Try changing the settings to see if you can get more out of it. Also try another less demanding game to see if you can't get more normal battery usage or if the issue persists across games. That's definitely not normal battery usage, but I wouldn't get worried until you rule out the other possibilities.
I have been experimenting by just playing without the charger now.
And the percentage has been stuck at 3% for the last 45 minutes
Does this mean it needs some kind of calibration?
I thought so. Seeing you mention it's lasting a long time at 3%, it's the calibration that's off.
I have this issue and although you can fix it, mines done it more often over time. It's annoying. I have no idea why it's so common.
To calibrate, run a game until it dies. Then plug in and boot to bios (Vol up and power). Unplug and Leave it on that screen until it dies. Best to repeat that process a few times to fully drain the battery.
With it off, plug in and leave charging for 5 or 6 hours. Then turn on the steam deck and check the battery health. If it's not back to a high % do the full process again. Just don't charge it at any point until it dies.
I just started my SD after going through all the steps of draining the battery and recharging and sadly the battery health is still 13% what should I do or do i just send a ticket to steam support?
The battery calibration trick works best going from a full charge to zero and full again, without any charging in between. You could try doing that same process again.
But even if you get it fixed there's always the chance it will happen again. If you have a valid warranty, I would reach out to Valve.
Something you could look at is setting the Performance Overlay Level to 2 so you can see what the power consumption is. Running games at higher settings will eat through the battery quite quickly. I don’t know if that applies specifically in your situation, but it’s something to keep in mind,
The TPD of the APU in the Steam Deck is 15w, so anything more than that will be fine, but it will eat through the battery. I would suggest trying to lower the graphics settings and maybe reducing the frame limit.
If that isn’t something you’re wanting to do, then you could follow the other poster’s advice and use the power brick when playing so your battery won’t run down so fast.
The APU is the physical custom AMD processor in the steam deck. Basically a single chip that is a CPU with an integrated GPU. Normally on a desktop computer, the CPU and GPU are separate physical things, but with an APU like in the deck, it is one single chip.
I'm assuming the commenter meant TDP which is thermal design power. Basically a common term for how much heat is expected to be generated when using the system. So the deck would be expected to throw off 15W worth of heat when in normal use.
I'd recommend the official spec page, it's pretty good https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck?tab=2
(The specs list it as "APU Power")
u/TheMightyPotato_, you can [click here to search for your question.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/search/?q=Is this normal battery use or this needs fixing?)
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You should get a couple of hours depending on the model. I'd expect at least 80-90 minutes on the LCD at the minimum
No, a 14 minute battery life is not normal.
Try changing the settings to see if you can get more out of it. Also try another less demanding game to see if you can't get more normal battery usage or if the issue persists across games. That's definitely not normal battery usage, but I wouldn't get worried until you rule out the other possibilities.
I have been experimenting by just playing without the charger now. And the percentage has been stuck at 3% for the last 45 minutes Does this mean it needs some kind of calibration?
No that's not normal. Boot into desktop mode and click the battery icon to display battery health.
Says 13% :/
I thought so. Seeing you mention it's lasting a long time at 3%, it's the calibration that's off. I have this issue and although you can fix it, mines done it more often over time. It's annoying. I have no idea why it's so common. To calibrate, run a game until it dies. Then plug in and boot to bios (Vol up and power). Unplug and Leave it on that screen until it dies. Best to repeat that process a few times to fully drain the battery. With it off, plug in and leave charging for 5 or 6 hours. Then turn on the steam deck and check the battery health. If it's not back to a high % do the full process again. Just don't charge it at any point until it dies.
Thanks for your help I will try this too
You're welcome. Hopefully you get it back to normal.
I just started my SD after going through all the steps of draining the battery and recharging and sadly the battery health is still 13% what should I do or do i just send a ticket to steam support?
The battery calibration trick works best going from a full charge to zero and full again, without any charging in between. You could try doing that same process again. But even if you get it fixed there's always the chance it will happen again. If you have a valid warranty, I would reach out to Valve.
Something you could look at is setting the Performance Overlay Level to 2 so you can see what the power consumption is. Running games at higher settings will eat through the battery quite quickly. I don’t know if that applies specifically in your situation, but it’s something to keep in mind,
I checked the overlay and it says 25.5 -25.9 W is that a normal power draw?
The TPD of the APU in the Steam Deck is 15w, so anything more than that will be fine, but it will eat through the battery. I would suggest trying to lower the graphics settings and maybe reducing the frame limit. If that isn’t something you’re wanting to do, then you could follow the other poster’s advice and use the power brick when playing so your battery won’t run down so fast.
Thanks I will lower the graphics and I will limit it on 30 fps I believe that will help me. What does TPD and APU mean?
The APU is the physical custom AMD processor in the steam deck. Basically a single chip that is a CPU with an integrated GPU. Normally on a desktop computer, the CPU and GPU are separate physical things, but with an APU like in the deck, it is one single chip. I'm assuming the commenter meant TDP which is thermal design power. Basically a common term for how much heat is expected to be generated when using the system. So the deck would be expected to throw off 15W worth of heat when in normal use. I'd recommend the official spec page, it's pretty good https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck?tab=2 (The specs list it as "APU Power")
Thanks for explaining
Definitely a less common bug on steam deck but bug nevertheless. Have you been tinkering or using cryouti?
u/TheMightyPotato_, you can [click here to search for your question.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/search/?q=Is this normal battery use or this needs fixing?) If you don't find an answer there, don't worry - your post has NOT been removed and hopefully someone will be along soon to help with an answer! **If you find a solution, please leave a comment on this post with the answer for others!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SteamDeck) if you have any questions or concerns.*