my super positive RMA experience.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

i RMA’d my 256gb deck due to funky touchpad haptics. the left side was weak, and when clicking the left touchpad it didn’t feel right, almost like it was double clicking. the right side had a very satisfying click but the haptics were too strong and would rattle the entire unit. i was prepared to live with it until the deck developed a dead pixel after 2 months. that was the line for me.

**RMA timeline**
- june 28th: shipped to valve
- june 30th: arrived at warehouse
- july 15th: shipped to me
- july 18th: delivered

all in all it took 16 days from when it arrived at valve’s warehouse till it was delivered to me. not at all bad IMO.

**shipping experience:**
fedex delivery was fine. they had some miscalculations of the estimated delivery date, but that’s just par for the course with them. package arrived in perfect condition. came in
the typical steam deck shipping box with the portal 2 logos, and “steam deck 256gb” visible on the shipping label. so as far as i can tell RMA units come exactly like a freshly ordered steam deck.

**unboxing/first impressions:**
opened it up and everything appeared brand new. everything was packaged up just like my original unit. i pressed down all the buttons to make sure nothing was sticking. all buttons work nicely! in-fact even better than before…

on my original unit the “steam” and “…” buttons felt mushy, but on this new unit those buttons give a very satisfying click. i thought the mushy buttons were intended by valve but it would appear that isn’t correct. i think they shipped me a brand new unit rather than a refurbished unit. i'm suspecting it's one of the newer batches with the slightly slower ssd. i’ll find out for sure when i open it up later to swap the ssd.

**BOOT UP:**
no screen bleed. no dead pixels. we’re off to a good start. haptics on both sides feel EQUAL. they actually feel more “full” than they did on my original deck.

the left touchpad has a very satisfying click! if anyone tells you the left touchpad is supposed to feel weird because of some d-pad nonsense DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM! this is a night and day difference from my first one. right touch click is just as nice. haptics on both sides feel “premium” which is not how i would describe them on the last unit. no rattling on the right haptics. so far so good!

**aperture Desk Job play through:**
first thing i want to note is i’m pretty sure i got the huayung fan. there is ZERO whine and having heard what the huaying sounds like from posts here, i’m pretty sure i hit the lotto on this.
every button works. gyro works. no crashes. no crunchy joysticks. no battery drain. power button has bo issues all good!

valve sent me a perfect steam deck.

best part is the vent smell is back baby!

**TLDR:**
a positive RMA experience. received a perfect unit with none of the defects from my previous unit.
fully functional even touchpad haptics. clicky “steam” and “…” buttons and the good fan! if you’re on the fence about RMAing i would suggest doing it. not every RMA story is a nightmare like this sub would have you believe and you deserve a fully functional steam deck that works as intended. i’m pretty damn pleased.

thanks gabe!

[bean]

did you have a replacement drive in the RMA'd deck? (before you sent it :D )

I have the mushy steam and QAM buttons and I can only dream of a day where my RIGHT trackpad is as good as my left one. Out of the box I knew these things were off but back then no one knew if RMAs were even possible.

[PopinFRESH]

Nice story lionghoulman. Awesome that it worked out for you. Since you've got a new deck post May 28th, would you mind checking what the model number is of your SSD? I've been trying to find anyone with one of the PCIe Gen3 x2 SSDs to see what the model / supplier is.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by bean:

did you have a replacement drive in the RMA'd deck? (before you sent it :D )

I have the mushy steam and QAM buttons and I can only dream of a day where my RIGHT trackpad is as good as my left one. Out of the box I knew these things were off but back then no one knew if RMAs were even possible.

i put the original 256gb drive back in my unit before i sent it out for RMA.

you can definitely RMA for the touchpads being off. i told steam support my issue with them and they issued me the RMA without me needing to provide anything else.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Nice story lionghoulman. Awesome that it worked out for you. Since you've got a new deck post May 28th, would you mind checking what the model number is of your SSD? I've been trying to find anyone with one of the PCIe Gen3 x2 SSDs to see what the model / supplier is.

yup i just woke up and i’m gonna have some coffee and get in there to swap ssds. i will report back.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by psi onix:

so the first one had bad screen bleed too?? man, what even happened to that first Deck? that's a lot of different issues in one unit. i'm wondering if i'll even know if i receive bad "touchpad haptics" as i have no experience with using them.

my first one didn’t have screen bleed it had a stuck pixel that would go away and come back constantly. i just went through all the common issues people have with faulty steam decks with the new unit and i didn’t have any of them with the new unit. i’m pretty happy.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Nice story lionghoulman. Awesome that it worked out for you. Since you've got a new deck post May 28th, would you mind checking what the model number is of your SSD? I've been trying to find anyone with one of the PCIe Gen3 x2 SSDs to see what the model / supplier is.

yup i just woke up and i’m gonna have some coffee and get in there to swap ssds. i will report back.

