I Bought 8 Broken Handheld PCs - ROG Ally, Legion, Steam Deck - Let's Fix Them!

[@martoyo237]

I see many people mention it, but yes, cloud recovery on Asus handhelds is the way to go, it's easy and straight forward :)

[@Tronicsfix]

They wouldn’t cloud recover. They both gave me errors. I definitely would have done that if I could have.

[@joeclifford183]

Couldn’t you format and install os on the drive before install? I’ve never worked with them before but if their inbuilt recovery system wasn’t working then I’d try and go manually set it up to bypass the asus recovery method.

[@DruidOfTheClaw]

@@Tronicsfix the time and date is 95% of the problem. Since the Internet wants to be all about security, if the clock is more than 5 or 1 minute away from current time, it won't connect to the server

[@zackw7587]

Yes. Make sure the date matches the server or it won't work.

[@Carlos23-t5u]

@@Tronicsfixhey I dropped my studio beats case into water on accident I dried it with my shirt and did everything I searched up on Google and it was in the water for 1-2 seconds and I am letting it air dry I didn’t use a hair dryer and didn’t charge it and I need to know if I should let it air dry for 12 hours or 1-3 days

[@flight_simmer]

FYI, on the ROG Ally, Asus installs an open case sensor that disables all power to the device until after you attach a charger once the device has been reassembled. That's why you weren't seeing the devices power on until after they were plugged in.

[@fadetonoir6152]

Great video, Steve! Although I wish you had spent a bit more time on the Steam Deck - I've fixed quite a few of them, including this exact same issue (MAX IC blown in the exact same way), although I fixed it with pad strips. We saw you check the battery voltage but not any voltages going in or out of the MAX IC - and you had another Steam Deck there to compare it to. The board has been worked on before, but we didn't see you do a complete visual inspection, and I don't know if you noticed but there is a misaligned cap to the far bottom left of the MAX IC, near the QR code, so it would have been interesting to check that area to make sure everything is okay. I think this is worth another look because it might be fixable - perhaps for a future, dedicated video?

[@n4_ku]

There's not much diagnostic. I'm finding his video very low effort.

[@DruidOfTheClaw]

For the ROG Ally and X, you could use the Cloud Recovery which reimages the ROG but ensure the time and date is up to date for it to work. If the Cloud Recovery doesn't want to work for you, you can create a Windows 11 Boot up USB Drive using the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool which is provided by Mircosoft. As for using the SD Card for imagiing, I don't believe the SD Card can be used as a boot up but only for extra storage.

[@SiRTazman1834]

If the Cloud Recovery doesn't work, also check the WiFi to make sure it can see the internet. It could be WiFi issue.

[@MapOfEurasia]

Check if the MicroSD slots on the RoG works, they tend to cook the slot

[@volvo09]

Good point, that is a common issue.

[@Zer01neBDTDev]

Finaly someone that understand that these are PC's not Consoles. The person completely broke the Deck, a new motherboard and it will be ready to go.

[@jacksonapplequist6803]

@@Zer01neBDTDev as someone who works in these steam decks, it's very likely the battery management IC blew up and took those traces with it, I've had to rebuild the traces on these a few times and it's a known issue if you charge the steam deck with 5v power. I doubt whoever worked on this made it worse than it originally was, also it's very likely it's still fixable!

[@Tronicsfix]

@@jacksonapplequist6803Any ideas for what might fix it?

[@jacksonapplequist6803]

@@Tronicsfix for many of these I end up separating the two traces you kept combined, I believe they dont actually end up on the same pad, if you remove the coating and follow the traces to their vias they remain separate, also for stability I create a long trace to match the existing on one of the bottom missing traces you worked on, I can send photos over if you'd like of one I worked on that was in a similar state!

[@KingJohnMichael]

That's why they sell worse than consoles I guess 😂

[@theshellderinslowbrostail5422]

​@@KingJohnMichael at least these are flexible unlike consoles.

[@iainh]

14:20 - On the second ROG Ally, some of the face buttons are turned, especially the "B". Seems like someone was previously poking around that area too!

[@nsos28]

Was about to mention this as well

[@Madblaster6]

14:00 There's a light sensor on the motherboard that puts it in storage mode when the Ally is taken apart. You need to plug in the charger to turn it back one.

[@kingmonkey5011]

You look healthy! thats nice to see

[@Enjoymentboy]

I read the title of the video as "I bought 8 broken handheld PCs legally" and my first thought was 'i should hope so". I think it's time for new glasses.

[@gabrieldias3479]

This reminds me of a funny t-shirt I saw many years ago: I dyslexia ❤

[@mysticaxolotl8215]

I've got near-flawless vision and I read it like that too 😭

[@Randomninja47]

Number 5 needs to have it's buttons re aligned. The B button is almost completely backwards.

