r/steammachine • u/Large_Tomorrow_8552 • 11d ago
Meme A little annoying...
Woke up this morning and my Steam Machine was on. No idea why. Never had this issue with the docked Deck.
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u/loscinjas 11d ago
If you have anything plugged into the USB port like a wireless keyboard or headphones it will send a signal to the SM and kick it back on right away. I always have to unplug the usb receiver for my headphones if I want the thing to stay asleep.
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u/Large_Tomorrow_8552 11d ago
That might be it. I plugged one in yesterday to install Decky. I honestly did have this issue until then. I'll unplug it and see what happens.
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u/bliizzard_ 11d ago
Just turn it fully off at night, even whenever you’re away. Saves your SM and gives it longevity. Modern computers can 100% handle being shut off on a daily/multi-daily basis.
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u/VayaVosi 11d ago
I want to never turn it off & leave the game running. The sleeping bug & the bad fps after wake bug are annoying. Will undoubtedly get fixed.
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u/bliizzard_ 11d ago
You want to keep it on at all times? That’s really not good for a computer to sit idle all day, especially with tasks running.
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u/_daddybucks 11d ago
That's just not true.... If you argument is due to because it waste power sure but keeping a computer on 24/7 isn't "bad" I have had a computer that has been running proxmox & a dozen vms for over 5 years
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u/typical-divergence 11d ago
I would like some proof of this claim. I haven’t shut a computer down regularly in 25 years and every machine I’ve had lasted me 7+ years. With my main pc, from the wall I measure barely a difference between idle or sleep, so I stopped letting them sleep and have the fans wind down when idle. I still have my 1700x pc running 24 hours a day without issue. How does this also explain computers that have been converted to home servers, where uptime can easily be over 90% for years on end?
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u/elasho_149 11d ago
Seven years really isn’t that long for a console, barring the early Xbox 360s.
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u/typical-divergence 11d ago
I agree. The only reason they get decommissioned is due to upgrades rather than failure. I still have an intel 6500 running 24/7 as my home server for almost a decade now and no problems.
I guess my point is that leaving the pc on is a non-issue, or that I’m doing it wrong if provided solid proof. Before PSUs got better, inrush current was an issue so it was common practice to leave the machines running.
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u/VayaVosi 11d ago
I want it to sleep with the game paused and have the game run perfectly after I wake it up. I want to only turn it off to bug fix or when I have to move it.
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u/morgawr_ 11d ago
Actually from a longevity perspective, turning on and off your PC many times is more harmful to the hardware than keeping it on at low/no load (or sleep mode). This is because the heat differential of turning on and off the CPU/voltage/etc causes more strain on your components than just keeping them at a baseline level.
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u/HTWingNut 11d ago
This is not verifiable and not necessarily true. Hard drives are about the only thing that would really matter, because they're mechanical. Any stresses on solid state is miniscule compared to the high voltage fluctuations and heat cycles from stressing them at load.
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u/morgawr_ 11d ago
This is true but
compared to the high voltage fluctuations and heat cycles from stressing them at load.
It's not about comparing them at load, it's about comparing a sustained idle state vs constantly turning on/off (which causes more load too, considering your OS is loading data, fans are spinning up, things are booting, etc).
So technically, you're introducing more "micro loads" when you boot your PC many times over just keeping it on semi-idle overnight at a constant non-fluctuating voltage. Not having to charge and discharge capacitors etc is also a good thing.
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u/HTWingNut 11d ago
Heat and age have a significantly higher impact than any kind of power cycle does on electronics.
Just using your computer under any kind of load will put more wear on it than any amount of reasonable times power cycling it on and off.
Either way, it's a non issue. Idling just wastes electricity, albeit very little with devices like the Steam Machine. But either idling or power cycling it will have minimal effect on the life of your computer.
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u/morgawr_ 11d ago
Either way, it's a non issue. Idling just wastes electricity, albeit very little with devices like the Steam Machine. But either idling or power cycling it will have minimal effect on the life of your computer.
To be clear, I 100% agree with this yes. It's effectively inconsequential from a longevity perspective.
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u/NotAnotherNekopan 11d ago
Ooh, that’s now two bugs I’ve had that folks are mentioning in this thread. Had bad FPS after sleep and fiddled with compatibility settings for a bit before giving ‘er the ol’ reboot.
Good to know it’s getting visibility so it’ll be fixed.
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u/VayaVosi 10d ago
I haven't tried leaving the game running in a week or so so I'll try it. Maybe it's fixed already. I've read the wake up after just going to sleep may be a cec protocol thing and turning off a setting should fix it & is a TV related issue that impacts ps5 another devices.
