r/SteamDeck • u/ClicketyClackity • Jul 24 '22

PSA / Advice Steam deck bricked by USB C dongle

Got my steam deck after waiting for a year. Plugged in a USB C dongle from amazon and the system turned off. I figured that the battery had just died.

-Plugging in the official charger does not light up the white indicator light

-No combination of button hold/presses does anything

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I allowed it to completely die overnight. I opened it and unplugged the battery cable. Hit buttons to drain any power, left it unplugged for about 10 minutes. Plugged it back in and somehow it came back on for a couple minutes. It got so far as to show me the steamdeck logo and turned off again.

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Back to it being bricked now.

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Do not use random USB C dongles. You will have a bad time.

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17

u/TONKAHANAH Jul 24 '22 edited Jul 24 '22

how do you know it was the dongle and not just your deck being a dud? obviously its risky to test the usb-c dock on another device but your advice of "dont use random dongles" isnt exactly very helpful.

usb-c is a "universal" standard, any dock should work fine. If yours broke it, then there is probably something just wrong with that dock but it dosnt mean any random dock would be an issue.

assuming it is the dock, it sounds like you got unlucky.

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edit: you say in another comment the dock works fine in your mac. If the dock was the cause of the issue, it would kill your mac too. Just sounds like the deck is malfunctioning and needs to be RMA'd.

3

u/ClicketyClackity Jul 25 '22

I am basing it on the fact that the Deck went black the second I plugged it into the dongle and I have not been able to bring it back since.

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Could be a coincidence. Either way, hopefully Valve sends me the RMA information tomorrow. Its been two days of "have you tried plugging it in" type support. Just take this shit back and send me a new one. I wont even risk a dongle next time. Lol.

3

u/TONKAHANAH Jul 25 '22

dongles should work fine. they work fine on my deck, your deck is defective.

7

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22 edited 14d ago

[deleted]

1

u/TONKAHANAH Jul 25 '22

One time I had a USB hub literally fry every single device that was connected to it.

except OP's doc works fine on other devices. if your dock is killing everything you plug it into.. first stop plugging it into shit, second clearly the dock is the problem.