Received a Dead Deck

SPARTAN VI

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jun 12, 2004
Messages
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Wife and I got our Decks today. Mine booted up instantly, no issues. However, wife's Steam Deck refuses to boot. When I tap the power button, I hear a subtle audible beep, fans spin up, and can feel the haptics in the touch pads, but no display.
Valve's support page recommends holding the power button for 3 seconds to reboot, or holding it for 10 seconds to reboot if there's an OS issue. I've tried:

1. Holding the power button for 3 seconds. Multiple attempts.
2. Holding the power button for 10 seconds. Multiple attempts.
3. Holding the power button for 30 seconds. Multiple attempts.
4. Charged the Deck for over an hour.

Redditors recommend opening up the device and fucking around with the battery. I'm not that desperate yet and I don't want to risk Valve blaming the issue on me tampering with it. So I felt it was a reasonable time to contact Valve support, and here's the chat log thus far:
1649210928660.png


Record a goddamn video? FFS. Been doing tech support for over 15 years, and nearly half of my career was devoted to remotely troubleshooting a range of remote capture scanners on a broad spectrum of desktop and mobile devices. "Record a video" was/is never an option.

TL;DR Pretty disappointed with Valve's service so far. Uploading their damn video now, hopefully they don't waste much more of my time.
 
Wife and I got our Decks today. Mine booted up instantly, no issues. However, wife's Steam Deck refuses to boot. When I tap the power button, I hear a subtle audible beep, fans spin up, and can feel the haptics in the touch pads, but no display.
Valve's support page recommends holding the power button for 3 seconds to reboot, or holding it for 10 seconds to reboot if there's an OS issue. I've tried:

1. Holding the power button for 3 seconds. Multiple attempts.
2. Holding the power button for 10 seconds. Multiple attempts.
3. Holding the power button for 30 seconds. Multiple attempts.
4. Charged the Deck for over an hour.

Redditors recommend opening up the device and fucking around with the battery. I'm not that desperate yet and I don't want to risk Valve blaming the issue on me tampering with it. So I felt it was a reasonable time to contact Valve support, and here's the chat log thus far:
View attachment 461135

Record a goddamn video? FFS. Been doing tech support for over 15 years, and nearly half of my career was devoted to remotely troubleshooting a range of remote capture scanners on a broad spectrum of desktop and mobile devices. "Record a video" was/is never an option.

TL;DR Pretty disappointed with Valve's service so far. Uploading their damn video now, hopefully they don't waste much more of my time.


How dare they make a remote attempt at helping you and expect you to post a video demonstrating the issue and that you're not an idiot that can follow simple directions such as plugging it in and holding a button for a specific amount of time.
 
If your screen won't turn on no matter what you do, I have to say that it's broken. To me that is a minimum amount I expect from a product like this is have something show up on screen. I would immediately ask for a return + replacement for it. It's probably too late now but it might be better to act dumb than smart in this case, they'd probably have issued you an RMA# already if you just asked them how do you post on YouTube lol.
 
Flashbacks to that time I bought an ebay turbo and the runout was REALLY bad. Seller asked for a video, So I did it, showing the almost 1/8th inch play in the impeller, they refunded me and told me to keep the paperweight lol
 
Valve support finally responded after 2 days of limbo. Got a 3rd agent this time (it's been a different agent with each reply) who asked me to reboot into BIOS mode and navigate to the battery settings. The outcome was predictable... since Boot Manager mode didn't work then BIOS mode wouldn't work either. Nothing displays on the Deck regardless of which boot mode I attempt, so I can't wait for them to stop asking me to navigate screens when nothing displays!
 
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Valve support finally responded after 2 days of limbo. Got a 3rd agent this time (it's been a different agent with each reply) who asked me to reboot into BIOS mode and navigate to the battery settings. The outcome was predictable... since Boot Manager mode didn't work then BIOS mode wouldn't work either. Nothing displays on the Deck regardless of which boot mode I attempt, stop asking me to navigate screens when nothing displays.

I'd say it may be time to get your credit card company involved but that may get you locked out of your Steam account.
 
I'd say it may be time to get your credit card company involved but that may get you locked out of your Steam account.
This will 100% cause his account to be suspended. Long ago I had a CC# deny my order after they at first allowed it and steam auto suspended me and it took 3 weeks to sort out with support. Don't do it unless you absolutely feel they aren't budging, but expect to possibly lose all access to your games, ability to install, or buy games while you sort it out.
 
Yep, charge back = lose your account. Also it's meant for fraud, not bad tech support. Keep pushing at them and get it replaced.
 
Yep, charge back = lose your account. Also it's meant for fraud, not bad tech support. Keep pushing at them and get it replaced.

