The first Steam Machines have already been delivered to their owners, and problems are already cropping up. This is exactly what just happened to one user whose console, after just 20 minutes of use, displayed an RLOD (Red Line of Death), indicating a GPU failure. The problem is that he has to file a warranty claim, but he won’t be getting his machine back anytime soon since the first consoles sold out like hotcakes.
Steam Machine: First Technical Failure Reported!
20 minutes of runtime:
Valve has built a quick diagnostic system into its console to detect hardware failures. This briefly brings to mind systems like the RROD or YLOD found on Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation consoles, for example. However, rather than taking the form of a light ring, it’s a bar built directly into the front panel of the machine. As a result, several scenarios are possible:
- Solid red line: overheating,CPU temperature above 95°C and GPU temperature exceeding 90°C
- Flashing red in the last quarter + steady red light: RAM cannot be detected
- Right half flashing red + steady red light: GPU failure detected
- Flashing red second quarter + steady red indicator:SSD not detected
- Flashing red left half + steady red indicator: memory initialization failure
In this case, our user is experiencing the third scenario, with a flashing light bar on the right half and a steady red indicator light. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t able to enjoy his device for very long, as it only ran for 20 minutes.
This is clearly a failure right out of the box, which is fairly rare, but it does happen. The only question now is whether there will be other problems of this kind or not. If this type of problem becomes recurrent, it could indicate an issue on the assembly lines or, worse, a design flaw. For a console selling for over €1,000, that’s a real blow. Fortunately, you can get more powerful PCs for the same price.
