Does disassembling my Deck void the warranty?

[Sheeple]

A little crumb from something got stuck in the rear vent on my Deck. I want to get it out of there, but I don't want to void my warranty in the process.

[Canadian Gamer]

No it does not. There is no sticker or anything to prove that it was even opened. Valve seems to be ok with users fixing their own Deck. Just follow a guide and take your time. If you have a micro SD card in the Deck, remove it first or you could break it in half.

[Minneyar]

Disassembling your Deck does not void the warranty, but any damage you do to your Deck is not covered by the warranty. (so if you do ever have to send your Deck in for repair, don't tell them you opened it)

[Punkovich]

Originally posted by Canadian Gamer:

There is no sticker or anything to prove that it was even opened.

That depends how much of it you need to disassemble to get at what you want. Just taking the back of the shell off, no stickers. But if you need to get at the area with the SSD or heatsink, there is an anti-tamper aluminum foil sticker covering one of the screws, they will know.

[Darkstar]

Can you not use a needle or similar tool to fish it out?

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Disassembling your Deck does not void the warranty, but any damage you do to your Deck is not covered by the warranty. (so if you do ever have to send your Deck in for repair, don't tell them you opened it)

🤔 I don't know if advocating for defrauding a company that is trying to be a good example for most of the principals of the right to repair movement is a great way to push those principals forward.

[@R+5]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Disassembling your Deck does not void the warranty, but any damage you do to your Deck is not covered by the warranty. (so if you do ever have to send your Deck in for repair, don't tell them you opened it)

🤔 I don't know if advocating for defrauding a company that is trying to be a good example for most of the principals of the right to repair movement is a great way to push those principals forward.

who is doing that?

nothing i have read in this thread suggest anything close to "defrauding". There no intention of fraud in wanting to have the possibility of sending a defective unit, even if you tried to fix it before it: it would be fraud, if the intention was, for example, to replace a working part with a defective one, in order to be able to sell one. This is how you exercise "the right to repair": by taking advantage of it, without trying to exploit a weakness (and in the example i wrote, whoever wanted to try that, would need to first own a defective ssd that looks the same as one included in the deck, so imo its not going to be a common scam, and has more risks than anything). Theres aso not need to report something, if its considered legal.

All we know about op, and before your comment, is that sending it to valve should be fair, as long as what can be changed and modified doesnt affect the normal use, and in the process nothing else is damaged. if the internal disck doesnt have a "security sticker", then its fair to replace it with other from any brand; if the new disk somehow damages the deck (lets say a shortcut), then you can assume that wont be covered by valve, and they will know.

[Fatmeatball]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Disassembling your Deck does not void the warranty, but any damage you do to your Deck is not covered by the warranty. (so if you do ever have to send your Deck in for repair, don't tell them you opened it)

🤔 I don't know if advocating for defrauding a company that is trying to be a good example for most of the principals of the right to repair movement is a great way to push those principals forward.

You can also tell them you opened it, they won't care. As long as the malfunction isn't caused by a physical modification you made, your Deck is under warranty.

[invision2212]

Originally posted by Fatmeatball:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

🤔 I don't know if advocating for defrauding a company that is trying to be a good example for most of the principals of the right to repair movement is a great way to push those principals forward.

You can also tell them you opened it, they won't care. As long as the malfunction isn't caused by a physical modification you made, your Deck is under warranty.

nah dont do that. the repair company will find any reason not to fix it. there are threads floating around about this.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by @R+5:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

🤔 I don't know if advocating for defrauding a company that is trying to be a good example for most of the principals of the right to repair movement is a great way to push those principals forward.

who is doing that?
...

The person I responded to. The implication of their comment is that if you open it, and happen to do something which results in it no longer working, you should try to hide this from Valve; ergo trying to defraud Valve.

Originally posted by Fatmeatball:

...
You can also tell them you opened it, they won't care. As long as the malfunction isn't caused by a physical modification you made, your Deck is under warranty.

^ This

Originally posted by invision2212:

nah dont do that. the repair company will find any reason not to fix it. there are threads floating around about this.

^ Not this.

Valve has been one of the most, if not the most, user repair friendly companies with the Steam Deck. This sentiment is a detriment to legitimate right to repair.

[Punkovich]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by invision2212:

nah dont do that. the repair company will find any reason not to fix it. there are threads floating around about this.

^ Not this.

