My steam deck stopped charging, bought a new charger to be safe but still no dice. Opened her up and reseated the battery then tried the charger again. There was a hissing sound so I immediately unplugged it. The port smelled like burning, but after removing the board, there are no visual signs of burnt components. I do have access to a hot air soldering station, but I’m not even sure if it’s just the port that’s damaged at this point. Anyone replaced the USB-C before? Anyone had to ship their deck to a repair center?
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I would send it off to a repair center if that is an option available for you. Reworking USB-C connectors is not fun because you have to not melt the plastic inside them. The noise you described also could’ve come from somewhere else that could take a while to track down.
Are you sure it came from the port? I typically associate similar experiences to the battery. Please be careful going forward, regardless of your soldering skills if you’ve got a damaged or malfunctioning battery that’s a safety/fire risk.
Yeah, not charging any more could just as easily be attributed to the battery. Hissing of any kind, except for pretty significant arcing, would most likely point to battery as well. I’d definitely take precautions around the battery as those fires aren’t pretty.
Can’t you just send it back to Valve? They’ll most likely just send you a new one back
Hissing definitely reminded me of when I let the magic smoke out of some charging ICs when working on other electronics. It can look fine but trying to fix them if they have a port is a big pain.
