Comment on [Discussion] Using my Steam deck as a mini PC ?
Stampela@startrek.website 2 days ago
As I mention always whenever this topic comes up, it might be my specific setup but don’t leave it off and plugged into a dock for long periods of time: it seems to discharge the battery and not realizing it’s happened. In my experience as long as you unplug it after shutting it off, there’s no downside.
Scio@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s a good point. I lose about 5% a from the charge limit after a whole day of the Deck being plugged in and mostly on. I suppose doing a weekly power cycle could also work.
There’s also the BIOS setting that turns the Deck on when connected to AC, just in case it does run out of battery and won’t turn on after a power outage.
Stampela@startrek.website 2 days ago
What I’m describing is really nasty, as you think the battery is let’s say at 95% and you unplug it to be used as ha handheld. It’s updating a few games and you turn around, do something else… then check back on the updates and the Deck is off because it ran out of battery in a couple of minutes. I don’t think it’s good for the battery to be drained that much
emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I dont think this is normal behaviour, maybe theres a problem with your dock? I leave mine docked and plugged in for weeks at a time, and when i have picked it up to play handheld its always been at 90-95%. Never had it be below 90 after being plugged into the dock.
Stampela@startrek.website 1 day ago
It does show up as nice and charged, but (in my instance) it’s very much not. As I mentioned it might be my specific setup. My theory is that something I plugged in keeps drawing power even after the Deck is off, but when the Deck is off, the charger doesn’t send power… so it uses up the battery.
Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
That’s really extreme, I’m pretty sure that’s now at all how it should be working.
I don’t leave my deck docked that long, maybe 10 hours at the longest, but I’ve never seen anything like the battery drop you’re describing.
Stampela@startrek.website 1 day ago
In a day it won’t really show up, that’s not enough time in my experience. Also key here is that the Deck needs to be off: if it’s on then everything works as intended.
Scio@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s very alarming!
Thankfully, I’ve not had this issue, I can see the battery go down very slowly over the day once it stops charging while plugged in. I normally play games in the evening on the battery, and haven’t noticed any reduced capacity in the last couple of years…
Hopefully, before I get something like this I’d’ve finally built a new PC 😁
Stampela@startrek.website 2 days ago
Yeah, it’s not a sudden thing: I believe it takes a few days just to have a noticeable impact. It’s just that my Deck lives on the dock for most of the time XD