Got my OLED LE yesterday and I’ve noticed with IEMs that I’m getting this steady static noise/feedback sound from the new deck. Did not have this issue on my original deck, but I’ve seen a lot of older posts discussing this kind of issue on the original deck after searching. So…just a heads up, test your audio jack. I am probably just going to use a USB C audio adapter, NO way I’m going through the RMA process for this.
I got my 512GB unit yesterday and immediately noticed the problem. The ground noise is unnacceptably high and varies between menus, in-game, according to the chosen power options, etc.
I just ran a few comparative tests this morning using different headphones to see how bad it is:
- Hyperx Cloud II: the ground noise is very noticeable at all times. It’s even more prevalent in the Steam Library than in-game but it never goes away.
- Moondrop Quarks (IEM): the most noticeable of all, given the higher sensitivity. Unusable for anyone who cares even a little bit about clean audio.
- Sennheiser HD 598SR: my oldest and most-used pair, usually slightly sensitive. The SD’s ground noise is a little less intense VS the previous two but still very noticeable and not acceptable. Once again, menus somehow show it the worst.
- Sennheiser HD 560S: slightly less noticeable than with the 598. During gameplay in Prey (2017) I can almost forget about it, although it’s still there. Becomes noticeable yet again in menus.
- Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro 250ohm: the only pair which completely hides the issue for me. Not noticeable in-game or in menus. It’s a studio pair with higher impedance and lower sensitivity but it is not representative of a typical consumer-oriented product that most people will be using to play portably.
I am somewhat hopeful that this issue can be mitigated through software. Maybe it’s a voltage control issue with the internal DAC or something of the sort. My LG G7 ThinQ smartphone had a dedicated Quad-DAC with purpose-built “audiophile” internals and it read some audio inputs completely wrong, creating lots of distortion with some headphones and none with others.
I need to know if they plan to address the problem. I am not about to keep an almost 600€ portable device which can’t play well with portable headphones and IEMs.
One final consideration is that I suspect they have the pre-amping on the internal DAC/ Amp way too high. The fact that my Beyerdynamic basically run perfectly and without any lack of volume points to the source gain being way too high for regular, sensitive headphones and IEMs. I really, really wouldn’t want to have to send this back.
Wow. It’s a big-time dropped ball if Valve somehow gave this a pass as a noise floor, but it’s noticeable on consumer-grade IEMs. They should obviously know that this is what a large proportion of people would be using for 3.5mm audio on a portable video-game device, quite possibly the majority of people who use wired audio.
Exactly. If they wanted to skimp on audio quality, they should not have kept a 3.5mm port. Not if it’s obviously this faulty and cheaply-made. No current device has any excuse to sound this bad, let alone an enthusiast-grade portable PC.
My Final A5000 and VR3000 are basically unplayable. Beyerdynamic DT177X, however, has no static at all. It’s only 30ohm impedance.
Yeah, the variation is very weird. It seems extremely picky with the gear that shows the problem. However, both the Sennheiser HD 598 and 560S are over 30ohm and they still have it.
Here’s to hoping it’s a software issue 🤞
Yeah, that makes since if it drives those Beyers no problem.
Really hoping this issue can be sorted via software for you guys.
It’s so common that I’ve heard it on both OLED Decks I’ve tried and I’m going to assume there’s a software fix like you’re suggest. On both of my OLED Decks it was very faint and I had to be in a silent room to catch it, but I notice the frequency changing when moving around the UI.
I’m not going to RMA again because both Decks had this behavior and this current Deck I have is perfect. It’s also not game breaking and distracting for me so I wonder if other people have it worse.
Out of curiosity, what headphones did you use to test this? It ranges from unusable to not there at all depending on the gear people plug in. For now, the pattern seems to be the noise being less noticeable the higher impedance the headphones are.
I couldn’t hear any noise with my Sennheiser HD 560S, even in menus. With IEMs it is very noticeable.
Damn, glad I held off on upgrading for now. I use my Deck daily with my Letshuoer S12’s and this would suck.
Damn, it will probably be months before this is fixed and shows up in hardware coming off the production floor, right? You can’t just software update improper shielding.
Good call, honestly. This bothers me more than any amount of dead pixels. I daily drive with the A5000 and it’s basically unusuable rn. Heavily considering returning until it’s fixed =\
My OLED Deck doesn’t have any audio issues with the 3.5mm jack.
Really? Thanks for this comment. I think we are all trying to figure out how widespread this is. Good to hear it’s not all of them.
That tempts me to RMA - thanks.
Before you do that, try other headphones with your Steam Deck. Based on the comments here, I think the problem is mostly with IEM’s, and maybe this commenter is using headphones?
My OLED deck is also buzzing with my Grado headphones. If it’s a hardware issue, which I’m assuming it’s going to take a hardware revision to fix it…
Kinda annoying :|
I recommend opening a support ticket through Steam to raise awareness of the issue.
For what its worth, I got the interference pretty badly with the old 3.5mm earbuds I used on my LCD deck. I honestly dont remember having that issue there. However, I used an over-the-ear headset, a Hyper-X I had lying around, and I did NOT get the interference. Like, not even a little. Maybe something to do with the nature of the cable on that set? I legit don’t have the proper technical knowledge to really get into detail on this.
I’m not an audio expert so this is just the general gist - but I think the reason it is affecting some headphones and not others has to do with resistance. Usually the nicer and larger the pair of headphones the more “resistance” it has which roughly means how much power required to drive the headphones and how sensitive they are to fluctuation in that power.
