So for some time now i have been taking steam deck with me for my travels but i have always turned it off instead of putting it to sleep so battery wouldnt drop too quickly but i never checked if it would actually drop too quickly when i put it to sleep… Soo what now? Should i still power it down or would it be fine if i put it to sleep? Also forgot to add, battery precentage matters to me since i dont have always access to charger
You’ll lose about a half a percent per hour, so if you’re leaving it off for more than a day, it’s best to shut it completely down.
It’s horrible about sleeping. If you want your battery, turn it off. The latest update seems to be better, but I wouldn’t trust it in your shoes.
Well, thanks for that information. Good to know that battery runs out when in sleep actually
Well, every device in sleep mode runs out of battery at some point. The Steam Deck is not the most efficient one in sleep. I would just turn it off if you do not use it for an entire day or so. Otherwise its pretty useful to just sleep for a few hours.
Sleep mode means ram is being powered, as otherwise it will clear out, and it keeps Bluetooth and WiFi on as well for the wakeup stuff.
There’s a rather complicated tweak for allowing hibernation, that saves stuff to disk and actually shuts the deck off properly.
While it will lose 10 percent per day, being able press the button and continue playing is one of major factors for me. But it’s almost always on the charger if I’m not playing and charging limit is set to 80% to preserve battery.
I usually just put it in sleep mode which is fine when I’m playing regularly, but if I don’t play for more than a week or so then I’ll find out the battery has died.
Sleep if you want to pause mid-game, power off if you’re organised enough to know you won’t be playing for a few days!
Anecdotally it seems to have a similar drain rate to my laptop, around 10% a day in sleep (though I would recommend actually verifying this yourself to be sure). So if you want to conserve battery life, turning it off is the way to go
I’ve heard that’s one of the big cons of the x86 architecture, one of the reasons why it’s a very unpopular choice for mobile devices.
I don’t know for sure though, because in theory they keep the core powered down during suspend sleep so in theory there really shouldn’t be any power draw aside from the memory modules. However you’re right that there’s some noticeable difference for some reason
I play mine enough that I never turn it off. I usually play multiple short sessions throughout the day, so having instant suspend/resume from the middle of the game is much more important to me than the minor battery drain.
I’d only turn it off if I didn’t expect to play it for a few days, but even then I would probably just stick it on my dock in sleep mode, and trust pass-through charging to keep the battery healthy.
Yes. I usually leave whatever game I’m playing on, running, on sleep mode. It’s always fine. I do however, make sure that the fan is not blocked off, and that it’s plugged in so I don’t wake up to a dead deck. Otherwise, there isn’t any danger that I’ve noticed- everything runs fine. If you’re NOT running anything and put it in sleep mode, any percentage above 15% should be fine. Turning it on and off actually takes more energy than sleeping it does, so I’d just keep doing what you’re doing.
I used to dock while using the jsaux case. I had some cases where after a while playing has serious frame drop, down to 15 or so. I realized deck was boiling! Case does not block the intake/ exhaust but still I think some of the heat goes trough screen and other parts. As soon as I took out the front part of the case. Frames back to normal.
Yeah, most cases act as kind of an insulator which is one of the reasons to just kinda turn it off if it’s in the case and you’re traveling, but otherwise not. Luckily it is pretty durable and won’t just sweat itself to death immediately.
I don’t power it off.
Then again I only let it sleep a couple hours at a time at most, since I know I’m using it again soon. It’s not like you lose half the battery by doing that, and the whole point of the fast suspend and resume is so you can stop and go while on the go.
If I’m leaving it overnight, then I power off.
Personally the only time I turn it off is if I am putting it in the case. Even then if it’s just a 15 minute car ride to a friend’s house I might just leave it on.
It’s also rare for me to go more than 2 days without playing it, and I mostly play around my house where I have USB cables around to plug it in if need be, so battery isn’t a huge concern. In fact I usually have the battery saving feature set to limit it to 80% charge.
The only reason I really turn it off in the case is our if heat concerns, and I suspect that’a just me being over protective. I guess the other thing is that there could be security and privacy concerns from carrying around a device with WiFi and/or Bluetooth on.