After 3 incompetent tech support sessions, it's bordering on fraud. He has two of them, one of them clearly isn't working, they should have immediately RMA'd it and got a new one sent out.
 
Dumb csr != fraud.

In this case, fraud is not getting the thing you paid for, whether it doesn't show up at all or it shows up in an inoperable state. If when you go back to them and they don't replace it and instead make you go through multiple support sessions with no end in sight, its start to border on fraud because you haven't received the thing you paid for and they're doing nothing to make it right.
 
Doubt my luck is so rotten that I'd even have to consider the chargeback route. This case was barely opened on Tuesday afternoon and I know from other Deck owners' posts that Valve's RMA turn around time is roughly 2 weeks. That's the par to beat here.
 
Yep, charge back = lose your account. Also it's meant for fraud, not bad tech support. Keep pushing at them and get it replaced.

Chargeback is valid for product not as described, merchant refuses to fix as well as fraud. A DOA deck that they're not processing a return for would fit. I'm sure they'll eventually process the return though... just going to be a slog of jumping through the hoops, even though they're stupid. A life skill taught in high school :p. For support on something completely different, they asked me for a picture to show the problem of missing screws... I knew it was a stupid question, and I assume the csr knew it was a stupid question, but I took a picture of the two pieces not together because the screws were missing and we moved forward.
 
Chargeback is valid for product not as described, merchant refuses to fix as well as fraud. A DOA deck that they're not processing a return for would fit. I'm sure they'll eventually process the return though... just going to be a slog of jumping through the hoops, even though they're stupid. A life skill taught in high school :p. For support on something completely different, they asked me for a picture to show the problem of missing screws... I knew it was a stupid question, and I assume the csr knew it was a stupid question, but I took a picture of the two pieces not together because the screws were missing and we moved forward.
I know. However I don't think 2 days with tech support is a good enough claim to say they're refusing to fix it and doing a charge back ;).
 
This is all new ground with Valve. You are an early adopter. Valve is a an early hardware manufacturer. Steam Deck has sold far beyond its expectations.

I am not making excuses here. I am giving you facts. Yep, it sucks. Yep, Valve support on this sucks. Give it a bit more time. I have 100% confidence that Valve will make it right. Maybe not in the proper timeframe...but even Valve has to crawl before it walks. And for all of you giving me the, "Well they have been selling VR hardware for years," line, yes you are correct, however not at this scale. Valve is in totally new territory.
 
I have often had to take photos or videos of devices in question before. It sounds like they are really hoping to restore this unit because if they have to have you send it back there is no promise of a return unit any time soon, likely being a early adopter yours would go into repair and they would return that one to you, but also would take time as well.

Hoping for the best for you keep us informed!

edit: ill put my chips on a bad solder joint on the tact switch power button.
 
They 100% have some reserves for RMA's, I'm not the only person who got a DOA. I've already seen other customers get their RMA's within 2 weeks of opening a ticket and they were new units, not repairs of the ones they shipped in. Just started day 4 on my ticket, so it's not looking good for beating that 2 week par.
 
That's why companies hold some units back for rma's.
Oh for sure, but not an infinite supply either especially if there is a first run batch large problem.

edit: what I dealt with in returns analysis is a lot of them are buyers remorse that get returned as "does not work". It isn't right that they seem to be treating the OP as someone trying to do this but at the same time, I don't know the best way to create a filter for that. I know for us it screws our stats up until I go through and test the products to see if they are failures and what for or if it is perfectly fine and customer just lied. We take the stance of just let them return it and deal with the numbers later, but that comes from learning that accusing your customers often hurts more financially than just eat it and do better marketing so that the product meets expectations better.
 
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edit: what I dealt with in returns analysis is a lot of them are buyers remorse that get returned as "does not work". It isn't right that they seem to be treating the OP as someone trying to do this but at the same time, I don't know the best way to create a filter for that.
One simple filter is someone requesting an RMA to exchange for another of the same device.
 
Well no surprise that they missed the 2 week mark. The RMA arrived there on Friday 4/15, but it's complete silence from Steam support ever since 4/8. I'm beginning to follow up daily to see if I can annoy them into any sort of response.
 
Well no surprise that they missed the 2 week mark. The RMA arrived there on Friday 4/15, but it's complete silence from Steam support ever since 4/8. I'm beginning to follow up daily to see if I can annoy them into action.
I’m actually pretty disappointed to see this. I’ve had better RMA from MSI and even BIOSTAR. Which is sad.
 