The higher the resistance the more power required and the less sensitive they are to fluctuations in power. Earbuds are definitely less than 50 ohms. The WH-MX3000s I have (a pair of regular Sony noise canceling headphones) are around 47 ohms so I noticed the noise in those as well.
I have a pair of Sennhesier 6XXs which are giant, great headphones, and they have a resistance of a whopping 300 ohms and I can’t hear the issue in those. But most headphones are closer to the under 50 range.
Your Hyper-X’s are probably somewhere in between the two.
Fantastic explanation, thank you!
I suppose now I’m in the market for high-impedance in-ear headphones, lol. The hyper-x is nice around the house, but when I’m on campus it’d be nice to not need to lug around those and all my other stuff AND the deck.
Although there is some surface-level truth to this, it’s way more convoluted and not as linear as that. There are plenty of audiophile-grade headphones which are more sensitive and easier to drive than cheap ones. The fact is that both impedance and sensitivity levels affect how easy it is for headphones to pick up distortion, interference, etc. Referring to my comment above with some tests, my 250ohm Beyerdynamic DT-770 are the only pair which currently hides the problem 100%. They are usually quite difficult to drive and yet the Steam Deck doesn’t seem to have an issue with volume with them. This leads me to think they messed up the pre-amping/ level of current which is always being output, making it way too high for more sensitive gear and leading to that obvious and obnoxious electrical floor noise.
I would really like to think that this is maybe a driver/ software-level issue, since I’ve had problems with noise before with wireless headsets, audiophile DACs, etc. which were made better with updates and switching drivers. I’m still waiting for Valve’s response to my support ticket. In the meantime, I’d suggest everyone affected by this would also complain to them so we can maybe start to figure this out.
1tb model with buzzing issues on my IEMs. Seems to go away when idle, but it buzzes right back up when I touch anything.
Having the issue on my OLED :(
I have the same problem. Setting the GPU clock to 200mhz fixes the problem, but unfortunately this is not a solution.
Does this mess with the performance?
Sure it does
I made a post about this last night but glad I found this. Hopefully it’s just a software issue, waiting to hear back from steam support. I already have a dead pixel and now this :(
What’s the discord you mention in your posts?
OLED LE.
OLED LE with the issue here. Finally submitted a support ticket after waiting for a few days to see if Reddit turned up anything to fix it (even though it seemed likely that it was hardware).
With the number of posts it’s looking like it affects a lot of units but if it was affecting *every* unit I think we’d be drowning in them.
Both OLED models I’ve tried show this behavior, although it’s very quiet with the headphones I’m using.
not everyone uses wired headphones these days, someone doesn’t care about bt added latency.
I think it may be more widespread. 3/3 of people I know irl have this problem. Maybe most users don’t have IEMs so it doesn’t affect them. It doesn’t seem to buzz when I use my beyer headphones
For me it’s there but it’s faint and really only noticeable from the deck menu and hard to pick up in game. It seems to get worse if things like wifi are running so I would guess it’s bad shielding. I’ve seen this before in other lower quality PC DACs. Seems like it’s poorly shielded and there’s little to be done to fix it. From looking online this is a common issue with LCD models as well.
after deliberating over this the past few days i am convinced it is a hardware issue that an update won’t be able to fully fix. i’ve just submitted a request return the unit for another one. it’s within the return period anyway.
Could you keep us updated as to whether the replacement fixes it? My suspicion is that it’s a financial design issue but I’d love to be wrong.
yeah, still waiting to get a response from support. will update here once the whole process is done.
for those interested, steam is aware of the issue but don’t consider it sever enough to warrant a replacement. i disagree but it seems like the best alternative is for me to return my unit. i find this rather disappointing.
official response from steam support pasted below:
Hi there,
Thank you for contacting Steam Support and reporting this to us.
We understand what you’re describing, but we expect the behavior to be within our tolerances for the product.
All units go through a factory test specifically designed to verify that they do not have an elevated “noise floor” and we’re not aware of anything that would make this issue worse during transport or shipment. We’re actively monitoring these issues to be sure there is nothing outside our expectations.
If you find the “noise floor” on your unit unacceptable, we can process a replacement for you while we bring your unit in for examination. However, we do not believe that a new unit will operate in a significantly different way in this regard.
Steam Support JoJo
I wonder if they were testing with headphones with higher resistances, or testing them in a situation where the GPU was at a lower clock speed and it was harder to hear the interference.
well regardless of how they test, i guess it’ll only start to matter if a bunch of people don’t take this lying down and start RMA returns. it’s not a problem until it hurts them financially.
If I get the same response, I’ll consider it disrespecting an informed user with a pretty obvious QC issue. I’ll be sending it back and just be happy with my 100% working Nintendo Switch and PS5 consoles as I was before.
I get buzz on my iem’s only, tried my Shure 535s and a cheap pair with no name and they both get buzz/static and it’s loud. If I idle on the main menu it dies down until I move the cursor again and kt whirrs right back up. If I use my Beyer Dynamic 770’s I get no buzz. Also no buzz on when using usb-c to 3.5mm adapter.
For me noise from headphone jack is definitely significant enough to avoid it at low volume and from the moment I boot up.
Darned on Valves response but I’m hopefully they’re monitoring the situation and crossing my fingers that it can be a software fix. I was planning to bring some lightweight headphones on a trip in a month but my workaround will be a USB c dongle power adapter combo if not fixed by then.
Wow. How did none of the early reviewers catch this? It doesn’t matter how great the screen is (and BTW there are different OLED panels in some of them) it kills the experience when using 3.5mm headphones.