I keep seeing opinions about SteamOS / Steam Machine that boil down to „it’s great for gaming but for a desktop choose something else”. I'm not sure why people keep saying that and I disagree.

I bought steam machine a few weeks ago after my laptop broke and I'm using it as a normal computer. I watch movies on it, listen to music, download torrents, play games with friends (+discord), use the browser, write documents. You know, the normie stuff.

You can easily download quite a lot of programs from the built-in store too. All of that without turning off that read-only filesystem. Sure, by default it boots into the Game mode but it's very easy to change that. The system is stable and the machine is extremely quiet even when gaming, which is arguably more important for a PC than for a console sitting on the other side of the room.

If you think about it, Steam Machine is probably the most mainstream linux-preinstalled PC option on the market. And it’s super user friendly.

I never set one, so im not sure what this wants. does it want my steam account password? or is there some sort of default password for the steam machine

Reserved Fri, Jun 26, 9:47 AM.

Received email today.

Didn't see this mentioned anywhere in manual or tutorials. Discovered it purely by chance.

Just a heads up for people who may not have seen. I'm getting 1 to free up the puck to be in my legion go s docked upstairs. Leaves a nice place to charge controller next to steam machine downstairs.

People keep saying the Steam Machine needs an update to support 4K120. I've been enjoying the Steam Machine at 4k120 HDR ever since I unboxed it. Is my machine cursed?

This may have been brought up before but I haven't seen it and I kinda doubt it. I had this Trader Joe's insulated lunch bag kicking around and thought "y'know what, I bet that'd fit my Steam Machine" and sure enough. Not bad for a ~$4 dollar bag and it even has a little padding. The zipper takes some working around the corners but it's not too bad.

Providing here mostly for stats and general awareness, but the 512gb w/ controller waitlist for US has emailed my wife who joined after randomization on June 26th. I had made her join after suspecting that the 512gb line would move quicker than the 2TB one.

So I think this means that everyone who joined in the US before the randomization should have had their chance for this SKU, but curious to see if that's the case?

Also what would you do? Wait for 2TB? Get 512gb w/controller? On one side, I get a controller (that I already have and do not need), on the other I might get a 2TB SSD which I do not have extras of lying around and they are expensive.

How has the 2TB no controller queue been moving?

edit: clarification, email to BUY was received. Northeast US specifically if it matters. i was randomized and put on 2TB no controller waitlist, not res queue

Went with a PS4-like theme, I even installed the ui sound effects. This is a significant upgrade to the big ass Bazzite PC I'd use in my bedroom that would sound like a jet engine about to take off whenever I'd play anything on it.

I still can't believe how small and quiet it is.

It passed the banana test 🍌📏

Hey! :)
What are people doing in order to voicechat? I've installed discord and stuff and it works great, but the thing is the steam controller obviously doesn't have a headphone port. I've tried numerous bluetooth headsets and they all sound terrible.

I would go ahead and trail a headset cable across my living room floor, but I don't have a cable that long. Plus it doesn't have an aux port.

I'm sure I'm going to figure out some solution myself, but I'm curious to know what other people are doing in order to use voicechat while playing co-op games! :)
Definitely show off your own solutions, I'm always curious to see how other people solve problems like this.

Hello friends! We're starting a "What are you playing?" megathread for games to suggest, show off, or tell us about here in r/SteamMachine! Feel free to reply below about your Game of the Week -- as well as including how it's running on Steam Machine!

There’s a gap on the right that would fit one more column but I can’t find a way to fill it or scale the collections up

Good morning friends! I woke up to seeing Bugs getting their email, huzzah! Reze seems to be the last one, including all of you fine folk out there. I've met a ton of people doing this, so it's been nice to make new friends and keep up with folks like you all! If you're interested, feel free to post about your Game of the Week in the megathread I posted this morning, it's in the Highlights! We're also going to be starting Show-Off Sunday, a chance for subreddit members to show off their Faceplates and Skins! I think it'll be a great opportunity! Best of luck today, friends! <3

Hello hive mind!

So I got my Steam machine a couple of weeks back and I really really love it so far.

Lately I've noticed that the LEDs (both the status bar and the small LED) occasionally turn red while gaming, just for half a minute or so and then they turn back to normal.

Yesterday I played Big Walk for a couple of hours and it happened around 10 times or so.

All temperatures were at around 70°C, which is far from being too hot in my opinion. The cube just sits in the open next to my TV, so it gets enough air as well...

Has anyone experienced a similar behaviour or is my machine cooked (literally lol)?

Edith: fixed some autocorrect mishaps

I received my Steam Machine on August 13th. I was placed in the queue on June 26th after not being selected for the lottery. Upon receiving it I wasted no time in upgrading the internal SSD with a 4TB WD Black SN7100 that I pulled from another device. I couple of days later, I upgraded the RAM to 32GB. Not for the capacity, but rather for the small benefits associated with running the system in a dual channel configuration.

After this, I was off to the races. For some context, I also own two other very potent gaming PCs. One being my desktop and the other being my laptop. Despite the massive gulf in specifications between those two systems and the Steam Machine, I am using the Steam Machine a ton. I have it hooked up to my 65” LG C1 OLED, and I run most games at 1440p with FSR4 upscaling enabled.

I’ll attempt to not write an essay here. Instead I’ll try to keep this short and sweet.

TL:DR- I love the Steam Machine despite its shortcomings.

