Hello all! I wanted to briefly share my experience modding my Steam Deck OLED, should it be of use for anyone else!
It seems like most replacement button sets are fully compatible with the Steam Deck OLED, except for the triggers/shoulder buttons and replacement trackpad covers. The shells are compatible but I did not want to remove my screen + adhesive to do the front shell, so I just did the back. I did have to trim the silicone piece that the volume buttons connect to to get it to fit.
The gulikit hall effect joysticks that specifically mention Steam Deck OLED compatibility were easy to install and calibrate by running thumbstick_cal in desktop mode, and whether it is just placebo or not, they definitely feel more precise than stock!
I did not do extensive before/after thermal testing, since many people have done that before. I did repaste the APU with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme as well since I had to remove the heatsink to get access to replace the power button
Here are the products I used:
Great work.
I spilled a little bit of juice on the right track pad a few months ago. Now sometimes the track pad button spring gets a little sticky. I’ve been wanting to crack it open to replace it but I’m worried I’ll probably messed it up.
95% of the time, it’s on the dock.
As far as I’m aware, the trackpads are not physical “buttons”, the click is generated purely through haptics. There wouldn’t be any spring involved. Try pressing them when the unit is off, they’re just immobile blocks of plastic.
It’s a mix I believe, they do press down into the device some, but the “click” feedback is from haptics.
Here’s a photo of the touchpads, you can see that the mount points have a flexible frame to let you press it down. Edit: finally got OP’s pictures to load, and he has a different style of track pad mounts. I’m not sure the details, but I know that both track pads on my OLED deck do press down some.
Do the trackpads have springs? I thought the “click” was generated by haptic feedback.
I thought they were springs, but haptic makes more sense.
Well something is keeping it stick when I press down on it. I saw a little bit of juice go into the crevice around the pad. Figured it was the sugar keeping it sticky.
Sometimes it goes away, other times it doesn’t.
So I thought I’d just replace it, but still worried of messing it up.
This looks amazing!! I’ve been too timid to mod mine, but this might convince me…
Thanks! I am super stoked with how it turned out. It took me about 4 hours, but a decent chunk of that was me using a utility knife cracking open the one touchpad for which I was trying to swap its cover before I realized it wasn’t compatible. I suppose I could’ve swapped their covers and adhered the replacements to the metal brackets, but I also could not get the touchpad daughterboards out of the housing (they are likely adhered to the other piece too).
These are the resources I referenced while working on it:
…cracking open the one touchpad for which I was trying to swap its cover before I realized it wasn’t compatible.
Yeah, it’s kind of surprising how dissimilar the OLED and LCD versions actually are, given how similar they look. This is good info to know, though, because I was planning an upgrade eventually, too!
This looks cool, and you could take better focused and lit 1st and third pictures. Glad it worked out even with necessary slight modification.
Thanks! My samsung S21’s camera really struggles to focus on anything remotely close to its lens, even if I manually adjust it in Pro mode. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
In the first It focused on the reflection from the screen itself. It came out very clear there and shows how well the screen’s finish is doing - very good. Could still be a software issue but you may be able to finagle it to get the right depth.
I hope this place doesn’t become /r/steamdeck…