[@jams9863]

Good effort on the steam deck, I find using a fine straight tip or razor tip easier to control when fixing really tiny stuff like traces, I use a separate micropen with a .1mm tip, looked like you might've been using a ~1mm one which can make it easy to touch neighboring pins, but its hard to tell for sure. Also great sponsor section, for once I'm actually interested in a sponsorship product. Keep up the great everything!

[@RikuXRoxas2514]

The second Rog Ally that's body is cracked and wrecked the B is flipped. I'm going to assume that one was opened at some point or they got mad while using it n the B turned.

[@mecyanned]

I swear, when i have to do a repair, its always harder for me to fix it - you always get so lucky

[@DG-mi2mc]

Anyone else noticed that B button is on it's side on that white one with the cracked housing? 😂

[@HavasiP]

Been waiting for a Legion Go to show up here. I have one and I'm happy with it.

[@smashpro1]

The Legion Go was oriented like that during the Windows reinstall because it is a portrait-native display, but going into the settings and rotating it 90 degrees is easy enough.

[@SteWood]

Great work on these. Love handhelds. Did you notice Steve, Number 5, the X & B buttons? Haha

[@ilm91]

12:30 You could do Cloud Recovery, it formats the SSD, installs Windows 11 with all Drivers and Software for ROG ALLY

[@gumbypokey7]

On that steam deck it would be interesting to test for that resistor short with the chip removed since that wasn't a known working chip.

[@TEN89_jburney]

You're skills are truly a marvel to behold.

[@Keplerf-vn2ld]

So glad to see you healthy man. thanks for the videos

[@eduardofrances]

With the OG ROG Ally consoles you might want to test the SD card slot, it was positioned in a place that generated tons of heat and fried SD cards.

[@crestofhonor2349]

Heat wasn't the issue with the SD card slot. It was a voltage regulation issue. The Legion Go's SD card slot gets just as hot too when under a heavy load. This is also why it happens so randomly without warning.

[@doguritos]

Man I live in Brazil and I ALWAYS think "there is no way people sell these devices with these minor problems" here we try to fix until we get it done or until we finish breaking it hahahaha

[@eduardotinoco6055]

@@doguritos Penso a mesma coisa. E eu ainda fico na esperança de achar alguma coisa "quebrada" desse jeito para comprar e eu mesmo consertar, mas acho que não vai rolar aqui no Brasil. 😅

[@milkymikez100]

South Africa is the same

[@marleensrain]

QUESTION where do you sell them ?

[@144megabytes]

Ive had modern devices not see the boot medium when the bios battery was bad. I could manually add the efi boot path and it would work. Now this was a laptop and replacing the cmos battery fixed it but it took it overnight to actually hold the fix. At first I thought it was a failure but nope it worked.

[@BowsetteKoopa]

22:31 THANK YOU, STEVE! Oh my god; I was biting my nails like "I hope he does the thing... I mean of course he will right..?" xD 👏

[@UnreaLorenzo]

It's great to see you recover day by day man! Watching your videos keeps me smiling! 🙏🙏

[@DaiFixer]

Another great vid Steve! I've been wanting to pick a PC handheld for awhile now so its very well timed

[@OldMan_PJ]

Aside from updating this BIOS in the ROG Ally try pulling the SSD and use diskpart in a command prompt on a Windows computer to clean all the partition data off then reformat them. Apparently they ship from the factory with bitlocker encryption enabled.

[@MikeB_UK]

Great work. It would be really good to see you try to diagnose more on that Steam Deck in perhaps a dedicated video? Or maybe send it to another youtuber who specialises in such fixes?

[@iansanchez6432]

The handheld repair videos are always the best!

[@brunoflausinodasilva7372]

To install Windows on the ROG Ally, if you don't have a usb-c stick, you can use a USB-C docking station with a USB-A port, or a USB-C to USB-A adapter, and a Widows USB stick. You can download a Windows ISO from Microsoft and prepare the USB stick with Rufus. You might need to download the drivers from Asus after installing Windows. You can do the same with Legion go. It's just like installing Windows with a USB key on a computer.

[@RedSevenEleven]

Have I been asleep the last few vids? Was that your editor doing an ad for flexispot?

[@Tronicsfix]

Nope, that was Robert from the Restorish channel

[@KamenRiderBlackSun]

nice to see that you look a lot better , i hope you’re doing well

[@ReallyRandom-gf3ih]

Great video and I’m glad you’re doing better! Also where do you sell these?

