I bricked my Steam Deck after attempting to OC the ram.
I was able to clear the CMOS a few times until I wasn’t.
Issues started when I attempted to raise the voltage of the ram.
Eventually I was unable to get into the bios.
“I didn’t back up my bios”
Apparently each bios has a specific serial number for each Steam Deck, did not know that…
I ordered a kit from Amazon to flash bios’s for $13 while contacting valve.
Because I was outside of my one year warranty apparently they could fix it for $185….
That’s definitely not worth it
so began my journey l learning a new skill.
Long story short, all you need to do is
-Read your bios
-extract your serial number
-pull any know good bios from the internet
-delete a few things input you serial number
-and bobs you uncle
Altogether I spent about 5-6 hours figuring it out, most of which was getting the clip to sit properly.
Moral of the story is, back up your bios! But if you don’t it’s all good,
Just don’t quit and learn a new skill you’ll get there eventually.
Here is a YT short documenting the fix
https://youtube.com/shorts/qfbXJ99kgBI?si=tBpTq3JIYQu1q2u0
25 Comments
Nice one. Save money and learn something New.
And don’t overclock. It’s usually not worth it. And you just wreck the usuable life of a device from overclocking
Nice one! Now you can sell that garbage **MAUAUAHAHAH YES YES DOWNVOTE ME**
This is how I got into PC building, had an old hand me down PC that stopped working and had to learn how to fix it bit by bit, by the time I built my first PC it was a breeze
Very nice that you managed to get it fixed.👍
If possible, could you post a how-to guide over at iFixit? If you can brick the deck then so can others. 😅
~~Also consider posting it over at~~ r/SteamDeck. ~~I am sure they would appreciate having the post as a resource in case someone else gets a corrupted BIOS.~~ Been there done that, I see
Paging u/Evan_iFixit [](https://www.reddit.com/user/iFixitAmber/). This might be interesting to add to the Steam Deck page?
Tbh the quoted price from valve doesn’t seem too bad considering what happened.
But really good job recovering that bios
Also what is there to gain from a ram oc on the deck ?
This is why I wish they still gave socketed CMOS chips on PC motherboards so they can just be swapped. Obviously not appropriate for a device like this, but I’ve had physically failed eeproms on PC and server motherboards that has spelled their demise.
TBH, Valve offering to fix your self-inflicted, bricked, out of warranty system for $185 is pretty generous. Most companies would tell you that you fix it by buying a new one.
Spending 5-6 hours and $13 to fix the issue is probably worth more than $185 to a lot of people.
You’re definitely benefiting the community by posting your experience and fix, thanks for that.
To be fair Valve have higher overheads than you do, presumably.
I worked at a bluechip and we couldn’t raise an invoice for small shit because the invoice cost $50 itself (20 years ago).
Would warranty even cover this case?
I bricked my bios on an Alienware desktop Aurora r4 my older bro gave me. Hate dell bios, so wanted to tinker. Had to get that same chp clip and I’ll tell you what, 5-6 hours was him playing with the clip for 3 hours trying to figure out if it’s on right. I had to modify my clip to make it work and it was a real pain. In the end, I fixed my bios. I am still trying to tweak it now since I know I can recover the bios at any time now. It’s still a pain though, but extremely useful nonetheless
Power to the consumer
So you essentially paid yourself $170 to fix your steam deck instead of having someone else do it.
The issue here is that you could have still failed to fix it and the time you spent fixing it costs money to a business as you are at fault for damaging the device and therefore steam has every right to charge you for the repairs, and they have to pay someone to fix it as a job. You just took on the responsibility of fixing your fuck up yourself instead of paying for a professional to do it for you.
So you broke your device and wanted them to fix it for free? How many hours did it take you to fix our own mistake?
If the UID happens to be corrupted a new one can be generated and edited as well. All in all a pretty easy process.
How do you know my uncle?
So ur doing shit with ur deck, broke it and want warranty for free? ok champ
The price valve gave you is pretty neat tho considering other companies.
You did it for $13 of parts, but where is the cost of labor?
Bravo!
you sir are what every pc gamer should strive to be. i salute you 🫡 and congratulations on taking matters into your own hands.
You, guys, have ants on Steam Deck ?
yo that’s awesome. bet that felt super rewarding when it was all set and done!
Not sure where some 3rd eye freaks here are seeing that op stated they expected valve to do the work for free, op didn’t see the price as valuable so they fixed it themselves. Some shit I’d do except I’d skip the clamps and solder for a better connection
Flashing bios is my favourite way to fix. Almost nothing have to be done.