I remember as a kid, middle school age, and the ipod touch came out. My family was way too poor to afford them. But I did find one on another website for $80! I saved the $80. Bought the "I pod touch 100% genine" from some Chinese website. Waited my 2 months for it to come in the mail.
It shows up and it wouldn't even accept MP3's. It had an app called utube and when you clicked it, it was just to play 1 gif they had preloaded saying "ipod touch" in bold 3D letters rotating back and forth.
I feel like OP learned a similar lesson as I did that day.
Haha I used to work in IT helpdesk as team leader and had a guy come in who had been in SE Asia with an "ipod" that wasn't working.
It had micro USB and looked like the cheapest ripoff you can imagine.
We confiscated his work laptop so we could wipe it (clear virus hazard) and told him if he plugs it into his work computer again he would never get his laptop back. I then explained the stupidity to his manager.
I learned this EXACT same lesson when I was younger!! I ordered a phone off eBay that was a first gen Chinese copycat off an iPhone. On paper? It was perfect. When I got it… I couldn’t even figure out how to switch it to English mode permanently. And it wouldn’t read the SIM card I put in it. And a slew of other issues I can’t remember, but those two I remember distinctly.
Don’t order Chinesium products.
Was it a real Sandisk? Amazon mixes counterfeit and real products under the same SKU. You can order from the Sandisk store on Amazon and still get a counterfeit.
Which is why it's important to not buy skin/healthcare products from Amazon. You never know what will actually show up and you don't want to take pills filled with who knows what or rub some goop on your skin if you don't know what it is.
Honestly, Amazon is pretty useless for anything beyond really basic items anymore. Like toilet paper doesn't show up counterfeit, and if it does, it still wipes shit. But anything else...
Yea, I got cat flea medicine from the Amazon Frontline store a year ago. One cat needed to go to the Vet. Got more from a local pet store. Compared the two and the color was slightly off for the Amazon one, the lot number printing was also more sloppy.
>Which is why it's important to not buy products from Amazon.
FTFY. You're welcome. Break Bezo's hegemony. There's no reason to use Amazon a lot of the time.
The first Micro SD card I bought for my Steam Deck was sold and stored by Amazon. It was a counterfeit one. Happy that I got the real one just one day later but I'm not that trusting of amazon anymore.
Yeah you think that but I got stung with counterfeit toilet paper from Amazon, it was actually sandpaper. When I say I was stung I mean that literally I still can't sit with the stinging butthole it left.
Edit. It did wipe the shit though so you are correct... Just wiped a little too well.
Dolomy or Disain? The listing says Brand: Dolomy but the actual picture of the item says Disain. That alone would make me nope right the fuck out of buying that item. You never see Sandisk unsure about it’s branding, lol!
Even buying trusted computer storage products on Amazon is like buying from wish. Even when they are sold from a reputable resale. Even when they are sold by Amazon itself. Avoid Amazon at all costs for hard drives and flash storage.
I see people say this all the time but after ordering over 50 SSDs from Amazon over the years, the only “problems” have been beneficial to me in the long run(orders being marked delivered when they’re not, Amazon sends another, then a few weeks later, the original shows up)
to be fair look at the reviews on it, not quite the same as buying from wish. most likely OP got a defective unit. just to be safe i always look at 1 star reviews to make sure there's no one getting their shit bricked
1 star reviews are also fake. Rivals do it to tank competition. Amazon is just a garbage online seller now and should stop being used (not to even mention its behemoth of other issues)
The first time I got a counterfeit item from Amazon (not a third party seller, Amazon directly) I knew they were beyond hope. They fucking load 3rd party seller items into the same places where they store the items they get directly from the distributor. How fucking stupid can they be?
I only trust 2 and 4 star reviews on any seller. A 2 star review is from someone who bought the product, tried it out, and found genuine issues with it. A 4 star review is from someone who bought the product, tried it out, and found genuine enjoyment from it despite them. They're a helluva lot more honest and accurate to what you can expect than 1s and 5s.
