Also in Steam Deck news, Lawrence Yang of Valve, a designer who worked on the laptop, has valued a widely shared mod that replaces the pre-installed SSD with a larger, faster model. His advice: don’t do it.
The mod, from Twitter user Belly Jelly, swaps the default small M.2 2230 SSD for a slightly longer M.2 2242 drive. It seems to work well, except to make “the heat spreader tilt a little.” It was later shared by PC Gamer, GameSpot and others before Yang tweeted a warning that this change would “significantly shorten the life of your Deck” by moving vital thermal pads to cool the charger IC (integrated circuit).
Although Yang did not ask anyone to refrain from swapping his Steam Deck SSD in a general sense, he did add that “most 2,242 M.2 drives consume more power and heat up more than the for which Deck is designed, “echoing a warning from Valve. expressed earlier in his own Steam Deck disassembly video. He explained that “available” SSDs could cause problems ranging from overheating to reduced battery life to decreased wireless network performance.
I’ve always found this video deeply weird, the voice-over strongly advises against making any internal modifications while showing, step by step, exactly how to do it. Other members of Valve’s design team also told me in an interview that parts repairs and replacements are left to professionals, but that the official Steam Deck replacement components are available on iFixit for anyone to purchase and install. · Lar-se.
Hi, please don’t do this. The IC of the charger heats up a lot and the nearby thermal pads should not move. In addition, most 2,242 m.2 units consume more power and heat up more than the Deck is designed for. This mod may seem like it works, but it will significantly shorten the life of your Deck. https://t.co/Kmup7Zov13
– Lawrence Yang (@lawrenceyang) June 25, 2022 To view this content, enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings
I guess you could sum up Valve’s overall position on Steam Deck modding as “be in your head,” but in this case, the apparent risk of overheating and poor power management seemed too much for a totally hands-free approach. . Yang’s tweets on his personal account aren’t necessarily for Valve’s official statements, of course, but it’s worth listening to, even if you finally decide to grab the screwdriver and risk it.
Personally, I think the opening and self-repair of Steam Deck are positive features, even if Valve isn’t always so interested in users taking advantage of it, and there could be some worthwhile modifications in terms of exchange thumb and shoulder buttons. or maybe even alternative chassis designs. With storage specifically, though, I would still say that most people are better off just getting a microSD card. These are barely slower than Deck stock SSDs for game load times, are much easier to install and change, and don’t cost much more than M.2 SSDs, even if opt for a wide 1 TB model.