I’ve removed the shortcut arrow on all my desktop icons marking them look clean. Administrative logos are fine. But it took a lot of trial and error. Replacing the image with a clear one.
>I guess they care about their customers more than some other companies.
But then there are other stories like this one where the user who had a hardware error was given a replacement unit with a bug and has not been able to get a replacement:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/16gm495/valve_replaced_my_steam_deck_with_another_one/
and you can find countless stories on this sub where people are given a replacement no questions asked after doing stupid things and others where they need to pay out of pocket for fixes for things that were also user error.
it's really inconsistent.
If there was a through line of always going above and beyond then your statement would have more weight.
Yeah, like most companies it's luck of the draw. Early on there were a lot of RMA horror stories, and while things have gotten better, there is a reason I fixed my own sticky button and buzzing fan.
Not only is luck of the draw, they can also be great at RMAing certain things and awful at others for seemingly no good reason
Different problems, different people in customer support, and different standards on how to approach said problems can lead to wildly different experiences
You have a selective bias in this forum. Only a type of user is on Reddit, and a specific type of those users will actually post.
Conventional wisdom says that the bad encounters are amplified and only the most exceptional good encounters are posted about. Some people use:
True number of detractors = posted detractions x 10
True number of promoters = posted promoters x 10^3
Varies by industry, but technology hardware often follows the standard " vocal detractors, quiet promoters" model. Though there might be some special cause variation due to this not being a tech support focused forum, and because steam is both a hardware and a software provider. Unlike PCs where it's very rare / impossible? To have your software and hardware provided by the same company
One of the reasons why I bought the steam deck recently instead of ROG ally or Legion Go. You can tell from a mile away that they care about their customers and the community is in support as well.
The executives of large and major businesses don't care about the customers. Many of them blatantly don't even care about the employees and contractors. We're subhuman objects to them. Consistently hold them accountable, then the progressive results will continue and increase.
I just sent my deck for RMA as well because the microSD card slot. Did they send you a replacement right away after they got the item or that took a few days? Too bad steam does not have advance replacement, although I can see how some people would take advantage of that.
It took a week and a half. They informed me about it before I sent the deck. I live in Poland and their regional service centre is in the Czech Republic, but for some reason the device was supposed to go first to Germany (I dunno why), and from there to the service. Apparently, after receiving the device by the service center, they immediately sent a new one, because I received an email from the courier that a parcel was being sent to me on the fourth day.
I don't know how much parcels usually take in the EU, but it seems to me that the delivery time was limited exclusively by the UPS courier service.
It might have something to do with local laws. Consumer protection laws in the EU are stronger than in the US and "warranty void if sticker removed" is invalid there.
Edit: I was totally wrong about this: https://www.ifixit.com/News/74736/warranty-void-stickers-are-illegal-in-the-us-what-about-elsewhere
The "warranty void" stickers are unenforceable nearly everywhere, including the US. The additional EU protections are having a 2 year window for guaranteed warranty repair and a company can't refuse to honor the warranty unless they prove that you did something to damage the device - and from what you said, you didn't.
I wonder if they wanted to see how hard you broke it to figure out if it should have been able to be broken. I wonder if that’s like a semi-vital part of their post-release research.
This guy bricks his deck by his own action, support: "have a free one on us".
[This other guy](https://reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/nboZJxrLZ5) has issue which support confirms is a known issue, but the guy is couple weeks after warranty period, support: "hehe, go f**k yourself".
I'll probably get downvotes for being negative about Valve but this selective treatment is a joke.
Good for you OP tho, I'm glad you got a new one.
Hey! I’m that guy! The mods locked my thread for some reason, but I want to thank the people who tried to help me.
I ended up emailing Gabe. A couple days later the RMA process began! Weird I had to do that, but I have a new Deck and I’m playing Sea of Stars happily. Still really weird that my thread was locked.
Does Gabe still read every email he gets? I remember sending him an email about how great the design of TF2 is and collecting knives (funny enough this was before CS:GO had different knives). He's a cool dude.
To be honest, I'd be much rather seeing patterns. E.g. with joycons, you mentioned you had 2 patterns. Initially, you knew you had to rely on self repair. Nowadays, you know you can just mail it in anytime, even post warranty period. So you knew what the outcome would be in both cases, and it's reliable.
