The topic Steam Machines with the ‘Red Line of Death’ get a simple, official cure: Clear the… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
Valve’s official social media team has shared a step-by-step process for reanimating RLOD Steam Machines.
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Late last week, we reported on a brand-new Steam Machine getting bricked during an update, and refusing to budge from a state freshly dubbed the ‘Red Line of Death’ (RLOD). The issue stirred fear in tech enthusiasts’ hearts, still scarred by the notorious Red Ring of Death (RROD) from the Xbox 360 era. But we have some good news today, as Valve’s official account on Reddit has responded to provide step-by-step instructions to get any affected Steam Machine up and running again by clearing the CMOS.
Thankfully, the pronouncement of death was definitely premature in this unresponsive Steam Machine case, and easily fixed. It wasn’t dead, it was resting, or probably pining for the fjords. It just needed to have its CMOS setting thoroughly cleared, that’s all.
SteamHWFeedback directly answered the distress call of OP me_hill on Reddit. A five-step recipe to recover Steam Machines with RLOD was provided to the beleaguered gamer. However, me_hill’s own flailing machine-reset procedure had already done the trick – inspired by numerous user comments on the thread.
It is good to have an official solution to the initially scary RLOD, though. For the sake of exactitude, we have pasted Valve’s official RLOD fixing steps below, verbatim.
If you’re encountering this issue, please try the following:
There’d only been two public pleas by Steam Machine users about RLOD so far, as far as we can see. Perhaps several more users resolved these issues themselves, without any social media interaction, so it is difficult to know the scale of similar experiences. Nevertheless, we are relieved to learn that these symptoms are easily fixed and users can get back up and running on their coveted new gaming hardware pretty quickly – with the benefit of an officially sanctioned cure direct from Valve.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom’s Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
