The Steam Deck is the place to go for anyone who wants to play their PC games on the go or in bed. Now there is also a trick how the annoying fan noise can be eliminated.
Steam Deck struggles with whistling fans (Source: Valve)
- One manufacturer variant of the Steam Deck struggles with an annoying whistling sound.
- A Reddit user suggests using electrical tape to stop the noise, but not everyone agrees.
- Valve and iFixit are also working on solutions to the problem.
The Steam Deck celebrated its delayed release in February 2022. However, in addition to the ongoing delivery bottlenecks, there is another problem that some owners of the portable PC are currently grappling with. It’s about the whistling of the fans, which occurs in some device variants.
The Steam Deck is basically delivered with two fan variants from different manufacturers – Huaying and Delta. If the annoying whistling sound has already caught your ear, you most likely got the Delta version, because this problem is more common there. Reddit user OligarchyAmbulance was also bothered by this, but was able to use a simple trick to ensure peace.
Insulating tape against whistling fans?
He took advantage of a discovery made by other sufferers. The noise should disappear when you press lightly on the outer cover in the area of the Valve logo. According to OligarchyAmbulance, it has now opened the housing and tried to simulate the pressure from the inside with four layers of insulating tape in this area.
To do this, the adhesive strips must be stuck directly behind the logo, he writes on Reddit. The annoying whistling sound then disappeared, as videos before and after the fix show.
However, some users are rather skeptical about the whole thing. They believe the tape isn’t thick enough to actually put pressure on the fans. Instead, they attribute the disappearance of the noise to a redirection of the airflow, which can sometimes damage the hardware. They fear, for example, that the storage unit could overheat unnoticed and cause problems.
Valve is working on a fix
Those who are skeptical about the solution will have to wait. According to Valve, it is already working on a patch that should solve the problem, as does the provider iFixit, which is known for accessories and guides for repairs and hardware modding.
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