Up Arrow Doesn't Work

[samsilly12345]

I'm not sure if this is on purpose or not since I can't find anything about it, but I just got my steam deck and it's fabulous, I can even play untested rpgmaker games with very little issue.. but the up arrow/button on the d-pad doesn't work. I'm not talking about it won't press or is hard to press, it's easy to press and it clicks and everything, but nothing happens on the screen when I use it. I have to switch to the track pad or the joysticks to go up in menus and in games. It doesn't work on any game, screen, or menu. I am able to move diagonally down but if I try to go diagonally up in either direction, it only goes sideways. Can someone help and tell me what to do and how to fix it or if I can get a TIMELY replacement? (Like one week or a month at most)

[invision2212]

if you're having some trouble with inputs, you can go to Steam > Settings > Controller > Test Controller Inputs to run a test suite to help identify any problems. Complete the tests and exit with a long press of the B button.

[samsilly12345]

Originally posted by invision2212:

if you're having some trouble with inputs, you can go to Steam > Settings > Controller > Test Controller Inputs to run a test suite to help identify any problems. Complete the tests and exit with a long press of the B button.

I tried that but it never prompts me to press that button?

[Falkentyne]

Power on the steam deck by holding down the volume up (+) button while pressing power (Don't hold down power). Then release volume up when you get the screen. Then go to setup and enter battery storage mode. The deck will turn off. Please do not skip this step!!

Then unplug the AC Adapter, hold down the power button for 30 seconds by itself, then release it, then plug in the plug. The deck should turn on (if it doesn't, press power).

Then, once you are in the game UI, press the steam button, go to power menu and go to desktop mode.

Note: if you're having trouble navigating, or Steam isnt open, hold down the steam button while moving the right trackpad to move the mouse cursor, and you can either use "A" or right trigger to "left click" or "Double click" to open icons, etc. If steam is open, you shouldn't need to do this, and right trackpad "push" should be a mouse click now.

In desktop mode, click the "Start" menu, click settings or system settings, look for "Input devices" or "input settings" and "game controllers." Note that Steam must be running in the background for the controllers to work.

Now you can test the dpad and other inputs
The dpad will show -32767 to 32767 for directions, and 0 means no input in that direction. A diagonal will have two directions activated at once.

Does your up dpad work now?

[samsilly12345]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Power on the steam deck by holding down the volume up (+) button while pressing power (Don't hold down power). Then release volume up when you get the screen. Then go to setup and enter battery storage mode. The deck will turn off. Please do not skip this step!!

Then unplug the AC Adapter, hold down the power button for 30 seconds by itself, then release it, then plug in the plug. The deck should turn on (if it doesn't, press power).

Then, once you are in the game UI, press the steam button, go to power menu and go to desktop mode.

Note: if you're having trouble navigating, or Steam isnt open, hold down the steam button while moving the right trackpad to move the mouse cursor, and you can either use "A" or right trigger to "left click" or "Double click" to open icons, etc. If steam is open, you shouldn't need to do this, and right trackpad "push" should be a mouse click now.

In desktop mode, click the "Start" menu, click settings or system settings, look for "Input devices" or "input settings" and "game controllers." Note that Steam must be running in the background for the controllers to work.

Now you can test the dpad and other inputs
The dpad will show -32767 to 32767 for directions, and 0 means no input in that direction. A diagonal will have two directions activated at once.

Does your up dpad work now?

I will try this! Thank you I'll get back to ya about that

[samsilly12345]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Power on the steam deck by holding down the volume up (+) button while pressing power (Don't hold down power). Then release volume up when you get the screen. Then go to setup and enter battery storage mode. The deck will turn off. Please do not skip this step!!

Then unplug the AC Adapter, hold down the power button for 30 seconds by itself, then release it, then plug in the plug. The deck should turn on (if it doesn't, press power).

Then, once you are in the game UI, press the steam button, go to power menu and go to desktop mode.

