The first report of a faulty Steam Machine has broken cover, mere days after the system’s launch. Worse still, the error concerns the device’s dedicated AMD Radeon GPU, with a warranty claim being the only resolution open to the customer.
In a post to the Steam Machine subreddit, user me_hill shared a picture of their Steam Machine with the system’s light bar displaying a red line across the right-half of the device. In the post’s title, the user claims they had only run the PC for 20 minutes before this error display appeared.
We know from Valve’s support page that red lines on the light bar indicate various error states, pertaining to the graphics, memory, overheating, and storage. Unfortunately for me_hill, this particular red light appears when the system detects a GPU failure.
The user claims they played No Man’s Sky for all of five minutes, before installing an available update. After this time, the system apparently turned itself off (as you’d expect during a patch) before failing to power back on, instead displaying the aforementioned red LED.
Well, the Steam Machine was pretty cool for the 20 minutes that it worked
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The Steam Machine appears to be reporting this error accurately, as me_hill isn’t able to get any display output from the system. Some users have suggested attempting to access the BIOS and reinstall SteamOS, with a possible driver failure being at fault, but this seems like a Hail Mary shot at best.
We should hopefully hear back from me_hill’s experience with Valve customer support in due course, but it’s unclear how quickly Valve will be able to send a replacement system. Regardless, it’s helpful that the Steam Machine features such an error display, making troubleshooting (and hopefully repairs) all the swifter.
For the moment, this is the only instance of a Steam Machine suffering a ‘red line of death’ (RLOD). While I can’t speak about potential wider quality issues, I was able to benchmark our sample repeatedly and heavily over the course of our review, with other media seemingly having the same issue-free experience.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that me_hill has damaged the system in some way without disclosing their actions. Here’s hoping we’re not staring down another Xbox 360 era red ring of death (RROD) scenario, as nobody (least of all, Valve) wants to see the system saddled with such a problem.
While you’re waiting for your spot on the waitlist to come up, check our Steam Machine review to learn more about Valve’s quaint if underwhelming system.
