2y ago

I just got my steam deck RMAed after 1.5 years. Guess what was the first thing I did when It turned on.

I had some performance problems. Suddenly, steam deck lost about 60% of its performance in games. My troubleshooting didn't help. After that, I contacted steam support. We were talking for about a week, but nothing helped, so they agreed to send me a replacement.

I have to say… The fresh vent smells even better than I remember.

33 comments

They sent a full replacement after 1.5 years? Damn that's some good support.
- Because shit shouldn't just break after 1.5 years
  
  Apple will sell you a laptop with dead pixels on the screen and refuse to replace it unless a certain minimum number are dead. I was furious.
  
  True but not all tech companies are so forgiving. Most laptops I get have their warranty expire after a year, and I doubt they'd replace anything without charging something.
- Valve seems to be pretty consumer friendly. I also have a good experience with a faulty Index getting replaced.
We're all getting nose cancer in about 2 years.
- Then we can pick up a Steam Deck 2 and get double nose cancer. Fun times for all.
  
  I need to request off work for Monday - my brother died of double nose cancer.
I had to RMA mine at the beginning of the year for pretty much the same issue. It would throttle the CPU to like 400MHz in any sort of gaming workload no matter how light. I reinstalled the OS, reset the BIOS, battery storage mode, even unplugged the battery and plugged it back in but nothing fixed it. Valve sent me a brand new unit in its place. Valve's RMA is top notch. Mine was only around 6 months old at the time so 1.5 years is awesome that they're still doing it.
At least we know all the returns aren't just being scrapped now that they're selling official refurbished units. That's where all of the RMA units are going I suppose.
- Yep, the same thing, but I think it was something with the GPU. It was always at 100% and ±230 MHz. When I turned on “Manual GPU Clock Control”, but let the slider at 1600 MHz, GPU clock went up, but GPU utilization went down.
  
  Yeah, that looks like the same issue mine had. I read that it was an APU firmware/BIOS bug. Hopefully the newer units have patched firmware to fix this. In my case it started happening after I let the battery completely die and didn't charge it up for a month, so I've been more careful about keeping mine charged up now.
- That's a little concerning but glad to hear they made it right. Kinda sounds like a thermal issue of some kind maybe...
  
  Definitely not a thermal issue, the temps barely climbed and the fan never ramped up. It seemed like a TDP lock of 1W or so but only on the CPU as the GPU core would happily boost up still.
Mine is about half a year old and I still love the smell. Does anyone know what it is?
- Probably oils from the plastic mostly, maybe some of the coatings on the PCB.
  
  Oh...still safe for inhalation? 🧐
- Thermal paste, perhaps?
- Hopes and dreams in physical form!
My joystick started squeaking after 14 months and the buttons started to register twice while pressed once. Steam support told me they are willing to fix it for like 200 USD, but no warranty after 1 year. It was a pleasant conversation but I hoped to get it fixed for free (I know its unreasonable after warranty) Glad to see they still making some exceptions. Good for you!
I decided to buy my own buttons and replace them for a fraction of the cost.
- I'm guessing they RMA'd this particular one because I think it is a firmware bug. Hopefully a firmware bug that has since been fixed in newer hardware revisons/BIOS updates. My old one ran into the same issue after 6 months and Valve basically offered an immediate RMA when I described the issue.

33 comments