It’s a message Valve is trying to convey to consumers because it says everything is carefully selected, tested, and proven to work together. While that might be a bit of a downer for some planning to buy one, Valve isn’t going to stop you from trying to take this thing apart. The company is simply recommending that people leave it as is if they don’t know what they’re doing. This includes not only taking it apart, but swapping out components. You can swap out the SSD for instance, but the one that’s in there was specifically tested to not interfere with things like WiFi and Bluetooth. And installing a different one may not deliver the same result. With that said, Valve still shows you how to get inside the Steam Deck and get to a couple of the components.
Valve’s Steam Deck teardown video doesn’t show a complete disassembly
As mentioned above this video is brief. It doesn’t go through taking apart the whole machine. It mostly focuses on getting at the thumbsticks and the SSD. Both of which you could swap if you wanted to. If you’re not intending to open up your Steam Deck but you’re still interested in seeing what the inside of it looks like, the video is a neat way to see what makes up the device. It’s also sort of an intimate look at how Valve put everything together. Obviously, the warranty on this hardware doesn’t cover if things end up broken due to user tampering. So this video should also serve as a word of caution to anyone considering swapping out parts. But again, once you get your Steam Deck it’s yours to do with as you see fit. And if you do know what you’re doing, it’s entirely possible to swap parts without damaging stuff. Valve also states that it will have a source for some replacement parts down the line.
