Steam Deck 16GB to 32GB RAM Upgrade | Joshi Repair
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- čas přidán 14. 01. 2024
- Today we outline how we upgraded this steam deck from 16gb up to 32gb of RAM!
We've had time to test it within Windows and SteamOS. If we have the chance, we'll do Linux too, but the results are bound to be the same. We found that most AAA games will have pretty much all stutter eliminated. Overall, it helps with paging, eliminating stutter and very small things like 1% and 0.1% FPS lows. The upgrade would also benefit tasks such as video editing. I would put the verdict as an insignificant improvement.
Testing (@SpecterTech ): • I Upgraded The Steam D...
We did this for ourselves, as we like to tinker with these things. Since the improvement isn't that huge, we don't offer it officially. If someone would like it done, however, we're more than happy to have that complete for them.
TREEZUS: swansonsolder.com/
TLDR:
- Remove old RAM chips. We use a silicon heat mat set to 100C and our hot air topping out at 355C for no longer than 80s per chip. Hot air is applied with a large nozzle adapter and 100% airflow.
- Install higher density SAMSUNG K3LKCKC0BM-MGCP chips (link below).
- Change straps to Samsung config if device was originally shipped with Micron.
- Power up to confirm your RAM replacement went well. 16GB will still be shown at this point.
- Flash BIOS from Balikas link below, let it finalise and once it boots up again, the device will recognise the full 32GB of RAM.
- Enjoy!
Pre edited bios files (we used the latest version from here):
balika011.hu/deck_32gb/
UPDATING BIOS on Windows (always make a backup first): www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x8YZ...
(extra) Google Drive folder with tools for modifying bios: drive.google.com/drive/folder...
SAMSUNG RAM CHIPS USED IN THIS VIDEO: www.joshirepair.co.uk/product...
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Feel free to contact us on: www.joshirepair.co.uk
At the beginning of the video I thought oh heck yeah I'll do this. After watching the video I'll just enjoy the rest of my day.
yup, same here
I had enough trouble swapping the SSD lol
Oh wow that's a lot simpler than i thought it would be. I really might have to do this
Can you do some bench marks before and after as its a bit pointless showing the upgrade, no one knows what the advantages are
People know perfectly well what the advantage of more RAM is
@@Fanboy-hf1iu Eh, honestly my pc gets close to zero actual FPS increases in games with 16 vs 32 gb of ram. Very few games need more than 16,
@@Blackfatratunless your pc uses an apu I.e the gpu is built in to the cpu and not a separate card you can’t compare with a steam deck or any other such device, the ram is shared between the cpu & gpu so the more ram you have the more each can use.
@@fowler0028 I've tried with laptops too, above 8 gb of ram and the ram is very rarely the limiting factor for gaming.
16 gb is enough for 99%, even on APUs. Thats why even the guy who did this video said it was very miniscule performance uplift.
@@Blackfatrat I’m sorry you’re the expert then, I should stop listening to those who make a living from these things and listen to people like you. 🙇♂️
Super impressive video and showing some great skills swapping the ram chips out, a massive thumbs up! I just cannot understand why the device is running windows, with the gap narrowing now with only a handful of AAA games remaining. Performance wise the deck is better with stock os.
maybe is for games or other things that straight out cannot run or flat out do not exist on linux?
I'm dual booting because certain launchers are really difficult to use on the Steam Deck. I have large libraries in multiple launchers. If you're starting fresh, then maybe you won't mind sticking to SteamOS.
EA Play is a huge culprit. That thing needs to update almost daily and each time you need to redirect the executable to the one that also does the update. Pain in the arse, and it's not the only one pulling this. I'm using Steam OS for anything I get and own on Steam + EmuDeck. The rest goes on Windows. Made it so it shares the same storage between the two.
I've even got certain games install on Windows to show up on Steam OS by adding the executable as a non-Steam title. So I guess I can do that if I wanted, too.
Also much easier to upload images and videos to social media and Discord to share with friends via Windows.
@@invalidude a great explanation 👌 and I guess the mod is needed with windows.
Myself I haven't come across a game that i really want to play that i would need to dual boot at this stage, everyone says you need windows for fortnite, but with xbox cloud the game is working fine, over stream, on my linux pc I'm getting 69 - 70 fps on a 1080p, but i haven't tried with steam deck, but guess it would be more of the same and look amazing.
Great upgrade
Great Video!
I saw another guy doing a 32 gig mod as well but he layered the chips on top of one another. This is way cleaner.
You can't do that with BGA chips? I've seen this done with the original Xbox though.
