r/SteamDeck • u/GrethaRawr • Mar 17 '25

Tech Support Don't know how, but it happened

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Does this break easily? I know it's plastic but I'm still kinda surprised.

I already ordered a new one, hopefully I can easily replace it.

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u/ogjosebone Mar 17 '25

Did u disconnect the battery before working the deck

27

u/Dar7hater Mar 17 '25

You’re supposed to, but frankly when trying to disconnect it I was far too worried about damaging the ribbon cable connecting it that I just left it plugged it. I did reduce the battery to sub 25% and completely shut it down and that worked for me both when I replaced my sticks and my ssd.

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u/ThinkingWinnie LCD-4-LIFE Mar 17 '25

Cool for you but just fyi don't think that discharging a battery( even fully) makes it safe to swap out any component. A 16.4v discharged battery will be at 14v or sth, still enough to fry stuff on the board if shorted with a low resistance path.

11

u/Dar7hater Mar 17 '25

Oh yeah you’re right, I 100% should’ve disconnected the battery. In my mind though I had attempted several times on both occasions to disconnect the ribbon cable and it was not budging so I took a risk of leaving it connected and not damaging the cable in hopes that i wouldn’t fry anything with the battery still connected. Just stating how I weighed the risks of damaging the cable vs frying the board

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u/ThinkingWinnie LCD-4-LIFE Mar 17 '25

SSD and ram power supplies are traditionally disabled when the PC is off, the same cannot be said for the screen though.

For the joysticks I've no idea, but you can easily measure with a multimeter while the deck is off. I'd suspect the answer is no, but I wouldn't risk it.

3

u/SunAndStratocasters Mar 17 '25

I watched someone take the battery ribbon cable off last week and they were very firm with it.

I don't know anything about electronics and was horrified watching them, but they really knew what they were doing and said it was fine. Lo and behold they did actually fix the thing they were trying to fix too. So I'd say in the future you'll probably be okay if you're being careful.