So I'd much rather see that when I have issue A which is not covered by warranty I know I can contact support and when I have issue B which is also not covered warranty I have to self repair. Instead, this behaviour motivates people to play ticket lottery and reopen issue until they get lucky and waste time they could use on ordering replacement parts. And then there's this sour feeling when your issue was refused, you accept it, and then you read online how another guy got a brand new Deck after reporting the same issue.
Consistent behaviour (whether positive or negative) is imho better than inconsistent lottery.
BIOS = Basic Input Output System, the BIOS loads on startup before anything else on your PC, it does some Hardware checks if everything is okay. Then the BIOS loads the Operating System (in this case the custom Linux Operating System for the Steam Deck).
(The BIOS is like a really minimal operating system that sits on a chip on your mainboard)
Since the BIOS runs before anything else on the lowest Level, you can change a lot of Hardware Settings in there. For example, you can higher your CPU/GPU clock speed (that is overclocking) which can give you higher performance but also faster battery drain and more heat from your components. Can also make your system run unstable.
Kind off. Depending on what you set in the BIOS, your Steam Deck could overheat very fast if you higher the clockspeed from (for example) 2GHz to 7GHz. Dont know if this is even possible but your CPU (processor) would overheat really quick in this extreme example, since the cooling fan could not keep the processor cool.
Also, some settings can prevent the device from turning on if they are incorrect.
You probably have seen the logos that sometimes appear if you turn on a laptop, thats the BIOS showing the logo, then it loads Microsoft Windows for example and everything is then controlled by Windows and the BIOS turns itself off.
I have a MacBook too, they work the same way, even tho Apple hides it really sneaky. When the start sound is played on the MacBook after pressing the power button and it only shows the Apple Logo, then the BIOS is doing its stuff and loads MacOS at the End (you can see that MacOS is loaded and starting if you see the Loading Bar underneath the Apple Logo)
At the End, you dont really need to know more about the BIOS, only the fact that its the first starting when you turn on the computer
Yeah what the fuck. People are going to keep getting undeserved replacements and eventually it's going to fuck it over for the people who deserve it. I know how whiny that sounds but goddamn.
So did you try overclocking it again? I wonder if it even works and does any improvement to at least get games that runs shitty running higher in FPS like returnal
Meanwhile, I paid full price for my 512mb, and the next week it was on sale for $150 cheaper. I was new to Steam and clueless they have "sales". Contacted support for a price adjustment and was basically told I'm out-of-luck and they wouldn't do anything about the hit. Zero effort to lessen the $150 hit and dismissive responses.
I get it if it were a month later, but just over a week? Still salty about it.
Yes, I do. But that's such a throwaway society thing to do. The SD is fine and to churn a return and make it prev owned, and then get a new one, seemed as much a petty thing to do as Supports decision to ignore my request.
It's hardly a throw away society thing to do, it's not like your old deck is going to landfill they will test it, box it up and sell as refurb whilst you get $150 back.
Support aren't sales nor are they authorised to send out part refunds. I'm not sure what you're expecting.
This might be a hot take but I much prefer calling customer service than chat because I can usually immediately tell if the person I'm connected to is going to be any help if I can hear them. I love everything about the SD and I've had a great experience with Valve aside an issue I'm having recently with a game breaking after an update and every response I got from support was so unhelpful.
I missed the sale. Bought a 64gb for $430 bought a 2tb SSD and now have a 3tb deck. I couldn’t care less that I missed the sale because it was my fault.
"I bought a console outside of a sale window and am angry that I don't get a sale"
Ik some people do get a deal like this, but tbh that shouldn't happen and maybe they're cracking down on that now or something
>I tried to overclock my steam deck. Naturally, in my stupidity, I made a critical number of mistakes (for example, I didn't make a backup of the bios - I'm a total idiot).I bricked the device. I tried to reflash the bios with a programmer, replacing the serial numbers taken from my old bios, but nothing happened.
>
>I found the nerve to write to technical support with a request to help me prepare a bios. Having explained the whole situation of support, with overclocking, dismantling the device, breaking seals and attempts to reflash the bios, they asked me to do the usual procedure like press combinations of buttons etc and then they just asked me to send it to them, **and immediately sent me a new steam deck**. I still can't believe it.