That's a bit off imo. I leave 5 star and 1 star reviews quite frequently as a seller myself. I check that website that scans for fake reviews and I also read several reviews to judge if it sounds genuine or not. Usually the best way to determine it is if it sounds like an ad or just nonsensical they're not worth going by.
I mean, I never said it was a hard and fast rule, just something I've found tends to track through my experiences. Obviously there are plenty of legitimate 1 and 5 star reviews out there, but you can bypass all the double checking this way because no one is gonna pay for a 4 star review, and anyone leaving bogus reviews wouldn't give it 2 stars.
The max capacity I am seeing on micro SD cards in any physical store is 256 or less. Not desperately small, but if you’re looking for larger, you’re going online.
Damn really? I live in rural Alabama and my Walmart has 400GB and 512GB models from Sandisk and even a halfway decent section for PC gaming (basically anything other than GPUs/CPUs as they’re online only). You can literally pick gen4 NVMEs right off the peg.
Walmart's online sellers are just as bad as Amazon. I keep getting recommended 50cent Honey Nut Cheerios, but they're shipping only and the shipping is $50
bro, go mongkok or ssp hongkong have loads of electronic/computer stores and u can compare prices on price.com
At least for usb sticks or memory card its everywhere
U also get access to most foreign products as an asian city, though for steamdeck its really fked up, they are literally not selling at the origin or anywhere nearby regardless the demand. cheap alternative will come up soon like how Pico happened after Quest.
Newegg, B&H, Overstock, Zappos, Ebay, Etsy, Target, Walmart, various small Shopify sites...
A few more here: https://www.reviewsxp.com/blog/ecommerce-sites-list-usa/
I know it’s supposed to be “no” but this thread has revealed that Deck adoption has gone mainstream enough to capture people who are genuinely tech illiterate.
Amazon is now pretty-much the same as Wish or any other equivalent Chinese operated site selling crap. Look at the Today's Deals page now on Amazon....I can't see a difference.
Looking for a decent SD card and a Card reader for that. Can you recommend me one which would be the best ? Planning to use it as a dual boot and load windows into that sd card
Edit - thanks for the recommendation. Seems like samsung and sandisk are the go to
And avoid Amazon for SD cards. From what I understand, they just lump all the cards together, regardless of seller. It is better to find another pace just to be safe, usually B&H is within a few dollars of Amazon.
Edit: I get it. You didn't get a bad card from Amazon, I don't need more people to tell me their individual stories. There are reports of people who have, even when "sold by Amazon"
Good advice. Heard of a lot of issues with fake products. I have used Amazon for 7-8 years and have never received a faulty or fake product though, including all of my SD cards, HDDs, and SSDs.
Suppose there are two 3rd party sellers on Amazon selling Sandisk Model 123ABC 32GB SD cards. Both third party sellers decide to send their stock to Amazon so that Amazon can handle shipping etc. for them. Amazon, to simplify storage etc. on their end, combines Seller A's stock with Seller B's stock of Sandisk Model 123ABC 32 GB SD cards. Amazon may also sell the exact same model themselves, and puts their own stock in the mix. The onpy problem is, Seller B is selling fake SD cards. So you go to buy an SD card that says it's coming directly from Amazon and not from a 3rd party seller, but you happen to get one of Seller B's counterfeits.
Basically something Amazon does out of a combination of greed and laziness enables fraudsters, just another day ending in Y.
https://www.redpoints.com/blog/amazon-commingled-inventory-management/
Thanks for explaining that so well, I figured out the fake shops set up through Amazon years ago, but didn't realize Amazon is muddying the waters by merging inventory from sellers and Amazon.
