The shell swap is so worth it!

After a bit of research, I basically knew the ins and outs of the steam deck before even removing a single screw which made the whole process a hell of a lot easier. The screen removal was still the most challenging part of it but other than that I managed to complete the entire teardown and rebuild in 3 hours 34 minutes.

Other than the shell and buttons which were both from extremerate, I also decided to add there clicky button kit which has made a huge difference to the experience on the steam deck. I’ve only used it for an hour since completing it, though i only finished it this afternoon. I also installed the gulikit hall effect joysticks, they are a lot more snappy compared to the originals but I may update after some more use.

I decided to invest a bit into some more tools for this project and for future projects, I brought the iopener from Ifixit which came with better spudgers and picks than what came with each extremerate box. I already had the ifix it tool kit which was extremely useful as the screws provided and the original screws were different head sizes. As a little side note, each extremerate boxes comes with its own set of screws for each project and I am now in possession of 3 spare full sets of screws for the steam deck!

As I already had the steam deck open, I had the pretty last minute decision to change the stock thermal paste out for Thermal Grizzly phasesheet thermal pad. I noticed a considerable improvement on thermals, the fans were definitely having to work less hard to cool the cpu but I need to thermal cycle a few times (hence only being used for an hour on its first run).

All in all, I think it is an awesome upgrade. Dont get me wrong, its not for everyone but if you’re confident enough to take on this sort of project then it is absolutely worth the risk and effort with the correct guides to complete.

The things I brought:

Extremerate black-clear shell - https://amzn.eu/d/jjeVOOQ

Extremerate button kit - https://amzn.eu/d/6mP03Jl

Extremerate clicky kit - https://amzn.eu/d/5FT76zf

Gulikit hall effect joysticks - https://amzn.eu/d/65OdElH

Thermal Grizzly phasepad thermal pad - https://amzn.eu/d/1NGiXgZ