literally falls-back to 2.5w charging that takes 16h for full charge on the LCD and 20h for the OLED.

You really should get a cheap socket adapter, I'm sure your time alone is worth the few dollars those cost.

[ymo1965]

Ive had my OLED for about 9 months now and only now am I seeing charging issues. I plugged it in to charge last evening, woke up at 5am and realised I had left it in charging. Well, I went down stairs and checked the OLED and it was only at 68% after nearly 10 hours. Checked reddit forums and found this fix that helped me.

Press and hold - (minus) VOL and '...' bottom right of Deck. After a few seconds your LED will flash rapidly. I think it resets the CMOS in the deck. Here's the original post I got it from (its at the top of the post). Even after 10 mins or so the charging shot up like normal. Hope this helps.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/1absvp0/brand_new_steam_deck_oled_will_not_turn_on_or/