Steam Machine ‘Red Light of Death’ turned out to be a false alarm

Last week, a post on Reddit showing a ‘dead’ Steam Machine attracted a lot of attention. It became the first case of a faulty component for the Valve console that only recently went on sale. Turns out, the ‘red light of death’ was somewhat of a false alarm and the device wasn’t as ‘dead’ as initially thought.

A day after the original post, Redditor me_hill (OP) shared an update which he labelled ‘anticlimactic and somewhat embarrassing.’ Finding the error code that was presumed to be associated with a GPU failure, the user panicked and shared their experience on Reddit. However, after leaving the Steam Machine unplugged overnight and then restarting it the next morning, it booted up without any issues.

The user tried unplugging and re-plugging after a few hours of the ‘red light of death,’ but that didn’t solve the issue. The overnight wait seemed to have fixed what Steam support then referred to as a memory training issue. Shortly after the user shared the update, the SteamHWFeedback account replied with some troubleshooting steps. There, the account explained that the front panel code is flipped horizontally due to a “miscommunication,” and that it was a memory training issue rather than a GPU failure.

The troubleshooting steps are for a CMOS reset. In case anyone encounters a similar issue, the step-by-step instructions shared by the account can be followed. If it doesn’t work, a ticket needs to be raised, and SteamHWFeedback can be reached out to via a chat request.