"oh cool i'll be taking mine apart to do a custom shell i could do this while it's open!" *super zoomed in camera and flux* ah... aha never mind
Nicely done.
Thank you! Same to you. Maybe you'll give the aluminium plate a shot rather than having to heat from underneath. Whatever works :)
Nice Content bro 😊 and very good video 💯
Nice work. The surface mounts can be a chore.
Thank you! We always try our best.
Great video, what is the music if I may inquire?
Bro is Legend😮😮
I've got a quick question. Since this requires us to flash the bios, does this mean that any update pushed by Valve will reset the bios? (I'm keeping mine linux based and would like to know)
how much do you charge>? i edit on it a lot and more ram would help! well actually more cpu but thats not changing!!
Bruh!!! you are really good shouldering! where did you learn to shoulder like that? am jealous, I want too.
he googled „soldering“ instead of „shouldering“
Correct, it is soldering* We've been doing this for about 3 years now. You make your mistakes, and you do your best to learn from them. If there's anything in particular you'd like to know about our process let us know.
I saw someone else do this upgrade and they had to install an updated BIOS so the deck would recognize the additional ram. Wonder if this update to the BIOS would need to be necessary every time and update to SteamOS is made.
Yes because the BIOS gets flashed every time the device updates. Which is more akin to a mobile device than a desktop PC.
You can use konsole code to block steam from updating bios. Long as ya leave the update settings on stable should be OK.
How much was for the chips is this upgrade makes it worth spending the extra money on this mod?
Can you also use faster memory?
What about doubling the size of the battery?
What do you charge to do this? If you do this for people
I get why the part at 3:48 is needed. I don't understand the actual process. Are you disolving those resisters? Cutting one in two? Can't really tell. Other than that, very insightful video.
he's desoldering it, moving it over, then resoldering it
"We've had time to test it within Windows and SteamOS. If we have the chance, we'll do Linux too" Fortunately for you, SteamOS is Linux, so you already have!
Wish similar service available at my place, I have a gaming laptop that probably have overheat on board RAM and need to repair or replaced.
will the 32gb only be usable in windows or will it also be detected when running SteamOS to play the AAA games?
We actually took this deck back to SteamOS, and it has kept it's 32GB accessible value.
@@joshirepair do games run better on it with 32gb or is the difference in performance minimal?
@@calebmoss802 depends on if the game is memory intensive or not, there will be some improvement for more intensive ones, but overall is still a bit limited from the limited overall power-budget with a 40~50 wh batt and a normally 15w thermal limit.. mine is set to a 12/4 [sys/igpu] split on it's stock 16 gigs.. same 4 gig split would get 28/4 on a 32 gig ram mod
I'd love 32gb ram in my SD! I don't like replacing stuff of its surface mounted though. Furthest I'd go is probably a reflow, using a hako, or something.... might require your services sir! 😉
would the 32g ram make a difference
will it use more battery or cause any issues i might do this with my oled or lcd if it improves dramatically
Can make certain games run that couldnt with the combined 16gb of ram between cpu and gpu before
It can make the difference in some scenarios, specially for games that benefit of more VRAM.
If you use CryoUtilities, you're assigning more memory as VRAM and expanding the Swap to compensate (which is slower and reduce the SSD life). With 32GB, that problem would completely disappear.
Would have been nice to see the process in a little more detail, maybe with some commentary, but overall, nice job!
Great video dude, could you or who ever do a workload/gaming performance caparison between 16gb and 32gb on linux. I want to know if its worth the upgrade to do it myself.
We've only had time to test it within Windows and SteamOS. If we have the chance, we'll do Linux too, but the results are bound to be the same. We found that most AAA games will have pretty much all stutter eliminated. Overall, it helps with paging, eliminating stutter and very small things like 1% and 0.1% lows. The upgrade would also benefit tasks such as video editing.
We did this for ourselves, as we like to tinker with these things. Since the improvement isn't that huge, we don't offer it officially. If someone would like it done, however, we're more than happy to have that done for them.
@@joshirepair sweet dude thank you! i expected as much, its just nice to see it. Keep up the good work.
@@MechThumbs Thank you 😁
@@joshirepairsteamOS is linux though
Cool. I wish Valve hadn't soldered the RAM so any inexperienced user could upgrade its own.
16GB of shared memory is becoming more and more insufficient these days, forcing users to use swap.
Hello, I would like to ask on the website to buy a ram chip. Do I have to buy 4 chips or does it come with 4 chips? What I want to buy and I don't know if it is the price per unit or for 4 chips.
