I replaced my Steam Deck’s noisy fan and am so happy I did

theverge.com:

160 hours into Elden Ring, I’m sure of one thing: the single most annoying thing about my Steam Deck is its whiny fan. And now, I’m so happy to report there’s a way to fix it. It takes roughly 15 minutes and $30 — depending on where you live — to install a replacement fan from iFixit.

Five days ago, the repair company finally got a large shipment of those fans, and I bought one right away. Now, my Steam Deck’s tiny screech is gone.

Is the fan still loud? Yes, yes it is, but it’s a whoosh instead of a whine. I like to think of it as the sound of air escaping the Deck’s vents, but mostly, I don’t think about it at all. I can easily tune out the new whoosh, whereas the whine always managed to get my attention even after Valve tweaked its software to bring the fan noise down.

In fact, the new fan has less whine than the electrical tape trick I showed you in April, and — YMMV — seems to be oh-so-slightly quieter overall. I did an admittedly unscientific test with the new fan against both my original whiny fan and one fixed up with the electrical tape, and the new fan measured 2 to 2.5 decibels lower than either in the quietest room in my house.

Each time, I let the Deck’s chip heat up to over 90 degrees Celsius and nearly maxed out its power draw at 28 watts to ensure the fan was blowing as much as possible — which, honestly, is pretty similar to how it runs when I’m playing Elden Ring normally.

How can a replacement fan make such a difference? It’s a long story, but the Steam Deck community figured out many months ago that Valve shipped its gaming handheld with one of two different fans. One is made by Delta, the other by Huaying, and it’s long been suspected that the Delta fan is an inferior part that Valve didn’t