First off: Happy Holidays. Now, after a back and forth with Steam Support for the past week, they have concluded last night at 2am that I am ineligible for a “complimentary repair” due to the order date and that my only options are to send it to a repair partner for an estimated repair of $200 or try to fix it myself (which I have already tried since their email to no avail). For some context: I have been an off-and-on light user of my launch Steam Deck 64GB model for the past year, every couple of times a month I used it for some very VERY light puzzle-solving gaming (I was last playing Lumines Remastered, and Rez Infinite) fact is: I loved playing these kinds of games from the comfort of my bed rather than my PC/Desk, I loved the idea of the Steam Deck since day 1. Last week, I noticed something weird after charging it, the screen would not turn on at all. I tried almost everything, all button combinations you could do on boot-up sequence, I scrolled through countless Reddit/Steam discussion threads with possible solutions (feel free to send me some recommendations/questions). I tried everything I possibly could, Steam Support was so patient and helpful with trying to direct me to methods of exiting ‘Storage Mode’ and attempting to enter ‘Bios Mode’. After all was said and done the only thing I could get my Steam Deck to do was the startup chime, fan spin, and haptic feedback, and that’s it. The display is completely shut-off and there is no sign of booting into the SteamOS. I have done ZERO modifications to my Steam Deck and only had like half of the storage occupied, I always kept it up to date and in its storage case, never took it out or damaged it, due to my medical condition I can’t go outside to begin with. I am at a loss for words, I can’t financially afford a $200 repair right now considering I was a light user of the device, to begin with, and medical expenses are draining me of any extra funds for a “quoted” repair that could increase in price at any time if Steam/Valve’s repair partners change their minds… I just can’t help but think now that I essentially have a $400 paperweight of a device on my shelf right now after I have exhausted all ways of repairing it myself. I am thankful to the Steam Support staff I understand that warranty periods exist for a reason and that I have to deal with it myself like a big boy, I just wish that under the circumstances of literally doing nothing wrong, the device could be repaired for free due to just the odd underlying nature of my problem.
tldr: my deck is bricked and im out of warrenty and poor/sick rn so oh well
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It definitely sucks but Valve did nothing wrong , if they made a special exemption in your case everyone would want free repairs .
Yup 100%. I just wonder what is wrong with my Deck, I seems many peoples last report and ultimate fix was unplugging the battery and waiting. Even that did not work for me.
Which cables / chargers do you use? Which cable/charger did you use when the problem first occured?
I’m asking because I was charging my deck with these magnetic cables where you have one end always connected to the SD and the other to the charger. I guess this cable/connection fried my deck a while ago. Probably very small but big enough conductive material at the magnetic side of the cable.
Its bad that the deck isn’t protected against this kind of overvoltage but its what it is.
If you didn’t use such cables it might just was thunder or other reasons that induced a overvoltage in your home.
Or just bad luck.
But tbh fuck valves policy concerning the 1 year warranty. Here in germany most companies give 2 years. Seems like valve isn’t too confident in their own hardware.
Oh no! I hope mine isn’t fried ): I’ve been using the charger that came in box and I don’t recall any power surges recently /: But yes I agree I think atleast two years would be sufficient especially for a launch day model.
That’s rough. I can’t think of a suggestion right now but I hope something works out.
Can you get into the bios? If yes then reinstall steamOS with a recovery image
If no, i see you said there was haptic feedback? Do you have a type-C to hdmi hub? Maybe its booting but the screen just isnt working…
If the screen is working, i think its a firmware issue. Try a cmos reset. If that doesnt work, try opening it up and removing the battery and ssd. Let it sit for a while with the battery and charger unplugged, then plug it in (without the ssd) and try to boot it. Removing all sources of power will try to force the bios and any nvram (or whatever the steam deck uses to store those variables) corrupted data back stock defaults. Removing the ssd and any other external device will see if something went horribly wrong with them that would cause post failure. If none of that works the you either have a dead mainboard or you need a bios reflash
Essentially, the fail safe is unplug everything that you possibly can and test. If it works, slowly plug stuff back in until it fails again, and thats whats broken. If nothing works, then you have a hardware or firmware issue
Thank you so much for all this info I really appreciate it. I tried entering bios to reimage I can’t, I tried using a usbc hdmi adapter, nothing. This morning I actually took apart the device for the very first time I was a little nervous. I tried unplugging the battery and SSD, waited a hour, plugged back in battery and SSD still no display or boot. I then unplugged the battery and not the SSD and plugged into the charger and nothing. Should I try opening it again and disconnect both the SSD and the battery to see if I can run off the charger? Thanks again for your explanation on what could possibly be the problem.