[@KingJohnMichael]

That steam deck one is tricky 😮

[@leandr0elnano]

Hermano usted es increíble lo arregla todo !!!!!!💪💪💪

[@kennymorelandiii9406]

While there has been some issues with these handhelds I am excited to see how they are in a generation or two With how powerful, power efficient and how quickly things like A.I upscaling has improved (DLSS/PSSR/FSR, etc etc) and other things I feel like if you're a gamer there are plenty to get excited about with handhelds in the future. The more competition the better as well. I sincerely hope that the rumors of both Sony & Microsoft coming out with handhelds are true as well. Laptops and PCs have their place for sure but if you can get something that is around the power of like a Xbox Series S with some sort of AI upscaling type thing and capable of getting atleast 4-5 hours of demanding gameplay and also capable of video output man the future is exciting. I can't wait to see what the Switch 2, Steamdeck 2, ROG Ally 2, Legion Pro 2, Xbox & Sony Handhelds can do as it's going to be awesome for gamers especially gamers that might be parents or not able to hog the TV or whatever. TLDR: the future of gaming handhelds is shaping up to be exciting

[@ajaks7636]

Super Steve to the rescue. 7 out of 8; Awesome! Great Repairs and Video! Thanks for the Entertainment.

[@jiwik731]

Interesting how little work some shops put into repairing items. A lot of these was fixed with SW fix.

[@stevenalliet6976]

Hi, about the steam deck did you try to push the power and volume down (same time and for over a couple seconds) because sometimes it display nothing and need that reset it and it turns back on normally, love youre videos 🙌

[@tech_exodus]

On #1, the reason the rails are detached is because its missing screws. And in the legion go the power button color doesn't have to do anything with the battery and everything to do with the power mode, red means it was left in Performance mode

[@Tronicsfix]

#1 wasn’t missing screws. The screws were still attached to the mounting posts.

[@thegees]

we definitely enjoy more manufacturer-order parts but still love enamel wire fixes 😎

[@justbobagian]

When are you listing these gamey boys for sale on your ebay? Great job!

[@Mikelp73]

Jb weld is the best epoxy to this day but the 24 hour set time can be hard to deal with. I usually use jb kwik.

[@Kla2024-s5t]

I love my ROG ally. It’s nice to see it being taken apart.

[@awilliams1701]

did you try re-installing the LCD cable? I've fixed laptops by doing that before. I used to have 1 screen where no matter which laptop it went on, it was pink as hell. I thought the LCD was bad. NOPE! The cable was loose. I removed the cable from the screen, reinstalled it and it was good as new. (I fixed laptops for a living) I wouldn't assume the screen is bad yet.

[@dodgydruid]

Will be playing that godly sound in me head when I do the upgrade on my PC from AM4 to AM5 this coming week and putting on HP thermal phase changing material which is kinda a thermal paste, also spraunced for some Asus TUF peripherals as fed up buying cheapo nastio Chinese mice and keyboards and them not lasting a few months... been back at it with Diablo IV before going back to old World of Warcraft as my fans have demanded my tanky skills so it seems hehe

[@cadmiral3d146]

I had a similar situation with the light where I had to reflash the BIOS. But you have lots going on there. Lol

[@AndyDo]

On the ROGs, you can do a cloud recovery. The image isn't available for direct download as far as I know, so you have to load it via BIOS -> Advanced. It takes FOREVER (or I was doing it during a Cloudflare outage or something...)

[@danielhulan3058]

Oh man. I have been waiting for this video. In the live q and a steve i asked if youd considered doing handheld devices. You said just wait. You had something coming up.

[@guitarhero918]

Yess thank you Steve!

[@awilliams1701]

I'm building a Jellyfin server today. You can be it will get the perfect amount of thermal paste. And since I'm sure I'll have extra and it needs it, I'll be making sure my laptop also gets the perfect amount of thermal paste (it's been acting up thermally lately)

[@awilliams1701]

I also hope I don't need a TPM to install windows 11. I figure 10 is kind of pointless, but I will totally do 10 if I don't have TPM. I'm not waiting 3 days to install windows 11. lol I will need to get one eventually if it doesn't have it. It's an AMD 3600x. It was a spare I had laying around. So was the motherboard. So the whole server is like $500 and most of that is storage. lol

[@devilmikey00]

At least with the steam deck pretty much everything can just be swapped in and out with a few screws. It's such a repairable device, even for a layman. I dunno how much the board that's busted costs, might not be worth it unless that was an OLED model but replacing most boards in the steam deck is always an option.

[@SegaCDUniverse]

You look great bro! Very healthy!

[@eyewitness329]

About not booting from battery after disconnecting it - isn't this a "feature" for shipping those newer stuff? I seem to recall on my Lenovo Yoga laptop, you were able to put it in the 'shipping mode' or 'deactivate battery' (or whatever it was called) - just to be sure it won't turn on when in a box. Connecting it to the charger re-activated battery from what I remember.