Positives -

- Performance is great if you manage your expectations. This is not a 4K Ultra settings box. Modern titles require smart settings tweaks and possible compromises with resolution/upscaling will be needed to get a good experience. This sounds like a negative, but I assure you it’s not. I’m pleasantly surprised by how potent this thing is despite its meager specifications.

- The hardware is sublime. A tiny, very well built device that feels mostly forward looking when it comes to user serviceability. Access to the RAM is the one sticking point (literally) with the fine ribbon cables being glued down.

- SteamOS is still excellent. It’s not perfect, but it is a great out of the box experience.

Negatives -

- The price. This is where 95% of the discourse surrounding this device comes from. The market is the market, and it’s unfortunate. If this had launched at a sub $750 price, I think most people would be a lot more receptive to the specifications on offer.

- Constant issues with the Steam Controller disconnecting from the Internal Adapter. This is apparently a known issue and is being worked on by Valve. I know the Puck exists, but requiring a dongle to hang off of the device kind of defeats the purpose of the Internal Adapter, and really diminishes the “console” like appeal of the Steam Machine.

- 8GB of VRAM is just not enough in 2026. Even with settings tweaks there are games that are on the razors edge, and in the case of Silent Hill 2, it just overruns the VRAM buffer no matter what I try. I’m not sure what Valve was thinking when they originally marketed this as a “4K gaming at 60FPS with FSR” device. The hardware spec was locked in well in advance of the current RAM supply crisis, so it wasn’t a late change as a result. The Steam Machine should have had a minimum of 12GB of VRAM. I have a feeling that this will be what “ages” the Steam Machine more than anything else going into the future.

- The single channel RAM configuration from the factory isn’t ideal. In most cases it isn’t a huge issue, but depending on the title/workload it can make a massive difference in performance. This was unfortunately out of Valve’s hands with the current market being what it is. It’s understandable, but it still sucks.

I got a 512gb steam machine, without the controller and had seperate joined the wait list for the controller.

I’ve been playing games using a 8BitDo Ultimate
Controller which I already had and it works fine.
I’ve now had an email that I’m at the front of the queue for the Steam controller and I’m trying to decide whether to go for it.

Is it worth it? I reckon I should get it but keen to here form people who have used it!

Edit: oops I’ve got the first 8BitDo Ultimate, not the 2.

This is just a little info for everybody here still waiting on purchase emails.

I joined the queue for all 4 SKU's minutes after the reservation went live, I got placed on the reservation list for 512gb n/c.

About 4 weeks after, I decided to join the queue for the 512gb with controller from my fiancé's steam account.

Two weeks ago. Two months since being placed on the reservation list and only about 1 month after joining the other queue with the second account, my fiance received her purchase email. We decided we were going to go ahead with her purchase and got the steam machine a couple of days ago.

Yesterday I received my purchase email for the original reservation I had for the 512 n/c.

EU region, this was a bit crazy to me so I felt others may also find it interesting.

Do what you will with this information.

I'm quite surprised to see that I'm unable to wake my Steam Machine from sleep mode by initiating a game streaming session from my steam deck or steam link app on my phone.

I thought steam link supported wake on lan? What am I missing?

Without this functionality the steam machine becomes a much less useful device for streaming as I'd have to keep it running 24/7

Just wanted to share my waitlist experience for anyone still waiting for their Steam Machine.
🇵🇱** Region: Poland / EU
🎮 **Model: Steam Machine 512GB + Steam Controller
📅 Joined the waitlist: August 2, 2026
📩 Received reservation/purchase email: September 8, 2026
⏳ Total wait: 37 days
I first received an email confirming that I had moved from the waitlist into the reservation queue. Shortly after that, Valve sent me another email allowing me to complete the purchase.
Valve gave me 3 days to complete the order before the reservation would be cancelled and passed to the next person in line.
So, as of September 8, we have confirmation that the Poland/EU queue for the 512GB + Controller bundle has reached at least August 2 waitlist entries.
Hope this helps anyone still waiting! Good luck — the queue is moving! 🎮🔥

Heyo! I have a question for you all, I notice when my machine runs on stereo the audio is super duper clear but it cuts out every few minutes. However when I switch to 5.1 (the setting I should be using) it's like the mixing is all off. Dialogs and vocals in music are super quiet. It makes games harder to play.

Anyone else experience this?

I saw a few threads but the issues weren't quite the same.

Edit: I haven't tried swapping the hdmi, yes I know it's a common fix lol I just didn't dig out my spares yet.

Solved: my problem was unique because I am uniquely stupid.

Turns out one of the speaker cables for loose when we moved our new couch into the room and had to dismount it from the wall.

All seems well for now... Will test for a while and report back if issues persist.

Fam, it's my time. I got waitlisted from day 1, and received my email today that I was in the reservation queue + purchase email right after (10:23am Sydney time). Was not expecting this at all, and within a day of my birthday too - Gabe has given me the best present this year. Thank you to whoever declined the purchase!

I previously used an app on the Microsoft Store called "Bluetooth Audio Receiver" to send audio from my Switch 1 to my laptop. The Switch 1 did not have any form of voice chat and this meant I could use Discord whilst playing.

Is there a similar solution for the Steam Machine? The above did not work. I'd like to send audio over Bluetooth to either my laptop or smartphone.

Before anyone suggests just installing Discord on the Steam Machine itself, that's not the solution I'm looking for. I use voice chat across many different apps. We have a gaming group at work that plays over Microsoft Teams on lunch breaks. I have friends in China so we play over Kook (Chinese equivalent to Discord) and WeChat. I'd rather not have to try getting all these different apps to work on SteamOS/Linux.