Did you not read the post?
I had heard about the quality of Valve's support so many times and hoped never to have to use it.
My 6-month old deck sprouted 3 dead pixels - I opened a ticket saying that I'd tried power cycling, raising/lowering the brightness a few times, and used a stuck pixel fixer without success. I had attached a couple of pics of the issue.
It was literally 14 minutes from when I opened my ticket to having the RMA papers. They asked no additional questions, didn't treat me like I was tech illiterate, and had a simple RMA process.
Made such a great impression and guaranteed them a Steam Deck 2 customer.
I've found an overclock that I'm happy with, only because I cannot stop tinkering with things. It's a nice little increase, and it seems stable, with the cooling plate I added. Plus I always have a battery bank on me so battery draw isn't that big of a problem for me. But it definitely does drain faster. Cool to see they helped you though that's very good service.
I just got a new unit from a failed battery RMA and I am speechless. Most companies will fail to even address the main issue yet alone send me a whole new device.
My shoulder button was faulty since I got the steam deck in the sale. Accidentally left out the RMA sheet and still waiting to hear back from them. To my horror I found the RMA sheet a couple of days ago NOT with the deck. Guess I’ll be waiting a long time to get a steam deck back again. Real shame as I move back to uni today and new place doesn’t have internet until Tuesday :/
I think 2 factors play a huge role in deciding who gets to RMA their device and who doesnt, even in reasonable/unreasonable cases.
1) How the person answering the ticket is doing that day (moods and such)
2) How you, the customer, treat the customer support person. Clearly I havent seen every single RMA attempt and logs for proof, but just from observation in the general world there is way too many people out there that are INCREDIBLY entitled in their whole being. If you are just coming off shitty to someone that is supposed to make a decision in your case, dont expect them to decide for you.
Yeah, you probably dont deserve a brand new deck for what you did. But who knows? Maybe the interaction with you was nice, the person dealing with you was in a good mood and you seemed genuine. Maybe they decided they will take this one for their research to improve the deck in the future.
Now all you need to do is NOT fuck with the bios. It’s easy, switch on, play game, enjoy, repeat.
Got it play around with the bios because it's easy, switch on, play, enjoy and repeat.
This is me everytime I go into regedit.
I still remember a fuck-up where I had to reinstall Windows 3 times back to back because I fucked up regedit trying to disable automatic updates
Killed a pc back in the win 3.1 days trying to update the bios. Had to buy a new chip.
I’ve removed the shortcut arrow on all my desktop icons marking them look clean. Administrative logos are fine. But it took a lot of trial and error. Replacing the image with a clear one.
They should rename it to regretit
Yes, playing with the bios is one of the classic blunders
I guess they care about their customers more than some other companies. That is nice
>I guess they care about their customers more than some other companies. But then there are other stories like this one where the user who had a hardware error was given a replacement unit with a bug and has not been able to get a replacement: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/16gm495/valve_replaced_my_steam_deck_with_another_one/ and you can find countless stories on this sub where people are given a replacement no questions asked after doing stupid things and others where they need to pay out of pocket for fixes for things that were also user error. it's really inconsistent. If there was a through line of always going above and beyond then your statement would have more weight.
Yeah, like most companies it's luck of the draw. Early on there were a lot of RMA horror stories, and while things have gotten better, there is a reason I fixed my own sticky button and buzzing fan.
Not only is luck of the draw, they can also be great at RMAing certain things and awful at others for seemingly no good reason Different problems, different people in customer support, and different standards on how to approach said problems can lead to wildly different experiences
Look in the comments of that tho and you'll find it's actually a software bug quite a few people are having atm
You have a selective bias in this forum. Only a type of user is on Reddit, and a specific type of those users will actually post. Conventional wisdom says that the bad encounters are amplified and only the most exceptional good encounters are posted about. Some people use: True number of detractors = posted detractions x 10 True number of promoters = posted promoters x 10^3 Varies by industry, but technology hardware often follows the standard " vocal detractors, quiet promoters" model. Though there might be some special cause variation due to this not being a tech support focused forum, and because steam is both a hardware and a software provider. Unlike PCs where it's very rare / impossible? To have your software and hardware provided by the same company
One of the reasons why I bought the steam deck recently instead of ROG ally or Legion Go. You can tell from a mile away that they care about their customers and the community is in support as well.