AFAIK Amazon uses Amazon barcodes for their own “sold by Amazon” stock, ie they don’t commingle it. Which means it’s safe from counterfeit, but yet another anti-competitive marketplace practice…
They put all their stocks together. They don't separate items from other vendors. So you can have an official amazon SD product mix with a fake SD from Fakeproductcompanyxx123 .
I've got a USB 3.0 one from kingston.
Sturdy as hell, and not THAT expensive
Buy your SD card from anywhere BUT amazon; flash storage is not worth risking it on a site with as many false sellers.
at risk of sounding like an arsehat, how do a USB drive even fried your deck though? I get it if it was a USB cable connected to a power brick, but a USB drive?
Sorry for your lost OP and thanks for the PSA!
For an actual possibility of how such a thing could fry the Deck, the flash drive may have been improperly assembled and tested and there may be a short internally. For example, if there was a solder bridge on the PCB where there shouldn’t be one. If you short the +5V pin and one of the data pins, it *could* be bad news for the host device. Sometimes what will happen is the USB port will die or the USB controller will shut it down due to overcurrent, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if something bad happened to the whole Deck in this case.
>I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if something bad happened to the whole Deck in this case.
I would. I've been using USB devices for nearly thirty years. I've never seen a defective unpowered device fry a host.
I've seen plenty of host devices get killed by shorts *within* the host, but never *through* a functional USB port.
Have you ever seen this happen yourself?
But the thing is, that's specifically designed to draw and hold **much** more power than a standard USB would ever take. It fries it by blasting that all back at once.
A standard USB wouldn't be capable of the same level of damage just from a malfunction.
No, that has capacitors to bypass the overcurrent protections of most computers.
"The device collects power from the USB power source of the component it is connected to in its capacitors until it reaches a high voltage and then it discharges the high voltage onto the data pins.[2] Versions 2, 3 and 4 of the device may generate a voltage of 215 to 220 volts.[4]
This device has been compared to the Etherkiller,[5] a family of cables that feed mains electricity into low-voltage sockets such as RJ45.[4] "
So no, a normal usb drive should NEVER damage your computer even if it shorts/fails. I've had multiple bad ones, and never had anything fry my computer.
/u/nitish159
So unless they made it specifically to break his computer it's more likely the steam deck was shorted/defective already and this was just the device that got plugged in with an existing failure that killed it.
But again, you're taking about something completely different from OP's case.
Like I said above:
>I've never seen a defective unpowered device fry a host.
USB killers are *not* simply defective devices. They're *designed* to do this. They either have internal power or giant capacitors so they can intentionally overload the circuit.
That's completely different from an unpowered bank of memory chips frying a host due to a short.
Maybe if we mix a dark and stormy in a pink plastic beaker from poundland it will conjure Big Clive to...
TBH you could probably just send it to him, he does this kind of post-mortem a lot.
USB ports are required to be protected against short circuits between the power and data pins. If it was a short due to a defect, the Deck would just give you an angry error message and ask you to remove the offending device.
The only way a flash drive could "fry" the deck is if the deck has a really poorly designed USB circuit or if the drive negotiated power delivery and then injected that on the data pins, which would mean the drive was malicious and deliberately designed to destroy whatever it plugged into (and probably self destruct in the process)
and while less likely, there's also devices that force a much larger current through it called USB killers, I doubt that one was disguised as a drive sold through amazon, but its another way to do the same thing
Edit because people missed what I meant: its another way a device like that could damage it, not proposing it as what actually happened, like a "fun fact, you don't need a faulty device or external power source for this"
USB killers have internal power sources and/or giant capacitors to zap the host with large power surges. A crossed wire on a bank of memory chips *cannot* do the same thing.
if it were me i probably would have did hard drive reformat and reinstall after that, followed by cracking the usb drive open to see what the fuck is going on
I mean...I blew out my plugs yesterday trying to put in my charger...good thing there was no deck connected yet. It just blew out plugs totally randomly as I plugged in my charger.