If you haven't already swapped them out would you mind checking it via Desktop mode and if you got an x2 SSD could you download the KDiskMark flatpak and run a couple of benchmarks on it

If it is an x2 SSD and you've already swapped them don't worry about it and I'd still be interested in just getting a model number for it.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

yup i just woke up and i’m gonna have some coffee and get in there to swap ssds. i will report back.

If you haven't already swapped them out would you mind checking it via Desktop mode and if you got an x2 SSD could you download the KDiskMark flatpak and run a couple of benchmarks on it

If it is an x2 SSD and you've already swapped them don't worry about it and I'd still be interested in just getting a model number for it.

i didn’t swap yet and i just so happen to have my deck with me so i chrcked it out. my new steam deck is infact one of the newer models. the product number is “ TS256GMTE352T-VLV” which i believe to be a Transcend 256gb NVME but i can’t find any info online about that particular drive. i can only find a link to the sata version.

https://ph.rs-online.com/web/p/hard-drives/2405481

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

If you haven't already swapped them out would you mind checking it via Desktop mode and if you got an x2 SSD could you download the KDiskMark flatpak and run a couple of benchmarks on it

If it is an x2 SSD and you've already swapped them don't worry about it and I'd still be interested in just getting a model number for it.

i didn’t swap yet and i just so happen to have my deck with me so i chrcked it out. my new steam deck is infact one of the newer models. the product number is “ TS256GMTE352T-VLV” which i believe to be a Transcend 256gb NVME but i can’t find any info online about that particular drive. i can only find a link to the sata version.

https://ph.rs-online.com/web/p/hard-drives/2405481

Its a start. Are you able to benchmark it with KDiskMark in desktop mode?

Also, at console are you able to check `lspci -vv` and look to see what link width your SSD is connected at to see if this is one of the PCIe Gen3 x2 SSDs

[PopinFRESH]

Yep, it is.

Found the product page for it. The "VLV" is a custom batch id for "Valve".

https://www.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/embedded-ssd-solutions/mte352t

MTE352T pulled it up on their site. So the only thing that I'd expect to be different from this stock one is a custom Valve firmware for the controller

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

i didn’t swap yet and i just so happen to have my deck with me so i chrcked it out. my new steam deck is infact one of the newer models. the product number is “ TS256GMTE352T-VLV” which i believe to be a Transcend 256gb NVME but i can’t find any info online about that particular drive. i can only find a link to the sata version.

https://ph.rs-online.com/web/p/hard-drives/2405481

Its a start. Are you able to benchmark it with KDiskMark in desktop mode?

Also, at console are you able to check `lspci -vv` and look to see what link width your SSD is connected at to see if this is one of the PCIe Gen3 x2 SSDs

i’ll check it out in a sec. having an issue where the touchpad haptics don’t work when using the screen keyboard making it hard to type. works fine in gaming mode but not in desktop mode.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Yep, it is.

Found the product page for it. The "VLV" is a custom batch id for "Valve".

https://www.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/embedded-ssd-solutions/mte352t

MTE352T pulled it up on their site. So the only thing that I'd expect to be different from this stock one is a custom Valve firmware for the controller

okay so it is the 3x2

did you still need me to run that program when i get a chance?

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Yep, it is.

Found the product page for it. The "VLV" is a custom batch id for "Valve".

https://www.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/embedded-ssd-solutions/mte352t

MTE352T pulled it up on their site. So the only thing that I'd expect to be different from this stock one is a custom Valve firmware for the controller

okay so it is the 3x2

did you still need me to run that program when i get a chance?

Yeah if you could. it should default to 1GiB test with QD8 and QD1 sequential tests and QD32 4K random tests.

[SIR LIONEL GHOULMAN]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

okay so it is the 3x2

did you still need me to run that program when i get a chance?

Yeah if you could. it should default to 1GiB test with QD8 and QD1 sequential tests and QD32 4K random tests.

i’ll be honest i downloaded from github and i have no idea how to install it. i’m a linux noob.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Yeah if you could. it should default to 1GiB test with QD8 and QD1 sequential tests and QD32 4K random tests.

i’ll be honest i downloaded from github and i have no idea how to install it. i’m a linux noob.

I thought it was available as a flatpak but looking for it now on flathub I guess I was mistaken. Don't worry about it. Thanks for the model number. That at least gives me the "rated" reads and writes. Have a great night and enjoy your deck

[bean]

Originally posted by lionghoulman:

i put the original 256gb drive back in my unit before i sent it out for RMA.

you can definitely RMA for the touchpads being off. i told steam support my issue with them and they issued me the RMA without me needing to provide anything else.

cool ty for the info
I am glad everything worked out so well