Valve has been one of the most, if not the most, user repair friendly companies with the Steam Deck. This sentiment is a detriment to legitimate right to repair.

Valve themselves, yes. The companies they have been contracting repairs out to haven't necessarily shared their customer friendly attitude.

If they have you send it back to Carol Stream IL = you good.
If they have you send it to United Radio = they WILL try to charge/blame you for something (plus shipping)...

[@R+5]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

This sentiment is a detriment to legitimate right to repair.

No, because the "right to repair" is linked to "the right to modify" (if such thing exist under that name): that idea comes from the idea of "private property": if you "own something", you should be free to change that something anyway you want, as long as you arent trying to use that as part of a scam against those who sell it, or produce it.

When you dont own things, you cannot modify them legally, either to repair them or for experimenting and fun (ie what "linus tech tips do"). The whole ting about "the right to repair" is then directly opposed to the "you will own nothing and be happy" fiasco (also related to "software as a service").

Is all about private property, and "rights of users". We shouldnt need to report any change we make to hardware, as long as any of those changes dont damage directly any of the original parts, or processes associated with them.

Fun fact
this is one of the reasons is more common in communist states to try to steal data and technology from other states, than producing their own: to many limits and excessive control, and fear of experimentation. That slows down development, investigation and discoveries in every level.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by @R+5:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

This sentiment is a detriment to legitimate right to repair.

No, because the "right to repair" is linked to "the right to modify" (if such thing exist under that name): that idea comes from the idea of "private property": if you "own something", you should be free to change that something anyway you want, as long as you arent trying to use that as part of a scam against those who sell it, or produce it.

When you dont own things, you cannot modify them legally, either to repair them or for experimenting and fun (ie what "linus tech tips do"). The whole ting about "the right to repair" is then directly opposed to the "you will own nothing and be happy" fiasco (also related to "software as a service").

Is all about private property, and "rights of users". We shouldnt need to report any change we make to hardware, as long as any of those changes dont damage directly any of the original parts, or processes associated with them.

Fun fact
this is one of the reasons is more common in communist states to try to steal data and technology from other states, than producing their own: to many limits and excessive control, and fear of experimentation. That slows down development, investigation and discoveries in every level.

You're missing the point I was making. It shouldn't matter if you tell them anything or not. The only part I disagree with you in the above is the "as long as any of those changes dont damage directly any of the original parts". If you damage a device that should be on you, regardless if it was direct or indirect damage. I.e. if I shunt mod my GPU and run it beyond its designed power specification to overclock it which eventually indirectly causes the GPU die to fail that shouldn't be something the manufacture should need to warrant.

The point I was making is people should need to "hide" that they repaired or modified their device. Further, you shouldn't try to hide a repair or modification if what you did resulted in the device failing just so you can try to pass it off onto the manufacture as a warranty issue. Own your own property, and also own your own mistakes or issues.

[Minneyar]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

The person I responded to. The implication of their comment is that if you open it, and happen to do something which results in it no longer working, you should try to hide this from Valve; ergo trying to defraud Valve.

Wow, no, you are wildly misinterpreting what I meant. If you break your Deck, you should not try to defraud Valve into fixing it.

The issue is that if you send your Deck in for repairs, somebody at Valve has to decide whether they're going to cover it or not. If you tell them you opened your Deck, you're basically giving a lazy technician license to say, "Clearly this is your fault, we're not going to cover it," and you have no way to prove that they're wrong. So don't do that, make them justify their refusal.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

The person I responded to. The implication of their comment is that if you open it, and happen to do something which results in it no longer working, you should try to hide this from Valve; ergo trying to defraud Valve.

Wow, no, you are wildly misinterpreting what I meant. If you break your Deck, you should not try to defraud Valve into fixing it.

The issue is that if you send your Deck in for repairs, somebody at Valve has to decide whether they're going to cover it or not. If you tell them you opened your Deck, you're basically giving a lazy technician license to say, "Clearly this is your fault, we're not going to cover it," and you have no way to prove that they're wrong. So don't do that, make them justify their refusal.

It shouldn't be on you as the owner to "prove that they are wrong". If they are going to deny warranting an item under warranty, they should always need to show reasonable proof that whatever you did caused the failure, regardless if you tell them you did anything or not. That is the whole point of right to repair.

[invision2212]

This is why we don’t say we opened anything up. Had that person acted like they have no idea what’s wrong they would have replaced his deck

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/3727324132813574025/