Will the Steam Deck warn me if I'm driving it too hard?

3 years ago by chockblock to c/steamdeck

I notice the fan going pretty hard all the way through my gaming sessions. I'm curious if the Steam deck will warn me before I do damage to the machine?

macpoedel 36 points 3 years ago

There should be a warning since SteamOS v3.3: https://store.steampowered.com/...

General -Added notification when Steam Deck temperature goes outside the safe operating range

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jupdown 10 points 3 years ago

TIL - thank you for sharing this!

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benedolt 4 points 3 years ago

Yup, I got to see it once running Horizon Zero Dawn. It looks a bit like the "low battery" warning but in more scary colors if I remember correctly.

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jupdown 23 points 3 years ago

Unless you are blocking the vents on the back or top of the device, it's very unlikely that you will drive your Steam Deck "too hard". If you do somehow manage to drive it "too hard", I don't think it will warn you (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this) but what it should do instead is something called thermal throttling whereby the device will scale back it's performance to stay within a certain thermal threshold.

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Bandicoot_Academic 18 points 3 years ago

Unless you overclocked you deck the SoC will automaticly slow down if the temps get high preventing damage.

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Backsight 16 points 3 years ago

I believe it will throttle the speed to reduce temps and it will do like a normal PC would and shut down in case it goes too high.

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circuitfarmer 5 points 3 years ago

As others have said, it'll throttle when it gets too hot to cool down. There is also a condition past the GPU emergency threshold to instantly shut down the machine (true on Linux desktop as well), but hypothetically it should never hit it because of the throttling.

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TOoSmOotH 4 points 3 years ago

I think it will continue to throttle itself so the temps stay in spec. I would just make sure that you don't have any obstructions on the intake and the output.

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ag10n 3 points 3 years ago

I've had mine suddenly shut off a few times with Cyberpunk around launch. With new firmware and a probably unnecessary repaste this no longer happens. Give your deck room to breathe and you'll be fine.

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SpiderShoeCult 2 points 3 years ago

I am surprised nobody came up with a mod for watercooling the deck just for the fun of it, 'cause I'd imagine that would cancel the portability.

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Subtype3744 1 point 3 years ago

I honestly though Linus did a water cooled steam deck but when I went to look there wan't one. Quite surprised actually considering all the other random cooling things I've botched.

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benedolt 1 point 3 years ago

That might have been a driver issue with Cyberpunk. I hear it was pretty unstable at launch. As mentioned above, there actually IS a warning message that displays, when the deck gets to hot.

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WorldieBoi 2 points 3 years ago

No warning. It will throttle or just shut down. May happen in warmer climates.

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