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.
Motherboard failure. My first deck shipped to me in this state. Nothing you can do.
That’s rough. I can’t think of a suggestion right now but I hope something works out.
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.
Here in germany most companies give 2 years
Because the have to. there is the general warranty that is mandatory and the warranty that the company gives you that can be everything or nothing.
Gewährleistung und Garantie.
Yes, but even the voluntary warranty (not gewährleistung) is mostly 2 maybe even 5 years or longer. This is not mandatory. So one year is really weak.
1 year seems lenient with the kinds of people using the Steam Deck. If it wasn’t something we were allowed to take apart, then it probably would be 2 years. Confidence in their hardware has nothing to do with it.
I can also buy a new gpu or pc ram and get 2 years warranty for it. The only real difference is opening the case. Everything after that has the same physical risks of damaging. Not really an argument.
You’re right. I’m not arguing. I am stating a relevant fact for a valid reason.
Here in germany most companies give 2 years. Seems like valve isn’t too confident in their own hardware.
All companies, it’s EU mandated, no one can give you less than 2 years.
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.
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.
Really basic but I might as well confirm, do you get any audio from the menu screen? I’m assuming it normally booted directly into the Home screen and not the lock screen.
Occasionally my Steam Deck screen doesn’t turn on when it turns on/leaves rest mode. But it’s still physically turned on since I can hear audio cues going on (i.e. moving the LS to select games listed on Home makes a sound), and pressing the Steam button on the left side turns the screen on. I don’t think that’s what is going on here since you’ve had it for so long, but I figured I’d check since no other button besides the Steam button fixes my screen, similar to your situation.
Hope it gets resolved soon, sucks you’ve had to deal with this.
I’m sorry this happened to a fellow steam deck brother.
Here is my question for you OP. I read through your post. How did the problem happen? Like what lead up to your steam deck not working?
Here is an example. You were playing it like normal. Then you forgot about it and let the steam deck battery get depleted. Go to charge it and it doesn’t turn on the screen but the steam deck turns on.
That is a theoretical scenario. What happen in your story to the build up of it not working.
I went a week without playing it. It was turned off, sitting in its case, on my shelf. That’s it. I have nothing but random Steam puzzle games installed. Wanted to play it, tried turning it on and boom. Realized I had a problem. That’s it.
Does it still light up and/ or the fan turn on?
Does the country you live in have a consumer rights act? I would get back in touch and quote it.
Maybe your screen is fried? It’s going to be hard to fix it yourself, but definitely possible.
I’m just adding this info regarding Battery Storage Mode in case you’ve not tried it:
“1. Make sure the unit is shut down by holding the power button for 10 seconds. 2. Check that the unit is off, there should be no haptic response when touching the trackpads and no fan noise. 3. Plug in the provided power supply into the unit, you should see a solid white LED. 4. Hold the “Volume +” button and the “…” button at the same time for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds while still holding the buttons, unplug the power supply. 5. When preformed correctly you should see the power LED blink 3 times and after that the unit should not respond to using the power button. 6. Next, plug the power supply back into your unit. This will exit storage mode. 7. Retest the issue.
Sounds like having the deck off and plugged in, and then holding “Vol +” and “. . .” for 10 seconds, and the unplugging it without releasing the buttons is a hardware shortcut for entering battery saver mode without accessing the bios.”
Same exact thing happened to my deck, though mime was still under warranty, and they replaced it with a new one. I tried literally everything to no avail. I hope you get it working again
Exact same scenario happened to me, I also went through all the same troubleshooting to no avail. The fix ended up being leaving it plugged into original charger overnight, the next morning it miraculously booted up and has been fine since
So scary. Been there
This happened to me. To be fair I did some fairly full-on modding on hardware and software. You can find a lot of people on this sub referring to this as ‘The Black Screen of Death’. I tried everything I could find in 100 different orders and had no success. I sent it back for paid repairs and they did fix it. It has been working fine since.
I know it’s a pain but a $550 functional deck is better than a $400 brick.