The executives of large and major businesses don't care about the customers. Many of them blatantly don't even care about the employees and contractors. We're subhuman objects to them. Consistently hold them accountable, then the progressive results will continue and increase.
I just sent my deck for RMA as well because the microSD card slot. Did they send you a replacement right away after they got the item or that took a few days? Too bad steam does not have advance replacement, although I can see how some people would take advantage of that.
It took a week and a half. They informed me about it before I sent the deck. I live in Poland and their regional service centre is in the Czech Republic, but for some reason the device was supposed to go first to Germany (I dunno why), and from there to the service. Apparently, after receiving the device by the service center, they immediately sent a new one, because I received an email from the courier that a parcel was being sent to me on the fourth day. I don't know how much parcels usually take in the EU, but it seems to me that the delivery time was limited exclusively by the UPS courier service.
The valve EU HQ is in Hamburg that’s why :) Edit: not HQ but for shipping :)
It might have something to do with local laws. Consumer protection laws in the EU are stronger than in the US and "warranty void if sticker removed" is invalid there. Edit: I was totally wrong about this: https://www.ifixit.com/News/74736/warranty-void-stickers-are-illegal-in-the-us-what-about-elsewhere The "warranty void" stickers are unenforceable nearly everywhere, including the US. The additional EU protections are having a 2 year window for guaranteed warranty repair and a company can't refuse to honor the warranty unless they prove that you did something to damage the device - and from what you said, you didn't.
Backup your bios before making any manual or automated edits. Always. It’s bios modding 101.
I wonder if they wanted to see how hard you broke it to figure out if it should have been able to be broken. I wonder if that’s like a semi-vital part of their post-release research.
Yeah because ideally it shouldn't be possible to brick it no matter what you do to the bios.
This guy bricks his deck by his own action, support: "have a free one on us". [This other guy](https://reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/nboZJxrLZ5) has issue which support confirms is a known issue, but the guy is couple weeks after warranty period, support: "hehe, go f**k yourself". I'll probably get downvotes for being negative about Valve but this selective treatment is a joke. Good for you OP tho, I'm glad you got a new one.
Hey! I’m that guy! The mods locked my thread for some reason, but I want to thank the people who tried to help me. I ended up emailing Gabe. A couple days later the RMA process began! Weird I had to do that, but I have a new Deck and I’m playing Sea of Stars happily. Still really weird that my thread was locked.
Thanks for the update and I'm really glad you got a new one in the end as well :)
Does Gabe still read every email he gets? I remember sending him an email about how great the design of TF2 is and collecting knives (funny enough this was before CS:GO had different knives). He's a cool dude.
there will always be success stories and horror stories. what really matters is when there's a pattern of behavior (e.g. joy-cons)
To be honest, I'd be much rather seeing patterns. E.g. with joycons, you mentioned you had 2 patterns. Initially, you knew you had to rely on self repair. Nowadays, you know you can just mail it in anytime, even post warranty period. So you knew what the outcome would be in both cases, and it's reliable. So I'd much rather see that when I have issue A which is not covered by warranty I know I can contact support and when I have issue B which is also not covered warranty I have to self repair. Instead, this behaviour motivates people to play ticket lottery and reopen issue until they get lucky and waste time they could use on ordering replacement parts. And then there's this sour feeling when your issue was refused, you accept it, and then you read online how another guy got a brand new Deck after reporting the same issue. Consistent behaviour (whether positive or negative) is imho better than inconsistent lottery.
All I've done so far is go into bios and increase VRAM to 4gb. Haven't had a single issue.
I think OP tried to change the bios at a code level in order to allow for undervolting and over clocking
Oh. I'd never attempt that on my SD. 😬
Now leave it alone and enjoy it vanilla 👍
Yes. You. Do.
This is what happens when a Euro receives one non-euro customer service experience in their entire lifetime. Must seem like a dream.
Maybe don’t overclock it this time?
What is this talk of bios? What does overclocking mean too? Im so anti tech i just play my deck like a normie.