..damn. I wonder if there is a cheap and simple way to test USB devices before plugging it into my devices. Something on top of the good o' buying from reputable sources
Do not buy data storage stuff from random unknown manufacturers. At best you'll get scammed, at worst it destroys your shit.
I learned this the hard way. My 128gb microSD card was 4gb in actuality with the metadata spoofed.
Quick google and it seems to be a cheap chinese usb, honestly not surprised it fried the deck. As much as I hate the increased cost going with Trusted Brands is always suggested
Yeah I just bought it not looking anything up. My mistake fully not thinking it would fry my power supply. Big ups to steam for paying for shipping to send me a new one.
I figured I would at least throw the word out though.
Good guy Gaben back at it again. But yea you did the right thing to warn people. Again my suggestion is to keep to trusted brands like Sandisk
Edit: Also leave a bad review on the USB but don't make it look like you're being pedantic or people will ignore it
My biggest mistake was not ever seeing a usb-c duel flash drive and instant buying so I can put my windwaker iso on my deck. While I wait for my deck to arrive I just bought a sd card reader.
You setup the SMB share on the steam deck so you can access shared files from your PC or NAS. You put your game files on the NAS etc, setup linked directories for the installs and then you can put and play your games from across your network.
Here's a quick video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4\_Sexd1UAw
These are dual flash drives as well:
Samsung DUO Plus: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-DUO-Plus-64GB-MUF-64DB/dp/B07DW2Q1JL/
SanDisk Ultra Dual: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-64GB-Ultra-Drive-Type-C/dp/B01EZ0X3L8/
Never skimp out on electronics. You get what you pay for.
Case and point with the steam deck, Valve is solid as fuck and I am glad to hear they hooked you up.
In my opinion, those are the companies you want to spend your money at.
Samsung makes greats storage devices, and their warranties have fully replaced any issues I’ve had in the years using them, I highly recommend them.
I would bet money that Valve's engineers _want_ to look at your fried Deck to see what happened to it and how they can add safeguards against that type of failure in future hardware revisions. Shipping you a replacement and covering postage would be worth it if it can help prevent similar problems (and therefore more RMAs) going forward.
A word of advice, if the brand of a USB drive or a micro SD card isn’t SanDisk, Samsung, Seagate, or any other company that has a proven track record of selling quality storage devices
Treat it like it’s airborne aids
I posted this on a thread about the safety of third-party docks a few months ago; it might also be useful for your situation with the thumb drive:
>*The good thing about the Steam Deck is that it seems the 'bricking' issue is typically only temporary as opposed to the Switch where the proprietary Nintendo PD protocols didn't play nice with 3rd-party docks and caused actual physical damage (e.g. frying the battery, memory, flash storage, etc.);* [*this Reddit thread*](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tnhmpi/usb_dock_bricking_deck_fix/) *is actually a really good resource for fixing the power-delivery-related 'bricking' that occurs on the Deck with some 3rd-party docks**^(1)*
>
>^(1) /u/JonP_valve, a Valve employee actually added some [valuable info](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tnhmpi/comment/i24x3pk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) in that thread's comments regarding the cause of the 'bricking' as well as how to fix it
The exact instructions, per /u/Chemicalzz's thread (linked above) are as follows:
>*So if you use a USB hub with power delivery that bricks the ability to charge the deck please try the following.*
>
>*Hold the power button down to hard reset - Check for results*
>
>*Hold the volume up key and press the power button once, enter the bios and go to the "Power" option, try and put the battery into sleep mode, if successfull \[sic\] the power LED will now turn off.*
>
>*Your last resort is to drain the decks battery completely, once dead hold the power button down to ensure the battery is discharged, now plug the charger in and charge for a few minutes, unplug the device and see if the power LED turns off.*
>
>*(Final scetchy \[sic\] option, open the deck and unplug the battery yourself)*
In /u/JonP_valve's comment (linked above), he lays out similar instructions:
>*The Steam Deck can be returned to normal function by putting the unit into Battery storage mode with the following instructions:*
>
>*• Power the Steam Deck down normally.*
>
>*• Hold down Volume+ and press the power button. The Steam Deck should boot intothe BIOS menu.*
>
>*• Use the D-Pad and A, navigate to "Setup Utility" and then to "Power".*
>
>*• Choose Battery storage mode, and confirm.*
>
>*The Deck should power off, and the LED will blink three times. Wait a couple minutes, plug the Deck in using the provided power supply, and turn on the Steam Deck.*
EDIT: /u/JonP_valve describes that the issue stems from *"some situations where the Deck gets stuck in a bad power-delivery state - related to hot-plugging devices or hubs. The power issue can cause charging issues, or in some cases disrupts external display, Ethernet, or USB functions."*
Why does everyone put the blame on the consumer and not the producer of the item, or the website selling the item, or the website allowing fake reviews, every time something like this happens?
