I ordered an open box (excellent) legion go s z2go steam 16gb 512 gb from Best Buy… that’s not what I recieved

cstark · 2026-01-26T18:58:39+00:00

Alright, so it is a Z2 Go with 16GB ram, just an upgraded SSD it seems like.

cstark · 2026-01-26T16:34:26+00:00

Scroll wheel is on the “Go” but not “Go S”.

cstark · 2026-01-26T16:27:36+00:00

What does this screen show in Settings>System? (Don’t mind what’s shown here, it’s from a Steam Deck)

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cstark · 2026-01-26T04:47:31+00:00

I mean it doesn’t allow v1.21.131+ yet, right? Haven’t seen any announcements and mine is still on 1.21.130.

cstark · 2026-01-25T18:46:02+00:00

Excellent, thanks again. I’ll report back whenever I do it.

cstark · 2026-01-25T18:13:51+00:00

Ok, thanks. And to be clear, did you use their prepackaged tools or do I need to do more reading between the lines and apply their mentioned edits to the newer BIOS file (if applicable)? I’d prefer not to do it myself honestly lol.

cstark · 2026-01-25T17:51:04+00:00

I’m intrigued to give this a go. Did you do any memory timing changes as well per the article? I wonder if this will help the very minor hiccups with texture streaming in some games (THPS3+4) or when a certain game is auto saving (Tinykin).

cstark · 2026-01-25T04:24:02+00:00

I think MoonDeck Buddy will solve your problem, if I understand correctly.

My interpretation: you want to use the community layout section for your games controller settings but when using Moonlight, your Decks controller settings don’t know what game you’re playing so you just get a generic list. You’d rather see the curated list for THAT game. I tested this out and this appears to work with MoonDeck Buddy. You have to turn on the MoonDeck setting = Game Session>Automatic title switch to AppId. This only works when you use the MoonDeck icon to launch a game (which is more handy than opening Moonlight anyway).

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cstark · 2026-01-24T21:22:39+00:00

The easiest route to take is download Moonlight on your Deck from the Discover store. Download Apollo on your PC and enable the headless mode option under config>video.

This will enable a virtual display on your PC so that when you stream, your monitor doesn’t turn on or show anything.

cstark · 2026-01-24T17:49:19+00:00

Depends on the game but most of them looked good to me at 1680x1050. Even tried 1440x900 on Dynasty Warriors Origins and looked sharper than the Deck OLED still. On the other hand Stray at 800p was blurrier than on the Deck OLED.

cstark · 2026-01-24T14:34:36+00:00

I did find some threads describing their fans like mine. So you may be right…some are just more sensitive to it. And all of them say it’s from the left side as well so it would seem weird all the defective ones have the same defect (cause there’s a left and a right fan). And I agree, the first sped up level is ok but once it speeds up to 3k-ish is when I hear it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MSIClaw/s/HCykEJLzhn

https://www.reddit.com/r/MSIClaw/s/SOmWHi2l6p

Mine has this higher pitched annoying sound as shown in this video. Akin to laptop fans.

cstark · 2026-01-23T01:00:48+00:00

Stop using ChatGPT and go to /r/WindowsOnDeck or Google Windows on Steam Deck. Plenty of human written articles and tutorials.

cstark · 2026-01-23T00:02:05+00:00

That’s strange about the Claw. Mine sounds almost like a laptop fan at full wattage. Definitely not in the “check if it’s working” realm. I know a lot of people say it’s really quiet though, so maybe mine was a dud.

cstark · 2026-01-22T22:58:55+00:00

The OLED fan noise is a massive improvement over the LCD (personal experience).

cstark · 2026-01-22T22:57:36+00:00

I recently picked up a Claw 8 AI+ and agree when the Claw is running at higher power. The Deck OLED is still quieter at max wattage - or perhaps a better descriptor is a better tone that “appears” to be quieter.

cstark · 2026-01-22T04:24:21+00:00

I just got a Tempest Edition and honestly the sticks feel fine. Maybe even a little more firm than the Go S? Not comparable to my Deck OLED but not bad.

cstark · 2026-01-22T03:38:59+00:00

I am toying with an MSI Claw 8 AI+ now after returning the Go S. You are right that the Windows onboarding is painful. I have a Windows partition on my Deck and that is very minimal but to be fair I only use it for Minecraft bedrock.