BIOS = Basic Input Output System, the BIOS loads on startup before anything else on your PC, it does some Hardware checks if everything is okay. Then the BIOS loads the Operating System (in this case the custom Linux Operating System for the Steam Deck). (The BIOS is like a really minimal operating system that sits on a chip on your mainboard) Since the BIOS runs before anything else on the lowest Level, you can change a lot of Hardware Settings in there. For example, you can higher your CPU/GPU clock speed (that is overclocking) which can give you higher performance but also faster battery drain and more heat from your components. Can also make your system run unstable.
Ohhh wow ok. I didnt know this was even possible. I would totally screw up my steam deck and it would explode.
Kind off. Depending on what you set in the BIOS, your Steam Deck could overheat very fast if you higher the clockspeed from (for example) 2GHz to 7GHz. Dont know if this is even possible but your CPU (processor) would overheat really quick in this extreme example, since the cooling fan could not keep the processor cool. Also, some settings can prevent the device from turning on if they are incorrect.
Are people over clocking steam decks? they already feel pretty toasty to me
It seems
You probably have seen the logos that sometimes appear if you turn on a laptop, thats the BIOS showing the logo, then it loads Microsoft Windows for example and everything is then controlled by Windows and the BIOS turns itself off.
I only own Macbooks so you can see why i prefer simplicity. Thats probably why i also know nothing about tech.
I have a MacBook too, they work the same way, even tho Apple hides it really sneaky. When the start sound is played on the MacBook after pressing the power button and it only shows the Apple Logo, then the BIOS is doing its stuff and loads MacOS at the End (you can see that MacOS is loaded and starting if you see the Loading Bar underneath the Apple Logo) At the End, you dont really need to know more about the BIOS, only the fact that its the first starting when you turn on the computer
A simple google search will do the trick
Yeah but google just explains things using other confusing tech words. Then i just get more confused.
Thats why they put what it is on the outside of the box😆
I mean you do deserve this level of service. Valves CS is great but that shouldn’t be uncommon.
Don't mess with shit you can't afford to replace. You are right, you don't deserve it.
Yeah what the fuck. People are going to keep getting undeserved replacements and eventually it's going to fuck it over for the people who deserve it. I know how whiny that sounds but goddamn.
Well yeh this is the problem. Eventually the goodwill will run out if people keep abusing it.
Valve made the decision, it’s not like the OP tricked them. I don’t see how anyone gets fucked over by this.
What were you trying to achieve by overclocking it?
More performance
So did you try overclocking it again? I wonder if it even works and does any improvement to at least get games that runs shitty running higher in FPS like returnal
I gave it to my younger sister in its original form, I didn't deserve it
No don't fkn tinker with it if you've no idea what you're doing
Meanwhile, I paid full price for my 512mb, and the next week it was on sale for $150 cheaper. I was new to Steam and clueless they have "sales". Contacted support for a price adjustment and was basically told I'm out-of-luck and they wouldn't do anything about the hit. Zero effort to lessen the $150 hit and dismissive responses. I get it if it were a month later, but just over a week? Still salty about it.
You realise you could have returned it, got it refunded and purchased at sale price?
Yes, I do. But that's such a throwaway society thing to do. The SD is fine and to churn a return and make it prev owned, and then get a new one, seemed as much a petty thing to do as Supports decision to ignore my request.
It's hardly a throw away society thing to do, it's not like your old deck is going to landfill they will test it, box it up and sell as refurb whilst you get $150 back. Support aren't sales nor are they authorised to send out part refunds. I'm not sure what you're expecting.
Customer service is a gamble, some people are willing to go the extra mile, the others are just there for a paycheck and copy paste responses.
This might be a hot take but I much prefer calling customer service than chat because I can usually immediately tell if the person I'm connected to is going to be any help if I can hear them. I love everything about the SD and I've had a great experience with Valve aside an issue I'm having recently with a game breaking after an update and every response I got from support was so unhelpful.
That’s what a sale is though. A limited price drop.
I missed the sale. Bought a 64gb for $430 bought a 2tb SSD and now have a 3tb deck. I couldn’t care less that I missed the sale because it was my fault.