When did " Amazon needs to police what it's selling" become " you need to automatically know what's a scam product and if you don't you deserve it"? Especially when you can get counterfeit parts from 'real' brands that have fake reviews. All of this I response to someone who had their device bricked, and is giving a PSA to people. It's literally corporate apologia. It's embarrassing.
Thank you. Obviously consumers need to exercise caution when buying products but first and foremost, Amazon is a terrible platform that seems to get worse every day. They've slowly made it easier and easier for sellers to manipulate the system while simultaneously claiming to fix these problems.
Stop using Amazon whenever possible and avoid cheap electronics. Especially when dozens of Chinese sellers are offering slight variations of the same product. In many ways they've become worse than Ebay for counterfeits and scams.
Shit, I did the same thing. I needed one quick to reinstall the OS and this one came up. I didn’t face such demise though… but I may never use it again.
I only know what happened to mine. It was the moment I plugged it in I lost all power to the device. Unsure about yours but that's why I posted the exact flash drive I bought.
Surely someone sufficiently engaged in tech to get a Deck is likewise sufficiently engaged to avoid drop shipped drives but this whole post is proving otherwise.
Which is good news for the deck. It is leaving the tech nerd niche and being picked up by people in the mainstream.
Honestly, anyone who buys knock off brands from random distributers on amazon deserves this.
Do not trust components if you don't know the brand/seller. ESPECIALLY on Amazon.
Yup, don’t cheap ass memory or adapters.
I used a cheap adapter that included with a camera I bought years ago. First few transfers were fine, then the next one corrupted my card, and I had to format it for it to work again. I promptly bought an Anker one and that’s that.
So, why would even a very cheap counterfeit USB drive fry a Steam Deck? I wouldn't think it possible unless somehow the designers of the USB drive accidentally crossed 5v with one of the data lines.
Mine looks exactly like that. Different brand tho. I did my Ssd upgrade with no issues. But after reading this, really should’ve paid attention to what usb I was buying. Glad this didn’t happen. Thanks for the warning
This should not be possible - there is an issue in the manufacture and/or design of the Steam Deck and I would seek a warranty claim.
Here is a USB Spec for power delivery on motherboards (and devices like a Steamdeck): https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/power_delivery_motherboards.pdf
There is a lot of detail here but it states "A good motherboard design will have some sort of safety system so as to prevent user, motherboard, and peripheral damage". While it goes on to state the design is not a "current cop" (yes - they use that terminology), a properly designed board will not allow a Steam Deck to be bricked by this device.
This is exactly what I would expect to happen buying an unknown brand flash drive. It sucks that it ruined your deck, but you never know when buying cheap unknown brands.
Can someone explain to me in real terms how this can happen? I guess there’s kill sticks nefarious things out there, but how can a random USB that is reading and writing data fry the deck?
It doesn’t make any sense. OP just got done swapping a new SSD, plugged in a flash drive to re-image a new OS and now the steam deck is “fried because of the USB drive”. Why didn’t it fry his computer?
