Steamdeck has been feeling a little unresponsive lately then after I left it for a bit (picked up Elden rings finally) I noticed the entire lefts side was completely dead. All buttons, joystick, triggers, trackpad ect. I followed all the software resets to make sure then followed a guide here hoping that if I opened it up it would be a simple disconnect ribbon. As seen in the attached picture the C-L connector appears to have short circuited or something, I am not a tech savvy person and am unclear how to move forward. Would this require a while board replacement or something bigger, any advice on how to move forward or what I could do would be greatly appreciated!

I checked this post, and checked my charger. The charger is good and so is the DC jack. Is it just a hopeless case of a bad motherboard? If it is let me know, and also let me know if there's any chance of saving this laptop.

Persian->English translation:

Title: Why does the engine rip in first gear when the engine speed is low?

Description: When I go from second gear to first gear or when I try to accelerate and increase the engine speed in first gear, it doesn't happen smoothly and the engine rips.

⟐ Edited July 03, 2026 at 11:55 MST

As you can imagine, many pieces fell out, including the tiny spring you see in this photo on the blue mat to the right of the image.

This drive is internally very similar to this drive that there is an iFixit guide for. I was able to return everything to it's place, except for that one tiny spring I'm not certain of. I believe (thanks to the help of the iFixit AI chat bot) that it is an anti-backlash spring for the upper metal bolt of the slide assembly. I think I put it back in the right place, under the metal bolt at the top-right section (of the image) and the screw keeps it tight.

However, even though putting the drive back together in this way made it seem to function, it's not reading discs.

• The drive is recognized by my computer
• The drive ejects discs properly, both with software eject and with hardware button
• The disc spins when I put it in the drive
• I've tried multiple known-good discs, and multiple computers with multiple USB ports (Windows, Mac, Linux)

The drive thinks there is no disc in it. Does anyone know if I put the spring in the right place? If I did, does anyone know what could be causing everything but reading discs to work properly?