Steam Machine faces “Red Light of Death” reports from early owners
Early reports point to GPU failures rendering some units unusable.
There’s nothing more frustrating than turning on your console and discovering that it isn’t working properly. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation became infamous for the “Red Ring of Death” and the “Yellow Light of Death,” respectively. Now, the Steam Machine—which arrived just yesterday in the homes of a few lucky people—might join that infamous group of consoles capable of shattering hopes just by lighting up its front LED.
The issue came to light thanks to Reddit user me_hill, who shared an image on the Steam Machine subreddit. In the image, the console’s front light—which should be blue—is shown glowing red. The user described his experience, noting: “I played No Man’s Sky for five minutes, then I installed the update that was available for the machine, and it bricked itself.” According to the title of his post, his enthusiasm for the device lasted barely 20 minutes. He also added: “If you’re still in the queue, look on the bright side: they’re presumably going to iron this crap out.”
Some comments on the post express gratitude for the early adopter’s sacrifice, with phrases such as: “Sorry for your loss, mate; thank you for your service” or “We appreciate your sacrifice, mr beta tester.”
What does the “Red Light of Death” on the Steam Machine mean?
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Fortunately—or unfortunately—we already know what this signal means. For users and others who have reported the same error, it’s one of the worst possible failures. In addition to rendering the console unusable, the status “Light Bar Red, right half breathing” means that the system has detected a GPU failure. Given the long waiting list for the console and some units not being delivered until 2027, Valve can fix this problem, but it could take quite a while.
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