One of the first Steam Machine "Red Line of Death" victims has made a miraculous recovery, and Valve didn't even have to step in. While the specific visual error code displayed originally signalled GPU failure, the early adopter says leaving it unplugged overnight has cleared the issue, and from my experience, that smells like a firmware glitch.
In an "anticlimactic and somewhat embarrassing" faulty Steam Machine update, Reddit user me_hill says they tried various power cycle lengths following suggestions. "I left it unplugged for about half an hour last night and then tried plugging it back in... and it didn't work." laments the mini PC's owner. "So I left it unplugged for a couple of hours and then tried it again before bed... and it didn't work. Same error light despite multiple power-cycling attempts."
In a last-ditch effort to revive the Steam Machine, me_hill says they then "left it unplugged overnight" before attempting to boot up the next day to experiment with BIOS shortcut keys. You could say the user was third time lucky, as after 24 hours, the box apparently "booted up immediately without issue."
Comment from r/steammachine
As someone who's been fixing, building, and writing about gaming PCs for decades, I want to assume me_hill that they shouldn't feel silly. The user admits, "I feel stupid about even posting this now, especially since it blew up a bit, but I was tired and irritable after a long day of work, and an ominous GPU error code wasn't exactly the seamless plug-and-play experience I had hoped for."
I'd feel the exact same if my $1,049 cube started making Xbox 360 red error codes at me, especially given Valve's guidance online. That said, this isn't remotely the first time I've encountered a device that ends up with nonsense floating around memory that prevents a boot, and I've previously had to power-cycle the Steam Deck OLED to get it working after a failed firmware update.
The now-happy Steam Machine user rounds off their update with the exact same advice I'd give: "If anyone encounters the same error, don't panic like I did, just let it sit for a few hours and it will somehow sort itself out." While I'm still seeing some comments suggesting they should contact Valve anyway, I suspect the mini PC maker is already on the case and will address it with its next SteamOS firmware update, and I'll be reaching out to my contacts to see if there's an official response to the error.
For now, at least, it looks like we don't have any serious Steam Machine "Red Line of Death" fiascos unfolding before us. It'd be naive to think this will be the last quirk with the box that makes its way online, but there's nothing to suggest there are any real hardware faults at hand, even if the cube does display a dreaded error code.
Check out the best Steam Deck docks if you're using the handheld as a Steam Machine alternative.