Hello,
We hope you are well.
The listing on our site is set per unit. So you would need to adjust the quantity to 4 in your case. We hope that helps.
All the best,
Joshi Repair
Since the steam deck is an APU I'm sure upgrading the RAM will improve gaming performance, specially emulation
Man, I admit nice work had been done, but how about test? Is there any reasons to do this upgrade? There are several videos of this kind upgrade, but nobody say what they eventually got from it
You're right. We realised afterwards that is a silly mistake on our end. Benchmarks should've been included in the video. After testing, we can say it's not really worth having this done in general. Very few tasks or games benefit from it.
Overall, it helped with paging, eliminating stutter and very small things like 1% and 0.1% lows. The upgrade would also benefit tasks such as video editing. The difference however for a device like this isn't large enough for us to offer it as an official service.
We did this for ourselves, as we like to tinker with these things. If someone would like it done, however, we're more than happy to have that done for them.
@@joshirepair Thanks for such detailed answer! Was thinking about such upgrade. Regards
@@Challenger440rt You're very welcome. All the best,
It's the custom bios that get me. Steam os constantly messes with the bios and returns them back to normal. It would be a pain in the butt to deal with. I know this thanks to overclocking my steam deck all the time. I even gave up on it because of how annoying it was to keep reinstalling the bios
Ah so based on what you're saying, any update that valve pushes on steamos will reset the bios back. I'm guessing this is why people install windows on it as to not have this hassle of constantly updating the bios whenever a new update comes
@@rinfaxr yeah. I found a command to trick steam os into keeping the old bios for longer but it isn't flawless. Updates still revert back but at least if you don't update it doesn't. Cause sometimes steam os will be like, ik you just restarted but here. Lemme f up ue bios. I wish there was another option but now valve is finally adding overclocking to their new updates. Not complete but it's something. I also hate windows on steam deck, it is so slow and clunky
Damn would have been great to do here in the US, bought the steam deck OLED and would love to have the 32gb ram since it’s a shared with the vram I wouldn’t get the the issues with some vram heavy games
Just set to 4gb and get the fastest storage for paging files.
FYI SD OLED uses 2x 8gb RAM chips instead of 4x 4gb in the SD LCD. Still trying to source the RAM chips for OLED. Don’t know if the same BIOS/Firmware flash can be used.
I can't find any benchmark comparisons with 16gb vs 32gb for Steam Deck/OLED. Even if it's basically no difference, I wouldn't mind seeing where the 32GB would be beneficial
We are in the works with another channel that primarily works with device testing and reviews. Hopefully we'll have another deck modded and sent back to them for that to happen.
My steam deck died after changing the thermal paste. In what world would I attempt to this.
would it be possible to upgrade it to more than 32 gb?
It will completely depend on the cpu. If it can’t register more then no.
Not only would the memory controller within the APU have to support it, but so would the bios. Honestly, the upgrade isn't something 95% of people need or would even benefit from. It only helps in very few games, and even then it's usually for the 1% or 0.1% lows. This was done on our personal deck, as we enjoy modding these kinds of things.
Can this be done on oled? I know they changed the layout, ram type and size, speed, frequency, etc., but is there an equivalence to the current oled's type of ram that would allow this upgrade? Like, upgrade to 32gb, but stay at 6400 mts? Because if I can eliminate stutter from tiny tina's, horizon zero dawn, bl3, and a litany of other games I would gladly fork over at least a couple hundred. Probably as much as $400-$500 if before and after benchmarks can be shown with framerate lines during play. You guys would get a ton of business. Just be able to eat the cost every once in a while when you mess up.
I’m trying to source the RAM but a lot of conflicting information out there has been hard to nail down the correct RAM. Not sure if the current BIOS flash will work with the OLED either.
@@sigma682 you would think hardware info would be readily available.
@@charlestannehill7537 it probably is, I just don’t know what I’m doing lol
@@sigma682 well you know more than me. I would never attempt this with my nerve damage. That's why I'm willing to pay.
im so jealous
Can i just buy an already soldered board online?
No
Not alone. You can have a board sent to us to be modified, however.
whats that music
Last Cassette - William Claeson
Peacewalker - ELFL
Valve needs to come out with 32gb version and the other companies need too
Its unlikely to benefit massively from it.
Slightly higher power usage, slightly lower battery life and minimal performance improvement.
The steamdeck is a dedicated gaming machine, you're unlikely to be running a multitude of workloads on it at the same time. 16GB of ram should be sufficient for all but the most intensive workloads.
