Owners Report Valve’s Priciest Steam Deck Model Has A Cracking Problem

Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzmod to Steam Deck@sopuli.xyz – 130 points – Owners Report Valve’s Priciest Steam Deck Model Has A Cracking Problem
kotaku.com

First I've heard of this, glad Valve does such a good job with warranty coverage.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/17241840

34

“I checked mine and it happened to me as well. Oh no,” posted someone else.

Truly epic tier reporting by Kotaku.

Frankly, this is to be expected. Are Kotaku's corporate taskmasters not converting the site from a news/investigative portal to a generic stop for game guides?

Edit: answered my own question and it is yes. Yes they are.

Also quality overall has decreased a lot. Some months ago I started seeing news gathered from random reddit posts as in the worst journalism ever. That’s sad, apart from the site you linked, only a couple more (Aftermath comes to mind) seems to remain as good ones for gaming news.

I liked aftermath until they started being contrarian for the fun of it. Also their weird "Palworld promotes slavery" shit

So you're saying it was never about ethics in gaming journalism?

Kotaku has been parroting Reddit posts for years. Total bottom of the barrel “journalism”

This is something of a reoccurring problem with translucent plastics.

AND they like to yellow at the speed of light. My brother got a nice, transparent cover for his phone “it’s going to look awful in a few months” and sure enough a few months later he had a different one precisely because of that.

I don't think yellowing is inherently an issue with translucent plastics, perhaps only certain types. At this moment I can look around my room and there are at least a dozen translucent plastic items, some of which are at least 10 - 20 years old, and none have any discernible yellowing to them.

You know, upon further reflection you’re right. I can see some mini dv cassettes that look like they are just off the factory floors, countered by the cover of my old iPhone 5 that’s sewage colored so that’s probably what comes after yellow, my old G-Shock is yellowing and that’s impressive given it’s dark gray, but the box for the Swatch Beat is crystal clear.

I've given up concerning myself with what others think and went with a coral (pink) phone this go-around. While this probably won't pertain to your bro, it nicely sidesteps the issue.

Yep, he’s an architect and the choice of nice and transparent cover was purely cosmetic. I don’t think he really cares what other people think, but going from nice to yellowed is another matter.

I have a similar attitude towards colors as you do: if there’s one that costs less, I’m going for it. Once found a gimbal that somehow was half the price in the pink variant: I now have a conversation starter that when folded, thanks to the gentle pink hue and the overall shape, looks like a dildo. The really, really amusing thing in all of this is that my computer is fully white. The case was slightly less expensive in white. The psu was on offer in the white variant. Towards the end of the gpu shortage one of the few available, the least expensive one, was white… it sits under the desk, with the glass panel towards the wall. XD

White GPUs are typically 150% of the price of regular ones. I thought that was a law or something.

True! But this was near the end of the gpu shortage, no price made sense. Hell, there was a 3060 sold and fulfilled by Amazon that was priced over 4K euro! They didn’t care when I reported the price error. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

doesn't that only affect the silicone ones?
mine literally crumbled into pieces under uv

I wonder if it’s only because it’s more noticeable from being translucent. When it breaks light refraction changes and the difference is night and day.

It's a problem with all plastics. Holes are stress concentrations. With the plastic flowing around it, two plastic "fronts" meet in the middle and need to meld into one piece. That spot is usually around 70 -80% strength in there. Add in the stress riser I mentioned earlier, and cracking happens. Same thing on sharp angles.

This is actually a huge meme in the Bionicle fandom. Shame too as the parts aren't being manufactured anymore, so eventually we'll run out of transparent green shoulder joints.

2 more...

This affects just the US exclusive limited edition, right? So not the most expensive regular model with an opaque case.

Correct, just the transparent case limited edition ones.

Unsurprisingly, some of the posts about this have been removed by the subreddit moderators. That post also originally had a message from the automod that it was removed because it was in violation of rule 7 for posting "intentional misinformation" due to the "developing a very common issue" in the title, but they have since decided to remove that comment as well - didn't restore the post though.

I don't check the Deck subreddit very often since I left over the API charges, but the last time I did the subreddit was up in arms over moderation issues. Main complaint at the time looked to be that the mods weren't removing posts that were unrelated to the deck, so it's weird to now hear that they're removing stuff that is deck related.

This is kinda critical for them and how they deal with hardware issues. They have a great reputation, at the moment. It seems minor but Valve should just offer a replacement shell, before this turns into a PR disaster.

First gen product problems. I'm on my third deck and second pair of index controllers despite light usage. Stuff will get better over time.

Ugh, this is a shame. I loved the translucent consoles and controllers Nintendo did back in the day. This makes me want to learn 3D printing so I can make an atomic purple casing and not make the screws too tight.

Just checked my limited edition oled model and on the back left center screw there is a small about 2mm crack in the fashion of the photos, no signs anywhere else.

Shit. I'll need to check mine tonight. Hopefully, it's not too late to loosen the screws!

Edit: mine is still good. I haven't loosened the screws yet, though...