Black Screen Vive

[Sc0p3]

Hi, after 6 weeks of using the vive and had a lot of nice plays with my games..... my vive died yesterday. I only get a black screen in the hmd. The LED is green and i already tried a lot of things. Mini DP Fix, Reinstall USB Driver, Fresh Install of Vive Software. Steam VR always tell me everything is fine and also Vive LED is green. Tracking works perfect on PC Screen. Also i switch the cables ;-) I did everything i can do as an PC Freak (over 20 years experience) but nothing help out with my problem now. I already contact HTC Vive support. But they ask me stupid questions and i told them what i already did. Hope the RMA will be created asap. I think the display is dead. But anyway... Is someone here with a hint or a secrect way that maybe im wrong and the display will wakeup ??? ;-) Thanks in advance !! P.S. Hope Vive will be up and running when The Brookhaven Experiment will be released ;)

[shponglefan]

It could be a disconnect ribbon cable inside the Vive. Unless you're willing to void your warranty and open up the headset, I'd just RMA it.

[--ranXerox--]

It's dead. When light goes green and you have no visual, it's dead

[Sc0p3]

Thanks for the hints. But i really did all of it. At all i think : I get a Monday Edition of the Vive ;-( Hope the HTC Support will contact me asap..... The first contact was not so customer satisfied to me :-(


I like the vive so much, cause it bring me back some special moments like NES and other things :)

[Sc0p3]

I already try the unplug and plug back solution. Nothing helps and htc support didnt response yet. That really suxx :-(

[Sc0p3]

Short Status: After contacting three times HTC Support (phone/chat) Now i got a RMA Ticket and a TNT Express Service. Im very disappointed with the EU/German HTC Support. Nobody know what the otherone do. Only stupid questions and language problems. Hope my Vive will be fast repaired and i will be VR ready asap ;-)

[KronicDreamz]

I ran into the same thing :( sent my headset for repair and waiting for it to come back. Really unfortunate. I waited 2 months for it to arrive and after 9 days of use it died. It's been down for more days than I've had it

[Panxen]

I feel your pain. My Vive died the other day. It started with red led/blank screen but now it won't even turn on. Spent hours with support troubleshooting it today...through chat. Apparently they don't do phone support at all. I called the number listed in the manual but they said all Vive support must go through their chat support online. After over 2 and a half hours of really absurd trouble shooting (the very last thing they had me do was to run the performance test) they finally said they would RMA it, but that I'd need to return the link box and headset separately...they'd be two different tickets...and that I would have to pay for shipping/insurance/confirmation on both. Then they spent 30 minutes sending, through chat, an insane amount of information/agreements about the repair and shipping, which I had to answer yes or no to. Uhhhmmm, what?

For a product with a $800+ price tag, this is terrible business practice. Hell, even if it was $50, I'd be upset. I called HTC again after dealing with chat support and they gave me the run around. Finally spoke with a manager and he said he'd 'try' to expedite everything. While I'll miss playing the Vive, it's not really the amount of time that it will take to get it back that bothers me, it's the lack of customer support and bad business practices.

Has anyone else actually had a positive experience with returns and/or fixes?

[KronicDreamz]

Well some more details on my headset, while troubleshooting the headset after the displays went black, the front of the headset started getting really hot and eventually smelled burning plastic. Unplugged it and didn't turn it back on. Not a great experience :/ Took me about 2 hours through chat as well to finally get the RMA process started, even though it was pretty simple for troubleshooting as I tried everything I could think of and then it was smelling of burning so didn't want to plug it in again. Also while I was troubleshooting it (and after the burning smell of plastic and the front got hot), when plugging in the headset Windows said "USB device detected but is malfunctioning" - never seen that message in Windows before lol.

Really unfortunate this all is happening, hopefully more people don't have to go through this. I had done quite a bit of Google searching online and was surprised that no one else seemed to be having the issue of the display going dark, but seems I wasn't the only one

[Sc0p3]

Oh holy sh.... and glad to hear that im not alone with the black screen. Hope they will fix the problem asap. And we all get our vive back in a working state :-)

[KronicDreamz]

Yeah no kidding. I wonder if the cause might be sweat getting into parts of the headset they shouldn't; figure they'd build the headsets with that in mind as a lot of the experiences get your heart going - AudioShield, Holopoint and Hover Junkers

[Panxen]

You are definitely not alone @Scope. With both the actual technical issue and the terrible service.

@KronicDreamz - That's wild that your unit basically burnt up. I've had my share of psu's catching on fire...it's never fun.

After spending last night and this morning reading about HTC's really terrible return and repair policies and how so many people have been given the run around or made to jump through hoops to get help, I did what many people suggested...I contacted my credit card company. It was painless and easy and they are moving forward to get me a refund. Basically they credited my account and contacting HTC to have them mail me a return label. I could have hugged the guy through the phone :)

If you search Reddit you will see many similar stories. Customers being told to pay for shipping and/or repairs. Then some who are told they will get a shipping labeled mailed to them. In the end, most...if not all, never heard back from HTC, never got shipping labels or never had their items fixed/shipped back. My suggestion would be to try to settle your disputes through your credit card company or any other consumer protection agency.

I'm disappointed that I no longer have a Vive (I'm going to miss my Audioshield sessions!!!) but glad this madness is over, for now. I will wait until it is released in retail stores to buy a new one, hopefully that will fix some of the support issues if something comes up again. While I really do, or did, enjoy the Vive...I feel like it's hard for me to recommend it to people because of such bad business practices. I understand it's new technology, but HTC isn't a new company. I feel like my line would be something like "Oh ya! The Vive is damn awesome! Buuuuut, buyer beware, knock on wood that it doesn't break. Because, if it does...you will basically be sh*t out of luck."

[KronicDreamz]

@Panxen - It didn't get to the point of catching fire, I wanted to avoid that as if it melted and burned me or damaged the floor that'd be truly terrible. Completely agree about it being incredibly frustrating and a disappointing experience.

It's been 2 and a half days that the RMA facility has had my headset and they haven't looked at it yet :( The impression I got from their support was that I would send in the headset and they'd send a replacement, not repair the one I sent.

My biggest concern is what caused this to happen and will it happen again? I'd advise anyone that reads this, don't keep your vive plugged in (that is the power adapter that plugs into the linkbox). If it had been plugged in overnight or while we were out of the house I'd hate to think of what could happen; one thing to keep in mind, whatever caused this issue may only cause it during the system being in use but still, not knowing the cause it's better to be on the safe side.

[Sc0p3]

OMG that sounds really terrible your experiences. Never had such experience with other vendors. Hope my vive will be repaired and i will not have that kind of RMA Problems. But anyway, i didnt get any shipment label yet. Crazy thing is that not HTC Repair it, for Europe they have an external partner called: www.rayacorp.com I will wait till tomorrow and hope they will send me the shipment label....

[Soul firez]

♥♥♥♥ atleast you guys have gotten HTC to talk to you.... I hgave emailed 8 times tried calling just got the palm off managed to get one live chat and quickly got told wrong country try this link and guess what no contact..... Oh i did get an email about how did you find our customer support .... Considering i have spent time each day over 2 weeks and no contact id say your customer support sucks BALLS

[Sc0p3]

Why HTC doing this kind of strategy ? The Vive is a great product, also now the product availbility seems to me more better than oculus. What is the problem to help a customer with a problem ? ? ? OMG this sounds like a not serious business !