Comments on: Undervolting and Overclocking: Push your Steam Deck BEYOND Its Limits!

By: Stanto

Stanto — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 21:57:20 +0000

In reply to Way Leang. Since the creation of this blog post and video, the Steam Deck BIOS has undergone significant updates. One of those has been a more 'robust reset' process as of BIOS 116. However, even though another comment on here says "it works and it's been tested" it has still been the case for users that it is not 100% reliable, and a BIOS backup is wholly recommended. However, also the settings for unlocking overclocking have been 'locked away' in BIOS 115 and 116. As of BIOS 118 and above, including 120, undervolting is included 'as standard' up to -50, but overclocking and the UEFI form browser for it have been removed from the BIOS and are not directly accessible, you have to downgrade your BIOS version.

By: etzabo

etzabo — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 01:54:58 +0000

60/60/60
LETS GOOOO

By: MrFlower

MrFlower — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 08:23:23 +0000

Hi All.

50/50/50 for me works :)

Thanks a lot for this.

By: Javier L

Javier L — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 04:33:35 +0000

I think I lost lottery haha though I have a couple questions, should I proceed to overclock if my undervolt params are not too optimal? (My deck works fine with 10/10/10 undervolt, haven't tried pushing higher values cuz I'm afraid tbh), I'm testing with hogwarts legacy so what in game and cryoutilities settings you suggest? Brand new to pc gaming so that's the only AAA game I have for now :( Please help =]

By: Cryobyte33

Cryobyte33 — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 10:52:31 +0000

In reply to Way Leang. The CMOS "reset" still works appropriately, even after some otherwise fatal undervolts. Several members of my Discord community have tested it in addition to the testing I originally did just to make sure mine wasn't a fluke 🙂

By: Way Leang

Way Leang — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 10:39:40 +0000

In reply to Cryobyte33. Shouldn't the guide be altered if this is true? This is a very important thing for people to know if they don't have a CMOS option as a backup

By: Cryobyte33

Cryobyte33 — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 17:39:43 +0000

In reply to Stanto. Oh, that's very interesting, I didn't know that! Everything I heard pointed to it being a full CMOS reset, than you so much for letting me know 🙏 As for BIOS 115, I'm aware of that and Smokeless is working on a fix as well!

By: Stanto

Stanto — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 17:30:50 +0000

There's no CMOS to reset. The settings are stored in the Winbond SPI flash chip in the UEFI BIOS. The button combination you've told people mainly puts the steam deck into 'battery storage mode' without going into the BIOS to do it - this is what I was told by Valve support, as I have bricked my Steam Deck from faulty Smokeless_UMAF settings before we knew about having to backup and reprogram the chip, and everyone insisted "it must be like a laptop with a CMOS!" - spoiler, it isn't. The best advice to give is to tell people to backup their BIOS. There's a tool on the steam deck to do this already: sudo /usr/share/jupiter_bios_updater/h2offt /home/deck/biosbkp.fd -O And then backup biosbkp.fd somewhere that isn't the steam deck. You'll need a hardware programmer to restore this to the winbond chip, and appropriate software to do it. The winbond chip is 1.8v, ideally you would desolder it from the steam deck but it's possible to programm it in place if you can connect to the pins, and you disconnect the steam deck battery. The BIOS contains information that's unique to your steam deck, so you shouldn't share it. The backup is also a full backup, and is very different to the updates you get from Valve, the updates only patch 'part' of the UEFI BIOS. Also BIOS 115 that's coming up (110/113 is common at the moment) removes the Smokeless_UMAF menus, another good reason to have a BIOS backup, and if you don't want to upgrade you need to disable the system services.