[@danielfoldenauer3354]

Holy Steve @17:57 😂

[@AlexVonCrank]

Man, that Steamdeck looked treacherous inside! 😮

[@onexpiece1991]

Hi steve! As usual great vid! Btw do you sell steam deck f7aa mid frame? Mines broke and i tried looking everywhere and wasn't able to find one. Hope you can see my message. Tnx

[@mbradfield53]

Steve looked different in the sponsor ad 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@HH-dv5gr]

Where can I find the list of repaired hardware you are selling?

[@teslameccano9046]

I was looking for a video like this

[@Carlos23-t5u]

Hey I just dropped my Studio beats case Into water on accident I pulled It out Immediately and dried with my shirt and I know not to charge It or use a hair dryer so how long should I let It air dry for? 12 hours or 1-2 days Also looked up and not to charge it

[@NemoGraynameA8]

Where do you buy theses broken electronics from?

[@SuuzieQ]

It'd love to see you fix a playstation portable somewhere in the future ^^

[@matijacerljenko1785]

Amazing, i've learned alot

[@jasonshapiro6420]

I really want an ally x. Where do u sell these

[@donnaber4918]

As a security measure I always remove the harddrive/SSD when disposing of my computers

[@seekret1]

Do the items he repairs get sold online?

[@stuartleckie]

I bought my ROG Ally used and encountered some of the weird windows issues you had, even from cloud. Turned out to be incorrect time and date.

[@Vanu-i4o]

I remember my Steam Deck wouldn't turn on like that and I had to hold some combination of the volume buttons and the power button.... But that is probably not the case for that one with the damage done to it already.

[@truealchiemist]

On the ROG with the cracked bottom, the ABXY buttons are all skewed

[@thomastartu9597]

Here's the future of gaming: handheld consoles. These were not big business a few years ago. And now everybody is fighting for a piece of the pie in this market sector.

[@MustangKevin69]

Take a otc and a usb over land cable fixes alot of that issue

[@HandheldHardware]

These small motherboards don't have BIOS batteries, I think they use the lithium battery. Pulling the plug is like pulling the bios battery, needs some time to start up again.

[@emf_owl]

Do you sell the item you fix?

[@manevillarreal1062]

Hello, what website can I buy broken handhelds?

[@chmarr]

how much will you sell number 8 for ??

[@Mayden_America]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these are just PCs. The Ally's without an OS can just have Windows 11 installed onto them with a USB stick, no?

[@Karthor.]

a resistor does not fail shorted, they just go open

[@Dimensive]

14:37 The X and B buttons are pretty crooked, by the way.

[@yaboynook5865]

You still need to reinstall the rog drivers fyi you can get them from the site

[@Simplystimulating]

Yay new upload

[@mylifeisaparty]

can't wait to watch

[@davea.9570]

The only ASMR videos worth watching on KZbin 👍

[@DarrenAizebeokhai-qf4ic]

Could you give away one of the legion go by any chance

[@confederatefan]

Hi tronicsfix. Was wondering what you are going to with the steam deck? And are you interested in selling it to me? I think I know what it wrong with it.

[@vincentczelusniak327]

I have a bunch of controllers I want to send to you I think it would be great for your video, the best description I can give is all them I had refurbished by DK oldies *big mistake* now everything that was wrong with them is now worst, I even have a wired controller that was fine just need a stick replacement and now when I press L3 and R3 together it grounds out.... so yeah, I would like to send these to see if you can fix them.

[@iamtheliquor809]

Number 5's ABXY buttons were all sideways lol!

[@awilliams1701]

well that steam deck is going to have a lot of good parts.

[@old_dirty_3083]

You should do a video on a car audio amplifier repair. Please.

[@Madblaster6]

Isn't the X under warrenty?

[@windowsxpprofessional]

1. You should always disconnect the battery when working in laptop or these handheld ones. Especially when you replace the SSD since you can fry the PCH easily. 2. When you disconnect batteries, you should wait about 2 minutes or so, because it takes time to boot after a bios reset. 3. When you reinstall windows, always try it with an external usb kf possible, although I'm not sure about the method in these handhelds. ALso, for bios issues it's mostly a oroblem with boot tab. check the boot order. secure boot prevents you sometimes from booting via usb. Keys are stored for tpm and password of the windows lock screen. c

[@MustangKevin69]

I did a mod to ps5 that fixed the hdmi port getting to hot all the heat comes from the power supply

[@LiuKangLang]

Just sayin my thanks. Hope all is well.🙏✊🙌🇺🇸

[@Markothebrave]

You can clone the ssd so they will work in other devices

[@Alfactors]

Are you going to tear down a thirtieth?Anniversary

[@HOURS_OF_INTERNET]

Recently ihave seen some random BS they have literally used hot air blower/hair dryer in hot mode to get rid of screen lines or faulty display i thought you might just give it a try anyway you are not going to use it as you removed.

[@yrrabdotcom]

Watching Steve repair things is like watching Jesus read the bible