Steam Machine users report issues with the 'red line of death', but there's an official fix now, and it's surprisingly easy

Valve has released a fix for the ‘red line of death’ issue
A small number of bug reports have appeared online.
Leaving the PC unplugged overnight seems to help

There’s good news if your newly purchased Steam Machine has been hit by the ‘red line of death’, where the PC displays a solid red indicator light and refuses to boot (reminiscent of Xbox’s old ‘red ring of death’).

A couple of reports have surfaced in recent days about this issue, although it’s unclear exactly how widespread it is. However, if you’ve been affected by the frustrating bug, Valve now has some official advice for you.

In detailed troubleshooting instructions posted on Reddit, the official Steam Hardware Feedback account recommends affected users follow a series of steps including unplugging the Steam Machine and forcing a hard restart.

This is what you should do

Well, Steam Machine was great for the 20 minutes it ran from r/steammachine.

If you find the ‘red line of death’ appearing on your Steam Machine, these are the troubleshooting steps to follow, according to Valve:

Unplug the machine and then press the power button several times. This ensures that all energy stored in the power supply is discharged. You may see the power indicator LED flash for a moment.
Plug the machine back in. Observe whether the power LED lights up (breathing pattern) white or not. If yes, please submit a Steam support ticket and tag me, or send me a chat request with the ID.
Press and hold the power button for about 6 seconds. You should see the power LED (dot) blink momentarily. Release the power button when you do.
The power indicator LED will begin to display some color codes. They are designed to allow you to select various options for recovery/troubleshooting purposes. When the LED turns green, short press the power button. This should perform a complete ‘CMOS reset’.
On next startup, you should see the RGB bar in blue; startup may take a little longer due to memory retraining.

There you have it: if your Steam Machine works again, the Steam Support account requests that you tag it on Reddit. Otherwise, the next step is to create a support ticket so the issue can be investigated further.

Several users may have already experienced this problem and solved it without resorting to Reddit or social media, but it is not something you want to see after paying a high price for the gaming PC.

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