Hey everyone, it’s Nuked here! I know you all love tech and I’ve got some interesting news to share with you. It’s all about the RGB Steam Deck mod that’s been making the rounds lately.

As cool as it looks with RGB lighting, I’d advise against attempting this mod just yet. One Reddit user found that while it doesn’t draw a significant amount of power from the battery, it can cause some pretty major issues with the Steam Deck’s motherboard.

The mod was documented by u/WUBBSY and involves adding a microcontroller and LED strips to the device, then topping it off with a transparent backing from JSAUX to let the lights shine through. Looks great, but there’s a catch.

Adam Honse (u/CalcProgrammer1) attempted the mod and even came up with an integration for the OpenRGB lighting platform. However, he recently posted an update saying it might not be such a good idea after all.

It turns out that the 5V needed to power the RGB lights is sourced from a tiny component on the motherboard, which didn’t like the extra power draw. That component ended up failing after a few days, and caused some damage to another part of the motherboard. This means that when the Steam Deck is in sleep mode, it can’t cut off power to the controller board.

So yeah, the mod isn’t quite there yet. I’m glad that Honse came forward before people started breaking their Steam Decks. Hopefully, we’ll see a solution soon – even if Valve doesn’t incorporate RGB into the Steam Deck by default.