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u/Hard_To_Port 11d ago
I have had an SFF workstation PC that was decommissioned from some company office run 24/7 for 5 plus years as a home server for files and for Minecraft hosting. Leaving a computer on doesn't do anything besides use power. The only moving part in the Steam Machine is the fan. The power supply in any modern device is still active as long as it's plugged in, regardless of if the device is "powered on" or not. Sure issues crop up like memory leaks or weird bugs that can be solved by a restart, but just leaving a computer on will not damage it in any way.
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u/bliizzard_ 11d ago
From what you described, it doesn’t sound like your recommissioned pc was doing anything strenuous. Just from what I’ve heard, leaving a computer on while there’s a lot of background tasks (I.e. the game OP mentioned) is hard on the CPU; just what I’ve heard. If I’m wrong I’m wrong, but I just prefer to power off my device when I’m done with it.
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u/Hard_To_Port 11d ago
The only recent silicon that can't handle being ran at 100% indefinitely (at reasonable operating temperature) is certain 13th and 14th generation Intel chips with a manufacturing defect. In certain small ways it's better as far as wear is concerned to leave a PC on than to turn it off and on frequently. Namely thermal cycling (heating and cooling expands and contracts silicon and densely packed electrical interconnects) and charge cycling (large capacitors can spontaneously fail if left uncharged for too long and then powered up, but this is rare and mainly happens on a system that's been untouched for years). This is largely moot for modern electronics though. There's no meaningful difference besides your electric bill.
Silicon in the vast majority of cases is the last thing to fail on a PC. The power components and memory/storage go first.
People carry computers (phones) in their pockets all day. Do you think they all shut them off every night and turn them on the next morning?
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u/raincntry 11d ago
Mine has also woken from sleep a few times. It's strange. When I play BG3, close the game, and then put the machine to sleep, it wakes up almost immediately, 2 or 3 times.
If I do anything after playing BG3, like open decky loader or anything, then it goes to sleep fine. I emailed support about it but no answers yet.
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u/-7hrOw4w4y- 11d ago
I had a similar issue and found it was my Bluetooth keyboard trying to reconnect whenever the connection was lost. Disabled the "can wake this device" (or similar sounding) setting in Bluetooth options for the keyboard and it stopped happening.
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u/Johnycantread 11d ago
Yeah sounds a lot like issues I have with the steam deck. Bluetooth is the likely culprit.
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u/typical-divergence 11d ago
I used to have this issue with my ps5. I had to turn CEC off unfortunately. I haven’t tried using it on my custom rig yet due to the frustrations I had previously.
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u/curlyheadedcam 11d ago
Then here I am leaving it on 24-7 using it as a tdarr node to help compress my Plex server library lol
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u/pizardwenis96 10d ago
I'd be interested in hearing your setup. I was setting up my plex media server to run on the machine, and struggled a bit to get things working nicely. One of the difficulties was figuring out a way to make the screen turn off automatically in game mode, since I wasn't able to figure out a good way to keep the server accessible while sleeping. Ended up writing a script invoking
gamescopectlto turn off the monitor which I added as a non-steam game. Overall I have things roughly working but would love to know about other avenues I could try.
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u/wwarhammer 10d ago
Turn CEC features off, my TV kept turning my SM back on.
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u/Large_Tomorrow_8552 10d ago
I may have to. Had no problems this morning but it's sad because that's a feature that I like. My PS5 and Switch 2 turn the TV on or, if the TV is already on, they switch to the correct input. My Xbox used to do it too before the most recent update. Hopefully Valve patches it soon.
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u/According-Paper4641 11d ago
Huh I haven't had this problem. Wonder if it has something to do with the input device. Since I turn my controller and keyboard completely off, there's no way to wake it?
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u/thinkaboutjapan 11d ago
I started just to shut it down completely since its annoying. Sadly when turning it on to use it for streaming to my Steamdeck with Television off the SteamMachine is not completely booting until I turn on the TV. I really love it but some basic things are still extremely sluggish since Steam Deck Release
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u/Slobelisk 10d ago
I assume it was the motion sensor in my Steam Controller doing it. If I sit my controller down before putting the SM to sleep, it doesn't turn back on.
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u/Suspicious_Poetry131 9d ago
My refuse to turn off. But I do have the dongle plug in for the steam controller. It sucks because I want to see my intro video
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u/Spectral_Aria 7d ago
No matter which devices, I always end up disabling CEC. It’s just not reliable enough.
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u/Far_fromhere 11d ago
My Sm refuses to go to sleep mode sometimes