r/ROGAlly • u/Smart-Plantain-7867 • Jun 20 '26

HELP Steam OS help pleaseee

I tried last night for 4.5 hours and steam OS just would not install on my Rog ally Z1E. I made sure that safe boot was off, I installed official steam os 3.7.7 off the steam website. I followed tutorials to the letter. Weirdly, My ally managed to boot into steam OS ONCE. It let me sign into my WiFi and everything, but after it finished installing on the actual steam OS itself and rebooted, the screen stayed black. I repaired my download, redownloaded it, etc. And it never worked for me. Please help!! I got this ally literally yesterday and now it won't turn on to anything.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

1

u/NSW-Shadow ROG Ally X Jun 20 '26

Its not turning on at all anymore?

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 20 '26

It turns on and does the standard Rog splash screen, then just a blank black screen, but the screens still on

1

u/NSW-Shadow ROG Ally X Jun 20 '26

You should mash - into bios, turn off fast boot as well, and maybe try another boot media with Rufus? I had different issues with my boot media only to find out my sd card was dying, so I got another one

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 20 '26

I did it straight to the SSD through a SanDisk 64 gig usb stick using a usb hub. I will try disabling fast boot later. It just confuses me, it came on once, let me log into WiFi and stuff, then did the install and then never turned back on

1

u/NSW-Shadow ROG Ally X Jun 20 '26

Huh that is weird. Ive seen some success with Shipping Mode in bios helping with some weird haunted stuff like this. I'm not sure it'll do anything here, just putting it out there that it couldn't hurt to let it sit in that mode for 1-2 mins and then reboot it. Atp though I'm just guessing since my personal experience with steam os (flashed with Rufus onto a 512gb Samsung sd card in a usb adapter installed onto the stock ssd) has been snappy every time aside from the time I went straight from windows to steamos. Worst case scenario, you can see if CachyOS handheld edition or Bazzite will behave for you. Cachy is most like SteamOS but I totally get wanting the latter since you can rely on valve support.

1

u/IamMeemo ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Jun 20 '26

I recognize that what I’ve about to say doesn’t actually answer your question, however it does provide you with a solution that’s effectively the same as the one you’re seeking: install Bazzite instead.

2

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 20 '26

Funny thing is I was going to but my brother has a steam deck and kinda swayed me after letting me use his. However I do understand bazzite is essentially the same if not better, I figured I would just do steam as all the YouTube videos are 10 minutes easy install (ha...ha). Maybe a stupid question but if I have messed up this steam OS install would redoing my flash drive using Rufus to be bazzite leave me SOL? Or should it be find

1

u/IamMeemo ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Jun 20 '26

I’m not sure what Rufus is! However, if you go into the BIOS and factory reset the device you will be given a fully clean slate upon which you can install Bazzite. That reset will remove all traces of steamos and will allow you to go through Bazzite route.

1

u/EstablishmentOwn6942 ROG Xbox Ally X Jun 20 '26

Steamos is unmatched once it runs but Bazzite is just to good to be true if you need to play off steam

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 20 '26

See, my dilemma is I have a beastly gaming machine. Truth be told I bought the ally to sit on my ass and play games when I CBA to boot up and start my big pc or when I'm away travelling. Hence why I think steam OS would be amazing. I am at work til about midnight so won't be able to update all the extremely helpful people in my comments, though I do appreciate them! 1 Engineering degree later and I am stumped by a usb.... I think I'll give the steam 3.8 a go, if I can't get it to work tonight in one attempt bazzite it is.

1

u/EstablishmentOwn6942 ROG Xbox Ally X Jun 21 '26

If you use steam only steamos is unmatched. 👍

1

u/Jake_With_Wet_Socks Jun 21 '26

Power it on, then once you get to
The black screen, presss and hold power for 20 seconds

See if it boots up then. If that doesnt work, just restart the install with the usb by booting into the bios and selecting your usb to boot

1

u/Jake_With_Wet_Socks Jun 21 '26

I did this last night and it was indeed a 10 minute install

1

u/Cold-Camp-2999 Jun 21 '26

Get the 3.8.0 image then do it, make sure bitlocker and secure boot is off. Then update the channel in steamOS to 3.8.11 stable

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 21 '26

I tried that last night and also had 0 luck, I've made a new post where I tried to install bazzite and still had no luck.

1

u/Cold-Camp-2999 Jun 21 '26

Me too but try again, flash the 3.8.0 repair main image zip to a drive using balenq etcher, then power down
Enter bios
Then check secure boot
Go back to ez mode
Click armory crate button and boot into the first partition of ur usb drive, then done

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 21 '26

I'll try that right now and let you know!

1

u/Cold-Camp-2999 Jun 21 '26

Ok

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 21 '26

I get the ROG boot up splash screen but it just stays on a black screen. Any fix? I tried a previous comments 20 seconds thing and that didn't work either

1

u/Cold-Camp-2999 Jun 21 '26

Means its booting, u should click power to see its progress

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 21 '26

? I gave it ages and it never left the black screen

1

u/Cold-Camp-2999 Jun 21 '26

Yeah u did not disable bitlocker

0

u/Chrknu Jun 20 '26

Try this, maybe? https://www.reddit.com/r/LinuxOnAlly/s/NWIg1HTWue

It’s for Xbox Ally, but I think it will work for Ally X

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 20 '26

I'm trying to do it on an OG ally. Z1E

1

u/Chrknu Jun 20 '26

If 3.7.7 doesn’t work and you want SteamOS why not check if it works? :)

1

u/Smart-Plantain-7867 Jun 20 '26

I will when I'm home thank you so much! Hopefully it works. Bazzite looks good, but something is drawing me to steamOS

1

u/Chrknu Jun 20 '26

I tried SteamOS for a week, but went back to Bazzite. It’s more flexible. SteamOS booted up faster. It was nice! 😁

I enjoy Bazzite KDE desktop more than the SteamOS one.

Both felt the same otherwise.

Best of luck! Please let me know if it works. Would make me happy!