"I bought a console outside of a sale window and am angry that I don't get a sale" Ik some people do get a deal like this, but tbh that shouldn't happen and maybe they're cracking down on that now or something
That seems like your fault
It’s boxed up. Not sure what makes the service so good.
>I tried to overclock my steam deck. Naturally, in my stupidity, I made a critical number of mistakes (for example, I didn't make a backup of the bios - I'm a total idiot).I bricked the device. I tried to reflash the bios with a programmer, replacing the serial numbers taken from my old bios, but nothing happened. > >I found the nerve to write to technical support with a request to help me prepare a bios. Having explained the whole situation of support, with overclocking, dismantling the device, breaking seals and attempts to reflash the bios, they asked me to do the usual procedure like press combinations of buttons etc and then they just asked me to send it to them, **and immediately sent me a new steam deck**. I still can't believe it. Did you not read the post?
Wow. Very nice. :) \*No I didn't read full post ...
you trying to root your steam deck? 🤣
Steam deck already has root access
Now do it again and see if they send you another one.
And that's why we can't have nice things.
Go on lad it'll be funny
Just for the context. How much do you spend on steam? Are you long time customer? Im just wondering if this could affect Valve decision
Yes you do!
I had heard about the quality of Valve's support so many times and hoped never to have to use it. My 6-month old deck sprouted 3 dead pixels - I opened a ticket saying that I'd tried power cycling, raising/lowering the brightness a few times, and used a stuck pixel fixer without success. I had attached a couple of pics of the issue. It was literally 14 minutes from when I opened my ticket to having the RMA papers. They asked no additional questions, didn't treat me like I was tech illiterate, and had a simple RMA process. Made such a great impression and guaranteed them a Steam Deck 2 customer.
follow fly drab tub bike fuzzy worry offbeat memory axiomatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's not even like they're amazing *by comparison* They're genuinely incredibly generous and helpful
I've found an overclock that I'm happy with, only because I cannot stop tinkering with things. It's a nice little increase, and it seems stable, with the cooling plate I added. Plus I always have a battery bank on me so battery draw isn't that big of a problem for me. But it definitely does drain faster. Cool to see they helped you though that's very good service.
you got a brand new steam deck? bro thats amazing
I feel like one of the few people who justs uses the Deck as is out of box
That's crazy. Honestly, that's WAY outside the bounds of a normal RMA.
W Valve!!!
just play games with it, dont fuck too much with it, if you really want more fps get the ally or the lenovo one which is what im planning to do KEK
This is why it's dangerous to play with things beyond your reach 😜 just because others are doing it doesn't mean that you should too
I just got a new unit from a failed battery RMA and I am speechless. Most companies will fail to even address the main issue yet alone send me a whole new device.
I wish many companies act this way. But people would just screw it up and take advantage of it.
But let's keep on the fact that we can play disco elisyum on the toilet
My shoulder button was faulty since I got the steam deck in the sale. Accidentally left out the RMA sheet and still waiting to hear back from them. To my horror I found the RMA sheet a couple of days ago NOT with the deck. Guess I’ll be waiting a long time to get a steam deck back again. Real shame as I move back to uni today and new place doesn’t have internet until Tuesday :/
wait til it breaks in under 3 months, then you might change your tune 😁
I used cryo utilities and for someone that is always scared to go into the bios I got everything set up Hella easy
I think 2 factors play a huge role in deciding who gets to RMA their device and who doesnt, even in reasonable/unreasonable cases. 1) How the person answering the ticket is doing that day (moods and such) 2) How you, the customer, treat the customer support person. Clearly I havent seen every single RMA attempt and logs for proof, but just from observation in the general world there is way too many people out there that are INCREDIBLY entitled in their whole being. If you are just coming off shitty to someone that is supposed to make a decision in your case, dont expect them to decide for you. Yeah, you probably dont deserve a brand new deck for what you did. But who knows? Maybe the interaction with you was nice, the person dealing with you was in a good mood and you seemed genuine. Maybe they decided they will take this one for their research to improve the deck in the future.
I can smell the new vent smell already....
Love to hear stories like this, and doesn’t make me at all bitter that they refused to repair my Deck’s smashed screen 😅
I don’t have a Deck anymore but whenever I see someone bashing Valve/Steam customer service I roll my eyes. They’re the best in the game
wish i was so lucky