Steam Deck has slowly become one of the best and most popular handheld gaming devices in the market. Stem Deck is running Valve’s in-house SteamOS which gets regular updates and bug fixes. This guide will be focusing on how to update Steam Deck. Before updating check the deck is in game mode after that follow these steps.
- Press the Steam button.
- Select Settings.
- Select Check for Updates, Under the System tab
- If any updates are pending, select Apply.
- Restart the Steam Deck once the update has been completed.
The feature updates in Steam Deck fall under 3 categories:-
- Stable – Recommended updates for proper day-to-day functionality.
- Beta – Experimental features that may have bugs.
- Preview – Experimental features in early access that may have several issues.
To update the Deck under Beta or Preview channels, follow these steps:-
- Press the Steam button.
- Select Settings.
- Select System Update Channel.
- Select from Beta or Preview.
- Restart the Steam Deck, after the update.
Sometimes some software glitches happen and the systems start to need a reset, the Steam Deck has 4 modes of reset recovery options
- A full factory reset – Re-image Steam Deck.
- Reformats home partitions to clear user data – Clear local user data.
- Reinstalls SteamOS while preserving user data – Reinstall SteamOS.
- Used for changing Steam Deck boot partitions – Recovery Tools.
To perform a full system recovery:-
- Download the recovery image from Steam.
- We’ll need to create a bootable USB using the above-downloaded recovery image. Use Rufus for Windows for Steam Deck and Balena Etcher for Linux and macOS to create a bootable USB.
- Power off the Steam Deck.
- Connect the Steam Deck and the boot disk using a USB-C adapter.
- Press and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons until there is a chime. Once you let go of the
- Volume Down button, you’ll be able to access the Boot Manager.
- Once in select the boot disk inside the Boot Manager.
- Once the Steam Deck reboots, choose an appropriate recovery option which is mentioned above.