Reading this thread now, I'd say the support was overall mediocre. I've seen worse, and much worse. With some companies, they will have you follow their general procedure step by step no matter what, even if blatantly obvious you've got a brick on your hands. But no, every step of their "diagnostic" process must be followed to the t.
As for video, I've even been asked to take a video of failed car struts in the past (they had lifetime warranty). It's annoying, but a video is much more revealing/telling than 15 text messages.
It's a balance between just RMA'ing anything and everything (and then the customer has to wait and deal with shipping), and trying to troubleshoot the issue in place and potentially resolve it. You'd be amazed how many technically "un-savvy" people are out there and how many returns could in theory be prevented. Not saying that's your case, just generalizing.
Sounds like you'll get yours replaced in under a month total, which is actually quite alright for the PC industry.
 
Yeah I've been doing hardware technical support for my company's remote deposit scanners for nearly 10 years. Totally understand that once the customer has chosen to contact technical support, our best procedural outcome is to resolve their issue in "1 touch" with some basic troubleshooting, and by far our last resort is to issue an RMA. Inevitably we get those "I'm the IT guy" customers who swear they've already "done everything" and open up the conversation basically demanding an RMA before we even get their name. I didn't want to be that guy. So I read their documentation before contacting Valve and did everything they asked. I gave them their fair shake, but I've run out of ways of describing "screeny no worky" to them.

The fact that I've now talked to 4 or 5 different agents and they're all coming in with a wide range of technical and non-technical solutions tells me that they're not really following a rigid troubleshooting procedure. To me, this smacks of the "kitchen sink" approach, where techs go with the most common solutions despite the reported symptoms. For example, the first reply asked me if I could see any UI elements, cursor, etc. when my primary issue is that the device doesn't display anything. Next they asked me to boot to the BIOS/UEFI to re-flash it: no dice. Okay, then take a video: uh.. ok fine. Okay, now enter the BIOS to change the battery setting...? How does this order of operations make any sense to anyone with an ounce of technical experience?

In my company, our techs use basic heuristics to guide their troubleshooting. E.g. if a scanner isn't turning on, it wouldn't make any sense to ask the customer to change the ink cartridge despite that being the most common solution for scanner related service tickets. Along the same vein, it would absolutely piss off the customer to ask them to upload a video to YouTube of the scanner not turning on, that's just hilariously awful.

TL;DR I just want to see some basic improvements out of Valve Support.
- Establish a consistent troubleshooting method that's appropriate for the reported symptoms and without further inconveniencing the customer.
- They should take individual ownership of the tickets through to resolution.
- Establish and enforce a reasonable but strict SLA.
- Proactively follow up with the customer to resolve before the SLA expires.
 
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Just got the replacement Deck today. Going to check it out after work, but the official turn-around time is 25 calendar days or roughly 15 business days, which isn't too bad overall. Note that I'm in California. 🍻
 
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Glad to hear even with the troubles Valve does follow through with their warranty in the end. I'm hoping their support stays strong with the popularity of the deck
 
At any point did you attempt to hookup a secondary display to see if the issue was software or hardware.
 
At any point did you attempt to hookup a secondary display to see if the issue was software or hardware.
No, but I have 2 Steam Decks. So since one of them was working right out of the box, I'm familiar with the chimes, noises, and such the DOA one should have made even if it was only the display that was defective. I also do not have a cable to hook it up to an external display and I don't really plan to dock any of them anyway.
 
Wife and I got our Decks today. Mine booted up instantly, no issues. However, wife's Steam Deck refuses to boot. When I tap the power button, I hear a subtle audible beep, fans spin up, and can feel the haptics in the touch pads, but no display.
Valve's support page recommends holding the power button for 3 seconds to reboot, or holding it for 10 seconds to reboot if there's an OS issue. I've tried:

1. Holding the power button for 3 seconds. Multiple attempts.
2. Holding the power button for 10 seconds. Multiple attempts.
3. Holding the power button for 30 seconds. Multiple attempts.
4. Charged the Deck for over an hour.

Redditors recommend opening up the device and fucking around with the battery. I'm not that desperate yet and I don't want to risk Valve blaming the issue on me tampering with it. So I felt it was a reasonable time to contact Valve support, and here's the chat log thus far:
View attachment 461135

Record a goddamn video? FFS. Been doing tech support for over 15 years, and nearly half of my career was devoted to remotely troubleshooting a range of remote capture scanners on a broad spectrum of desktop and mobile devices. "Record a video" was/is never an option.

TL;DR Pretty disappointed with Valve's service so far. Uploading their damn video now, hopefully they don't waste much more of my time.
I ended up having to return my Steam Deck because the fan was making a grinding noise. Based on your experience I'm going to be waiting a while.
 
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