Two issues have plagued the official dock for me:
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After waking up from sleep, HDMI is black unless AC adapter is unplugged and re-plugged
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Wake on Lan doesn’t work because the deck going to sleep seems to put the dock to sleep, the Ethernet lights turn off
I solved both using a smart plug. I have a Sonoff (S40 Lite) and a TP-Link Kasa, both have Python packages to control via terminal which led me to choose them.
To enable Power on AC attach:
Shutdown the steam deck fully (not sleep). Hold Volume ‘+’ button and power on to go to BIOS. Go to setup, power, Power on AC Attach and enable.
I set up SSH keys for the steam deck from my phone using Termux on Android. I power it off using an ssh command from my termux, then use a python command to turn off the smart plug as well (you can use the web app or smartphone app just as well, using python just let’s me link it all into one command)
To turn on, I just turn on the smart plug and seems to fix the HDMI black screen issue too!
The HDMI issue seems to be fixed in the main update channel, although there’s an equally annoying bug where home/overlay menus stop working while you have bluetooth controllers connected.
Glad you found a good work around though.
Hm no luck for me - I’m using a BenQ gaming projector so I’m not sure if TVs and Projectors behave differently in terms of HDMI. Sometimes I still need to “power cycle” the AC adapter to get an image after just switching from gaming mode to desktop mode
Using the official dock, I don’t have a picture until I sleep cycle* my Deck if the TV is not on before waking it up. There is no picture on either display until then.
Also I am using a tiny keyboard for waking up the Steam Deck and it never works if I replugged the device without another sleep cycle.
It’s not great, but at least there are some workarounds. Which work for me.
*Sleep cycle means waking up the device and putting it back to sleep at least once
Hm interesting - try unplugging the charger from the back of the dock and plugging it back in while the deck is still awake, that’s what this approach hopes to automate
I have similar issues using a jsaux dock. My solution was to build a habit of turning on the tv then pressing the deck power button.
It’s not great, but it works. I do have a few unused smartplugs floating around though, I might have to give this a try
Ha I had the same habit but the deck is a little bit away and sometimes its a pain (especially while eating) to set everything down to go power on the deck. That’s what led me to chase WoL (and now power on AC)
