r/ValveIndex • u/IrishMidgetMan • 6d ago
Question/Support Red light of death on both base stations?
Just got the slow blinking red light of death on both of my base stations at the same time.. (within a day or so of each other)
Is that a common occurrence? I feel like the odds would be pretty low unless they’re designed to fail after certain timeframe.
(They’re both the original stations I got in the kit back in 2023)
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u/Confident-Pepper-562 6d ago
Sometimes its a bad firmware update. There is a process to manually reflash the firmware that does fix some issues.
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u/reickmey 6d ago
Are you folks leaving them in standby mode when not in use? - it makes it so the sensor stops spinning 24/7
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u/NWinn 5d ago
Nope. That is sleep.
Standby JUST powers down the laser array/ emitters, while sleep fully stops the motors spinning.
People use the terms interchangeably, but they are different.
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u/KikSai 5d ago
Would it be best to turn unplug them after use or would sleep be better for longevity?
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u/bellcut 3d ago edited 3d ago
It depends how often you use them. If youre getting in and out of VR several times a day then sleep might cause wear on the motor because starting/stopping is very taxing on mechanical equipment. If you go days without getting on VR then sleep would be better.
Standby is something everyone should use as turning on/off the laser doesn't significantly wear the emitters (as far as I know and have read) whereas time activated does wear the emitters.
So sleep, it depends, standby is basically a turn on and forget feature. Unplugging the device won't really help beyond what sleep mode does as the parts of the board that still receive power during sleep mode are really not components known to fail and constantly unplugging and plugging in the power cable could wear the socket as that is mechanical interaction.
The first component to fail, in what I've seen over the last 6 years and learning to repair these things, is the laser/emitters. The next component to fail is the motor but the laser makes up a large majority of the first point of failure (again, in my experience) so standby would help assist the most common weak link
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u/PastelBunney 6d ago
My 3 base stations from 2023 broke this year ( two in march and one about two weeks ago ) I didn’t realize they had some kind of expiration date and steam support won’t help considering they are out of stock
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u/JackfruitDeep2947 5d ago
I've been running four since 2019 that are left on at all times not in standby mode and all four are still fully operational. If one happens to die I think it's more due to happenstance rather than any usage case.
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u/skyrimmoddernumber69 4d ago
Mostly same but I have two, they have been running non stop since 2019, one failed and was replaced like 2 years ago.
I think leaving them on is fine
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u/DeathByAMarshmellow 6d ago
I had to base stations fail within a day of each other. I had them running 24/7 because I use them often and I heard that frequent spinning up and shutting down causes them to break quicker. After taking them apart and diagnosing them I found that a chipset that handled the calibration went bad. The chipset is speced for 30-35k hours of run time and that lines up exactly with when they both died.
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u/stonecoldslate 5d ago
I know this is going to be one of those comments that we commonly see as “dude solved my issue 10 years ago on Reddit”. Did you happen to snap a photo of which chipset went bad on you by any chance?
I’d love to throw together a diagram even if it means I have to desolder half the damn thing in order to fix one of the base stations, should one of mine die.
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u/RedOneBaron 6d ago
Did you keep them always plugged in and on idle?
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u/IrishMidgetMan 5d ago
Yeaa :(
Unfortunately just learning that is a problem..1
u/skyrimmoddernumber69 4d ago
I keep mine on all the time and I only had one fail since the valve index was released. Valve sent me a free replacement. That was only a couple of years ago that it failed
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u/hardrivethrutown 6d ago
yeah this happened to me a while ago, but I was luckily still under warranty
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u/excildor 6d ago
I’ve been thinking about buying some back ups, mine are from a vive kit I got in 2016, been running almost nonstop since.
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u/davomate63 6d ago
HTC continue to manufacture them. One of mine is 5 years old, another died a couple of years ago. They are in standby mode when not in use
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u/BackieTPD 4d ago
Happened to me before Furality of this year. Had to borrow a couple 1.0’s from a friend. Ended up selling the setup to the same friend because I couldn’t afford new 2.0 stations. Screw you HTC, and your monopoly.
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u/subermario 4d ago
I just had one of mine start blinking red the other day. I will probably try to update firmware but I have my doubts. Luckily I might just move one of my basestations that I have on my back to that side. At one point I was having tracking issues using a haptic gunstock and haptic pistol attachment. Moving from 2 to 4 base stations did help with tracking but only to a degree. I think I can get by on 3 while I wait for the next basestation 2.0 sale.
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u/ReniiVision 4d ago
I doubt I'm really talking about the same thing, but I once came home to my basestations acting strange, faintly remember it being red.
I unplugged the cable from power brick, power brick from outlet, and then replugged everything back together. Haven't had an issue since.
Maybe you'll get similar results? Had mine since 2021.
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u/bellcut 3d ago edited 3d ago
It usually means the laser or the motor has failed. If you touch it and feel vibration then the motor is probably fine and the laser has failed. It is unlikely steam will rma them unless you bought them within the last year (as steam as discontinued base stations).
You can try refreshing the firmware but in all my years of using base stations I've never seen one fail from firmware (not saying it doesn't happen, just saying it's not common) whereas 100% of them have failed from laser failure.
If the firmware refresh doesn't work then the device is dead and repairing a base station is extremely annoying so no one really does it (not to mention working with IR lasers always has a eye damage risk). In which case you'll have to go to vive and order their variant of the 2.0 base stations (literally the same thing, just a different label on the back and a slightly different power brick)
Given they're ~3 years old I'd say they're most likely suffering laser failure and are now paperweights
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u/Weebatron4000 5d ago
valve support has sent my buddy 2 for free, just be nice to steam support and they might completely cover it lol
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u/Flat_Donkey6742 6d ago
Ask the Steam Support. They are pretty helpful and even send replacements (i got a cable replaced)
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u/Tinseltopia 6d ago
What happens if you bought second-hand? Would support still work with the serial number?
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u/hawkdeathpaw 6d ago
in my case no i told them it was 2nd hand from ebay told me they dont deal with it and told me to piss off pretty much
but if you get proof of buy from the seller then maybe-6
u/szogun1980 6d ago
Yup def do that thay sent me an entire new base station
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u/TwoGlassEyes 6d ago
They did that for me as well a few years ago. This is no longer the case. They have been out of the base stations for some time and are not making any more. Third party is the only option now.
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u/Killit_Witfya 6d ago
not tryin to be that guy but psvr2 is $300 and works great with steamvr with a good bluetooth adapter. something to think about. (coming from a former base station fighter)
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u/skyrimmoddernumber69 4d ago
It’s a real love it or hate it headset it seems. My whole family hates it, we want to sell ours. It’s so uncomfortable, the kids want to play VR so badly but they quit in like 10 minutes because their heads hurt.
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u/Killit_Witfya 4d ago
damn i got the Globular Cluster mod its been so long i actually forgot i got it. it hurt my head (and nose) before i got that too
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u/skyrimmoddernumber69 4d ago
Yeah we have that mod too, since like day 3, and it helps but it’s still a terribly designed headset for comfort, it shifts and you lose the sweet spot really easily, I’ve owned like 5 different headsets, and the PSVR was the only one except a Pimax 5K that shifted during play so often it was annoying.
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u/whitesweetlove 6d ago
I don't know what is going on but mine just got the red light of death as well, and I saw a couple of post regarding the same issue recently. Probably the internals start to fail after certain time and thus we are all dealing with this.