As cool because the Steam Deck seems with RGB lighting, you won’t wish to try to mod your system simply but. One Reddit person who tried the mod discovered that whereas including the RGB LEDs doesn’t draw a major quantity of energy from the battery, it might probably trigger fairly huge points with the Steam Deck’s motherboard.
The “RGBDeck” mod began making the rounds on Reddit earlier this month, with u/WUBBSY documenting the method of affixing a small microcontroller and LED strips to the system. They topped it off with a clear backing from JSAUX, permitting the lights to shine by means of the case whereas the Steam Deck’s switched on. The top outcome provides the Steam Deck a pleasant pop of coloration (in a really gamer PC type of approach).
Adam Honse (u/CalcProgrammer1), the developer behind the open-source lighting platform OpenRGB, additionally tried the mod and even got here up with an integration that lets customers modify the Steam Deck’s lighting by means of the app. Nonetheless, Honse has since posted an replace on Saturday night time that advises in opposition to making an attempt it, noting that it “appears to be a major damage on the motherboard.”
Based on Honse, the supply of the difficulty is a tiny element “that didn’t just like the added energy draw on the inner USB connection between the motherboard and controller PCB,” the place he sourced the 5V wanted to energy the RGB lights. That piece ended up failing after a number of days, inflicting the lights and controller to exhibit some funky conduct earlier than they stopped working altogether.
It additionally did some injury to a element on the Steam Deck’s motherboard, which is meant to chop off the 5V of energy to the controller board when the system is in sleep mode. As defined by Honse, that piece not switches the facility off to the controller when the Steam Deck’s on standby, inflicting the system to lose energy. “We’ll must discover a new supply of 5V energy that may deal with greater present,” Honse explains.
In different phrases, the mod simply isn’t there but, and that’s okay; I’m simply glad Honse got here ahead earlier than different modders go breaking their Steam Decks. Hopefully, it received’t be too lengthy till we see a attainable answer (not less than till Valve decides to include RGB into the Steam Deck by default).