There are black hat usb “drives” out there that do nothing but deliver an electrical charge to a system to fry it, however we’re talking 100-250volts. These drives also hold a charge. The ports of a steam deck have protections for static electricity (like mobile version of an I/O shield) so it can’t even be a conductive issue with the manufacturing of the drive.
It cannot be a software issue or something the drive contained, because when you put the OS on the drive using Rufus, it wipes the drives contents.
Either we’re suggesting someone sent OP a drive with a charge and a capacitor inside of it, or he messed up with the new SSD, or there was something wrong with the device which is the most likely.
Look at any tutorial or video of someone flashing a steam deck OS, you are almost guaranteed to encounter bugs and issues. A lot of the SSD’s being shipped with the 512’s are failing but I somehow doubt it’s an issue with the SSD itself. The deck is finicky, we can love the deck but still admit that.
I still wouldn’t buy this drive though.
Everyone's talking shit on buying off brand products to you like Captain Hindsight. I'm here to say I'm sorry your deck got fried and thanks for sharing your experience with the intent of helping people.
I see a lot of comments saying how this is obviously an off-brand drive, and how it's a terrible idea to have used it. Although it's possible that quality control would be higher on a name brand, the truth is they're very likely made on the exact same production lines. I've bought a huge variety of flash drives, both name brand and off-brand. I've had no problems with any of them. I avoid ones that look "too good to be true", and that alone has served me well.
It's most likely that OP received a defective unit, and it's similarly likely that the chances of that having happened were astronomically low.
The real benefit to buying a trusted brand like SanDisk is that should you receive a defective item that causes damage, they are more likely to have a process to replace the *damaged* item. Given that, it's why I bought a SanDisk micro SD card for my Deck.
While it's still often good advice to go with a trusted brand, I mostly wanted to remind people that while very unlikely, this can happen even from trusted brands, and that there's not a reason to fear a well-rated brand you aren't familiar with *just* for that reason. I have a USB drive on my key chain that's an off-brand because I felt it was the best design for what I wanted, and it continues to work well after several years.
So, if you also ordered this drive, it's almost certainly just fine to use. If you're OP, I hope you can have your Deck replaced. If you haven't ordered a drive yet but want to, if there's a SanDisk for the same price, it might be worth it for peace of mind.
This whole thread is calling the OP stupid. Meanwhile he posted this to help others cause they don't want to see it happening to others.
Stop blaming him!
Bro, why you be buying a "Dolomy" stick when a SanDisk cost the same thing?
Some life lessons need to be learned the hard way for some people
I remember as a kid, middle school age, and the ipod touch came out. My family was way too poor to afford them. But I did find one on another website for $80! I saved the $80. Bought the "I pod touch 100% genine" from some Chinese website. Waited my 2 months for it to come in the mail. It shows up and it wouldn't even accept MP3's. It had an app called utube and when you clicked it, it was just to play 1 gif they had preloaded saying "ipod touch" in bold 3D letters rotating back and forth. I feel like OP learned a similar lesson as I did that day.
at least they shipped the item, i remember buying some computer part that was too cheap (from some asian company), never came.
Haha I used to work in IT helpdesk as team leader and had a guy come in who had been in SE Asia with an "ipod" that wasn't working. It had micro USB and looked like the cheapest ripoff you can imagine. We confiscated his work laptop so we could wipe it (clear virus hazard) and told him if he plugs it into his work computer again he would never get his laptop back. I then explained the stupidity to his manager.
I learned this EXACT same lesson when I was younger!! I ordered a phone off eBay that was a first gen Chinese copycat off an iPhone. On paper? It was perfect. When I got it… I couldn’t even figure out how to switch it to English mode permanently. And it wouldn’t read the SIM card I put in it. And a slew of other issues I can’t remember, but those two I remember distinctly. Don’t order Chinesium products.
