Steam Deck @sopuli.xyz Dizzy Devil Ducky @lemm.ee 4 days ago

[help] Black Screen of Death

Steam deck (LCD model) will, at no point, turn on unless plugged into charger or hooked up to the dock, regardless of how much battery is left. No response when trying to do things like booting into bios or anything else. Works perfectly fine when plugged in, docked to TV or standalone. No feedback at all, either, from buttons or trackpad haptics either when unplugged.

I've done a bios/firmware reset thing while plugged in and let that go for a while, following the advice of a Steam community forum (not sure whether the blinking power indicator thing is supposed to stop blinking when it's done, but I definitely let it go for longer than the forum post was saying). Went through the process of going through and enabling the main channel OS updates as well through dev settings and updating didn't fix it.

Have taken the backplate off and everything looks fine (I'm not an expert on mechanical things, though) and thankfully no spicy death pillow.

Any advice? At this point I'm even willing to back up anything important and do a factory reset if I have to. Also, if need be, I have a photo of the internals just in case I need to show it (again, not good with electronics on the hardware side of things).

18 comments

Keep calm and contact support. They are responsive, nice and will help you. I had a very similar thing, if not exactly the same. They gave me instructions, some of them I already read online, some of them not. It felt hopeless and it went back and forth multiple time until it suddenly worked again. They really know their stuff. In the end it was something with the base OS version.
- Definitely planned on contacting support later when I have enough time to sit down with my deck and try a few things first. And if nothing works or if warranty doesn't cover whatever is going on, I planned on just using that specific deck as a micro desktop and wait to see if I could get a refurbished replacement as an absolute worst case scenario when financial aid for next college quarter comes in, if the price of getting it fixed isn't cheaper.
  
  Just contact support. That will get the ball rolling and they have a much better idea of what to try/do.
  
  It will save you a headache.
  
  I understand the tinker approach and the itch to figure it out yourself, but get onto the support As said, they really know their stuff.
Either the battery is toast, or some component like "the chip responsible for rapidly cutting power over to the battery" is toast.

I wonder if connecting to a < 30w power supply would also result in your deck crapping out under load.
Sounds like something is up with the battery. Try resetting it, there should be instructions out there. Is it still in warranty? Even if it's not sometimes Valve is nice and will still fix Decks for free.
- If you're talking about battery recalibratiom, which is the first thing I found, I don't think I can. Any post I see on it says to drain the battery as the first step, but I don't have a clue whether it's using any battery power while unplugged right now. So I'd have to hope the battery is draining and hope when I plug it in that it wouldn't be saying it's at full charge.
  
  Edit:
  
  I'll have to quickly look and see if it's under warranty. I've had it for less than a yearso it's possible, but I don't know if the refurbished ones come with warranty like the new ones. Will definitely look into that.
  
  if the refurbished ones come with warranty like the new ones
  
  they have the regular warranty. it's basically one of their selling points.
  
  But also: have you tried unplugging the battery and reconnecting it? maybe the connection is a bit flaky
I would certainly do a factory reset before fiddling with the hardware side.

It's important to be systematic when problem solving issues like this or you will confused over what has or hasn't helped.

I would factory reset it and if that doesn't work, strongly consider using the warrenty rather than attempting a manual repair. If you're familiar with fixing electronics then have a go but the worst scenario is you accidentally break sornething else and invalidate the warrenty.
- Totally forgot that messing with internals can invalidate warranty on most electronics. Thanks for reminding me. Definitely gonna do a reset, then, to ensure it's not just that, before going the hardware route.
  
  In case of the Steam Deck fiddling around on the inside does explicitly not invalidate the warranty. It is specifically made to be easy to repair.
  
  Unless you do something stupid, of course.
  
  But as long as you follow instructions from ifixit you should be golden.
What happens if you leave it plugged in for half an hour or more? After that, can you unplug it? Because at least for me, the dock can drain the battery (slowly) over time when the Deck is off, all the while the battery thinks it’s full. I would try keeping it on and plugged for a while, then unplug while it’s on.
- Tried plugging it in directly to the charger that came with it for a while and still didn't work. That was one thing I tried after looking up videos that didn't help at all. Might try again considering I don't know how long I left it plugged in.
When you unplug it while on, does it immediately turn off?

What does it say battery percentage is when plugged in?

In desktop mode, what does it say battery health is?
- Turns off immediately when unplugged and also turns on immediately on when plugged in.
  
  On gaming mode, full. On desktop mode, 96% not charging despite showing charging icon on battery icon.
  
  100% battery health.
  
  Honestly I think you'll have to get it RMA'd.

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