Steam Machines have started shipping out to those who managed to pre-order before the pre-built PC went out of stock. However, the excitement some may have felt when unboxing their new Linux-based gaming system has been dampened quite a bit due to potential hardware issues. As caught by Digital Foundry, buyers have taken to Reddit to discuss the Steam Machine, with one user reporting that their system has essentially stopped working altogether.
A problem was indicated on the Steam Machine itself with a red light on the LED line in the chassis. It is currently unknown whether this is simply a software problem that can be fixed by flashing the system with a fresh install of SteamOS, or if it’s a hardware failure that would require the user to send it back to Valve. It is also currently unknown whether this is a widespread problem or if it is isolated to just a few users.
The Steam Machine makes use of its LED line to reveal to the user whenever it faces problems. The entire bar being red, for example, means that the system is overheating. According to Steam’s support website, the error seen by the Reddit user – a red LED on the second half of the line – indicates a GPU failure. The support website also notes other possible fault codes: a blinking red LED in the fourth quadrant means that the system isn’t detecting RAM, and a blinking LED in the second quadrant indicates that it isn’t detecting an SSD.
The user was apparently playing No Man’s Sky for a bit on their Steam Machine. After playing, they noted that a firmware update was available. The issue has seemingly persisted since then, with the Steam Machine being entirely unusable.
Users on Reddit have begun referring to the indicator as the “red line of death”. The title is a reference to the infamous red ring of death suffered by early Xbox 360 consoles. The name came about due to the console’s use of four blinking lights around the power button that would indicate hardware problems if they started blinking red. When three of the four red lights were blinking, the console was essentially reporting a “general hardware failure”. The name itself was, in turn, a reference to Windows’ “Blue Screen of Death”.
In the meantime, the Steam Machine has been faced with plenty of criticism concerning its price. Valve revealed just last month that the base model, which comes with only 512 GB of storage, is priced at $1,049. The best model available costs $1,349 and comes with 2 TB of storage.
While some industry insiders had noted that the prices are too high even with the current state of the market, with component shortages going around. Valve has since confirmed that it lacked any real bargaining power when it came to making deals with memory companies.
“Look, there’s no contract; there’s nothing,” explained engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais. “Like, those guys… they give us a price every month, or something, and they say, ‘You can buy that many, and it’s yes or no.’ And if we say no, then they never talk to us again.”
