When I picked up my steam deck the other day after having played it the night before the screen turned on, but none of the controller buttons, or touchpads would perform any actions. The touch scren, volume, and power buttons were fine.
I was able to use the touch screen to get to the controller section of settings and noted there was no controller detected. I compared this with another steam deck in the house which showed a neptune controller connected.
I contacted Valve support and they said my unit was out of warranty and that I could send it in for $185 or attempt a repair myself. I’m happy to perform the repair myself, but I havent got a clue what part may be bad. Valve support has not been very helpful on this, so I thought I would see if anyone here had any ideas.
Troubleshooting already done:
- Applied all updates
- Drained battery in entirety
- Battery storage mode from bios
- Factory reset
Edit: My assumption is that the built in controller connects through USB and that somehow whatever controller that uses is toast. I’ve been able to plug in other devices USB and those work though so who knows. In any event I’m going to pursue a replacement through the extended warranty benefit of my credit card. Thanks for all th suggestions.
Edit2: In case anyone stumbles across this post through a search engine or whatever, I have received my rma’d steam deck back and here were the technicians notes on the fix.
- Replaced LR control boards
- Software firmware was upgraded to newest version
- Reset unit to factory default settings
I am still unsure what caused the hardware failure, perhaps it was an issue with the charger which was connected (although other usb devices were totally fine).
Inside there’s a long white ribbon cable that runs across the deck that goes over the top of the battery. I’d start with checking that cable for damage or corrosion and re-seating the connection at both ends. Unplug the battery first. If that doesn’t work I’d just go for re-seating every cable you can, looking for water damage, and making sure all the screws holding the boards down are snug.