Steam Machine users are reporting ‘red line of death’ issues, but there is now an official fix – and it’s surprisingly simple.

Valve released a fix for the ‘red line of death’ issue
A small number of bug reports have surfaced 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 light and refuses to boot (reminiscent of the old Xbox ‘red ring of death’).

A few reports of this problem have emerged in recent days, although it is unclear how widespread this problem is. If you’ve been hit by a frustrating bug, Valve now has some official advice for you.

In detailed troubleshooting instructions posted to Reddit, the official Steam hardware feedback account advises affected users to follow a series of steps that include unplugging the Steam machine and forcing a full reboot.

Here’s what to do

Well, the Steam Machine was pretty cool for the 20 minutes it was running from r/steammachine

If you find the “red line of death” appearing on your Steam Machine, here are the troubleshooting steps to take, according to Valve:

Unplug the machine, then press the power button several times. This ensures that any energy stored in the power supply is discharged. You may see the power light blink for a moment.
Plug the machine back in. Note whether your power LED glows (breathing pattern) white or not. If so, please submit a Steam Support ticket and tag me, or send me a chat request with the ID.
Hold down the power button for about 6 seconds. You should see the power light (dot) flash momentarily. Release the power button when you do so.
The LED power indicator will begin to cycle through certain color codes. These 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”.
The next time you start, you should see the blue RGB bar. It may take a little longer to start due to memory retraining.

So there you have it: if your Steam machine works again, the Steam Support account asks you to tag it on Reddit. If not, the next step is to create a support ticket so that the issue can be investigated in more detail.

It may be that a number of users have already encountered this issue and resolved it without turning to Reddit or social media, but it’s not something you want to see after paying full price for the gaming PC.

Google logo on black background next to text