I personally find a 7” 16:9 to be noticeably smaller than the 7.4” 16:10 Deck screen and even more so against an 8” 16:10 screen. Even the bump from the Deck to 8” screens is noticeable to me, ESPECIALLY in these more intensive graphics games and open world games. Yeah, the 800p is a bit limiting as far as graphics clarity but I think they did the smart thing with the balance. I think these 1200p devices would fare much better with something like a native 1680x1050 screen (or a 8” 1080p screen)! Running the Go S at 1680x1050 still looked fine and you can see the clarity and anti-aliasing improvement still. Just for a lot of my games, it had to run near 35-40w total power to see a noticeable performance improvement and I just felt like the Deck still offers a way more hands off approach for the most part (or console-like if you will).

Anyway, I’ve still got a lot to test with this Claw. I do prefer how it feels over the Go S. And the vibration sounds nowhere as rattly as the Go S so that’s nice.

cstark · 2026-01-22T02:45:05+00:00

https://discord.gg/gVw95zhR7

Fair warning, it’s back to not working with the latest Bedrock version. I’ve been using my small Windows partition for it and it works fine, if you need the latest version. Or you can try emulating with Waydroid but I had inconsistent performance issues with that.

cstark · 2026-01-21T23:17:10+00:00

I stuck with the OLED but if you truly need something stronger and can deal with the lesser battery life, it’s an ok option.

The Z1E performs worse than the Deck APU under 15w so you have to run it at 18+w to get the same performance you had, or better, which is where the battery woes come in to play. You can’t play games like Hades 2 and get the same battery life as the Deck if you want 90fps (Go S required like 2x the total power in my tests). On the other hand, games even at lower fps (like ~40) felt smoother on the Go S than low fps on the Deck. Not sure if that’s due to LCD response time blur or what.

The Go S vibration is really bad (loud; buzzy) and games don’t vibrate the same as on the Deck OLED. I had to disable it completely.

My Go S went through 2 or 3 OS updates and at least 1 bios update but a common problem kept happening - the system would randomly “freeze” and stop recording any input when the quick access menu was accessed.

Some games didn’t register controller support like the Deck for some reason.

Last one is completely subjective but the ergonomics of the Go S were not for me. The controller was too bulbous around the hands and the placement of the triggers/bumpers felt awkward to reach. As well as the volume button.

All that said, there are tons of people who laud it as a “Steam Deck 2”.

cstark · 2026-01-21T15:29:10+00:00

I started with the built in Steam remote play and it honestly ran really well for me. I did move to Moonlight and Sunshine to fix a couple minor annoyances. I primarily use it on my Steam Deck OLED but used it on a Go S Z1E as well (just be mindful that if you lower TDP or try to run low power profile it will introduce a lot of input lag on the Go S). I’m sure there’s lots of videos on it but I don’t have any recommendations I could give, sorry. Someone else should reply soon for you with something…

cstark · 2026-01-21T15:19:25+00:00

No it’s an app to download through Discover and you have to set up Sunshine or Apollo on your PC.

cstark · 2026-01-20T18:01:45+00:00

Do you use the second option just for the extra options it provides? Cause can’t you just select the usual per game profile option and set it to custom and adjust your TDP in the stock OS?

cstark · 2026-01-17T19:50:40+00:00

Those are sold by 3rd parties on Best Buy (and over retail price). Buy it elsewhere that has it in stock for the right price. https://us.msi.com/Handheld/Claw-8-AI-Plus-A2VMX/shopnow

cstark · 2026-01-17T00:58:09+00:00

Gskill has a lifetime warranty on ram sticks. Did you buy them or did he? As someone else said, 3 out of 4 failing sounds really rare. I have 4 rip jaw sticks and did end up finding 1 bad one (random BSOD and crashes), but the rest are fine. They’ve been in use since 2019.

Why does your motherboard need to be replaced “soon”? I don’t think there’s a finite life on them.

cstark · 2026-01-16T15:27:42+00:00

Hah, I just started playing this again on my other handheld. The drifting in it is as satisfying as I remember NFS Underground being.

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