@lmaoroflcopter that for gpu and cpu that shared 16g 8 for gpu 8 for cpu
@@wwrye929 Yes it is shared vram, but again unless you're an edge case you're not going to notice any performance gains.
Son look like he frying bacon 🥓 on that mf
All this and you don’t even use PTM7950 thermal pad instead of cheap thermal paste???
We've been using ARCTIC-MX 4 for the past 4+ years, and it's served us great. Our Steam Deck CPU temps level off at 78C after 2 hours under load. If the PTM7950 drops those temps by 10C+ we may consider it.
@@joshirepair You’ll see 3-7. It doesn’t need to be replaced as frequently.
Steam deck and switch k8nda has that thermal pad as overkill. For the switch the factory paste actually works better and way way cheaper than the thermal pads in tests. Go figure. You just have to read up before you stick that thermal pad anywhere. There's certain ThinkPad where paste works better and certain ThinkPad where replacing thermal pads with paste makes your cpus go poof!
Does this actually increase the fps of the system or allow the steam deck to play games it wouldn't normally be able to play?
it doesnt make any diference, steamdeack cant run games in high quality anyway, it doesn't need more ram.
I agree with you.
Overall, it helps with paging, eliminating stutter in select games and very small things like 1% and 0.1% lows. The upgrade would also benefit tasks such as video editing. In all honesty, if you gave someone a 16GB deck and switched it out for a 32GB one without them knowing, most wouldn't notice a difference until you told them.
We did this for ourselves on our own deck, as we like to tinker with these things. Since the improvement isn't that huge, we don't offer it officially. If someone would like it done, however, we're more than happy to have that done for them.
But doesn't the ram share with the VRAM??? So could you up the VRAM to 8gbs or more and use the rest as ram
Can you give some examples of which games may require this much ram? Are we not limited by the graphics card mostly?
Alan Wake 2 would probably benefit
Mainly modern triple A games.
Horizon zero dawn and god of war on steam deck. Those two use so much ram that the vram part of the apu gets throttled.
Avatar frontiers of pandora. Мы не ограничены видеокартой, видеокарта может и 8 Gb vram потреблять. Память общая и она распределяется.
As Slick says, mainly AAA games will have pretty much all stutter eliminated. It would also help if you were to use the deck for something like video editing. We did this for ourselves, as we like to tinker with these things. Since the improvement isn't that huge, we don't offer it as a service officially. If someone would like it done, however, we're more than happy to do it for them.
With our testing, it helps with paging, eliminating stutter and very small things like 1% and 0.1% lows.
Screen turns on, running windows. Comment about it and close the video
Haha don't worry, it's happily running SteamOS now with a DeckHD and a new owner.
Oh wow, cool to know. No thanks on my part though
For sure
И где тесты на лицо.
Для чего это делалось?
Мои извинения. Я должен был это сделать и включить в видео. Я вернулся из отпуска и сделал несколько тестов, однако результаты не значимы. Затрагивается пейджинг, а также минимумы 0,1% и 1%. Делали это для себя, так как любим модифицировать электронику. Если кто-то еще захочет, чтобы это было сделано, мы будем рады это сделать, но из-за результатов не предлагаем это где-либо в качестве официальной услуги.
Спасибо!
Steam Deck with windows installed 🤢🤮
ewwwwww 😵💫😵😵💫😵😵💫😵🤒🤕🤮🤧😷🤒🤕🤢🥴🤐😵💫😵
The CPU is a huge bottle neck for this mod 🤦🏻
well, can you show the actual 32gb being detected ? or should we just take your word for it ?
Of course. Please see 5:29
bro did not watch the video lol
This isn’t the only CZcams video that’s done this upgrade either 🤦🏻♂️
I think its bull shit there are never before and after performance stats
They stated in multiple comments that gaming performance increase is pretty much neglectable between 16 and 32 gb and that the upgrade probably won't even be noticeable to the majority of people unless you are actively looking for it in specific usecases.
Don't really see the need to include extensive tests if the results are basically unchanged for most usecases
Yeah no thank you lol
Joshi repair really dude? You wonder why you aint going anywhere with youtube? You're going nowhere FAST 😂 lame
The original memory was Hynix. I installed Samsung. I re-soldered the jumper. After this, there is no image on the built-in screen. There is an image via HDMI. The screen is intact. The screen cable is intact. What could be the problem? Flashing BIOS doesn't help
More RAM =Less FPs , less Battery Life ,less palying time per charge 😓😡