Now that my Steam Deck LCD has been relieved of his duties as a daily driver desktop PC, I finally went ahead and replaced the Delta fan with a Huaying one. It turned out to be relatively easy to do ; and lo and behold, it is indeed quieter.
Recent adopters may or may not know there was a medium-sized kerfuffle about disparities in noise profiles of early Steam Deck units. It was proved and narrowed down to a difference between 2 fan models (see Gamers Nexus detailed analysis).
Obviously the one I got was a "bad" one, emitting a high pitched noise when running at full speed. I did not find it unbearable but it was still not ideal, particularly when using the SD in quiet environments.
Took me 2 years to get to the point where I figured it was an acceptable risk to attempt the replacement. How many of you did the same and kicked the Delta out of your unit ?
How did the daily driver experience go?
I did it for a week with an external monitor and I thought it was.. fine? Wondering about your experience.
It was OK but not great. I used the official dock and had frequent peripherals issues which could were only solved by rebooting both the SD and the dock. Turning it off and on again is more a Windows that a Linux thing usually, so that was disappointing.
On the software side, the "flatpak" way of applications delivery usually works well, except when the Discover "store" randomly chooses to offer downgrades instead of upgrades. I used software such as Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, OpenShot, OpenRGB, LosslessCut, LocalSend with no hassle.
As expected, gaming performance on a 1080p screen was not as smooth as the native SD screen resolution. I would not recommend it for games needing a bit of oomph unless you are fine with sub 30fps.
I use a Jsaux dock for the deck, all of my peripherals have been plug and play. Including my 5+ year old Wacom which blew my mind. (It worked right out of the box where Windows didn't let me properly configure it... I felt like a schoolkid!)
Anyway, I say this cause I wonder if there was an issue with the dock, or if you just use oddball peripherals.
I'd say there is nothing too wild about my peripherals: 1080p60 display, USB mouse and keyboard and the occasional PS4 controller. Everything is indeed pretty much plug n play. However in my experience things go south after a while (sometimes days, sometimes weeks) and get fixed after a full restart cycle. Hard to say where it comes from exactly but the dock is a prime suspect.
Doesn't sound all too wild to me, except the keeping the deck on for extended periods of time... Definitely a good idea to restart it more than once a week... Hell, im very confident I have to power cycle it enough that I won't make it to a week without a restart lol.
I am constantly switching between desktop and gaming mode, and I like to power cycle it occasionally when doing so. Primarily to prevent any bugs from popping up
I have noticed that trying to return to gaming mode after a long period in desktop mode triggered a reboot more often than not. My impression was that Steam updates that occur in desktop mode would trigger a restart, when attempting to return to gaming mode. That made the SD feel janky, with long restart times.
Don't get me wrong, I found the SD to be a very versatile device, priced very competitively (compared to low-end gaming laptops for example). I will likely buy its successor if and when it comes out. As a portable gaming device, it's the best deal around. As a daily driver PC, it's okay but not great.
I completely got rid of my pc thanks to this haha. I mean its my media device, I play all my games, I even do dnd from it! With my Wacom its perfect for design/drawing all that fun stuff.
I understand there are a few use cases that don't work great on the deck, but personally... Its the best. My deck is getting a little old now, the control sticks are starting to wear out, and yet it still runs just as well as day 1. I will be buying a "replacement" soon, and likely will be able to still sell my old one for 100$ or so.