Note: if you're having trouble navigating, or Steam isnt open, hold down the steam button while moving the right trackpad to move the mouse cursor, and you can either use "A" or right trigger to "left click" or "Double click" to open icons, etc. If steam is open, you shouldn't need to do this, and right trackpad "push" should be a mouse click now.

In desktop mode, click the "Start" menu, click settings or system settings, look for "Input devices" or "input settings" and "game controllers." Note that Steam must be running in the background for the controllers to work.

Now you can test the dpad and other inputs
The dpad will show -32767 to 32767 for directions, and 0 means no input in that direction. A diagonal will have two directions activated at once.

Does your up dpad work now?

I tried it, I get 0 when I press up on the d pad.

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by samsilly12345:

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Power on the steam deck by holding down the volume up (+) button while pressing power (Don't hold down power). Then release volume up when you get the screen. Then go to setup and enter battery storage mode. The deck will turn off. Please do not skip this step!!

Then unplug the AC Adapter, hold down the power button for 30 seconds by itself, then release it, then plug in the plug. The deck should turn on (if it doesn't, press power).

Then, once you are in the game UI, press the steam button, go to power menu and go to desktop mode.

Note: if you're having trouble navigating, or Steam isnt open, hold down the steam button while moving the right trackpad to move the mouse cursor, and you can either use "A" or right trigger to "left click" or "Double click" to open icons, etc. If steam is open, you shouldn't need to do this, and right trackpad "push" should be a mouse click now.

In desktop mode, click the "Start" menu, click settings or system settings, look for "Input devices" or "input settings" and "game controllers." Note that Steam must be running in the background for the controllers to work.

Now you can test the dpad and other inputs
The dpad will show -32767 to 32767 for directions, and 0 means no input in that direction. A diagonal will have two directions activated at once.

Does your up dpad work now?

I tried it, I get 0 when I press up on the d pad.

Ok, that sounds like a RMA is in order.
Since only ONE direction is not working, that looks like a broken trace on the PCB.

The only thing you can do to try to troubleshoot this is to disassemble the button board and the ribbon cables and then reconnect them.

This is not a hard thing to do if you've ever taken apart a game controller or a laptop with 'ribbon cables" in the past, but if this is your first time, care must be taken and make sure you follow the instructions.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+D-Pad+Button+Replacement/148937

Taking the trigger off its guard post is the single most hardest part of this entire step. Everything else is simply unscrewing boards and flipping small ribbon cable connector latches (very, very carefully).

If you choose to do this step, after you take apart the ribbon cables shown in the guide, reconnect them and all of the daughterboards (in reverse order) and see if it works.

If you are uncomfortable with any of this, RMA.

[samsilly12345]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Originally posted by samsilly12345:

I tried it, I get 0 when I press up on the d pad.

Ok, that sounds like a RMA is in order.
Since only ONE direction is not working, that looks like a broken trace on the PCB.

The only thing you can do to try to troubleshoot this is to disassemble the button board and the ribbon cables and then reconnect them.

This is not a hard thing to do if you've ever taken apart a game controller or a laptop with 'ribbon cables" in the past, but if this is your first time, care must be taken and make sure you follow the instructions.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+D-Pad+Button+Replacement/148937

Taking the trigger off its guard post is the single most hardest part of this entire step. Everything else is simply unscrewing boards and flipping small ribbon cable connector latches (very, very carefully).

If you choose to do this step, after you take apart the ribbon cables shown in the guide, reconnect them and all of the daughterboards (in reverse order) and see if it works.

If you are uncomfortable with any of this, RMA.

Thank you so much!!! I am DEFINITELY not comfortable with any of that. What is RMA? so far this problem has only very minimally impacted my gameplay experience and i have found workarounds in one of the two games i tried. one of them is deemed "playable" by the SteamDeck and the other was untested. the untested one did not work, although the product page said that it had full controller support. maybe gameboy controller support HA.