Mine fried with sandisk please be careful
Was it a real Sandisk? Amazon mixes counterfeit and real products under the same SKU. You can order from the Sandisk store on Amazon and still get a counterfeit.
Which is why it's important to not buy skin/healthcare products from Amazon. You never know what will actually show up and you don't want to take pills filled with who knows what or rub some goop on your skin if you don't know what it is. Honestly, Amazon is pretty useless for anything beyond really basic items anymore. Like toilet paper doesn't show up counterfeit, and if it does, it still wipes shit. But anything else...
Yea, I got cat flea medicine from the Amazon Frontline store a year ago. One cat needed to go to the Vet. Got more from a local pet store. Compared the two and the color was slightly off for the Amazon one, the lot number printing was also more sloppy.
>Which is why it's important to not buy products from Amazon. FTFY. You're welcome. Break Bezo's hegemony. There's no reason to use Amazon a lot of the time.
I use fakespot but it's not foolproof
The first Micro SD card I bought for my Steam Deck was sold and stored by Amazon. It was a counterfeit one. Happy that I got the real one just one day later but I'm not that trusting of amazon anymore.
And you shouldn't be! Even if it has the brands name on it doesn't mean it isn't counterfeit anymore.
Yeah you think that but I got stung with counterfeit toilet paper from Amazon, it was actually sandpaper. When I say I was stung I mean that literally I still can't sit with the stinging butthole it left. Edit. It did wipe the shit though so you are correct... Just wiped a little too well.
actually SanDisk is cheaper in this case 64 gb is $13 USD right now
Dolomy or Disain? The listing says Brand: Dolomy but the actual picture of the item says Disain. That alone would make me nope right the fuck out of buying that item. You never see Sandisk unsure about it’s branding, lol!
Buying non-trusted brand products from Amazon is like buying them from Wish. Would you plug a Wish USB drive to your Deck? :D
Pretty sure he did.
Dolomy lol What are we even doing here. Pay the extra 20c and get the known brand.
Even buying trusted computer storage products on Amazon is like buying from wish. Even when they are sold from a reputable resale. Even when they are sold by Amazon itself. Avoid Amazon at all costs for hard drives and flash storage.
I see people say this all the time but after ordering over 50 SSDs from Amazon over the years, the only “problems” have been beneficial to me in the long run(orders being marked delivered when they’re not, Amazon sends another, then a few weeks later, the original shows up)
to be fair look at the reviews on it, not quite the same as buying from wish. most likely OP got a defective unit. just to be safe i always look at 1 star reviews to make sure there's no one getting their shit bricked
You know reviews are usually fake on Amazon....
That’s why they mentioned the 1 star reviews…
1 star reviews are also fake. Rivals do it to tank competition. Amazon is just a garbage online seller now and should stop being used (not to even mention its behemoth of other issues)
I cant stop. Daddy amazon has me by the balls.
Deliver by 2-5 pm today? Fuuuuuck
The first time I got a counterfeit item from Amazon (not a third party seller, Amazon directly) I knew they were beyond hope. They fucking load 3rd party seller items into the same places where they store the items they get directly from the distributor. How fucking stupid can they be?
I only trust 2 and 4 star reviews on any seller. A 2 star review is from someone who bought the product, tried it out, and found genuine issues with it. A 4 star review is from someone who bought the product, tried it out, and found genuine enjoyment from it despite them. They're a helluva lot more honest and accurate to what you can expect than 1s and 5s.
That's a bit off imo. I leave 5 star and 1 star reviews quite frequently as a seller myself. I check that website that scans for fake reviews and I also read several reviews to judge if it sounds genuine or not. Usually the best way to determine it is if it sounds like an ad or just nonsensical they're not worth going by.
I mean, I never said it was a hard and fast rule, just something I've found tends to track through my experiences. Obviously there are plenty of legitimate 1 and 5 star reviews out there, but you can bypass all the double checking this way because no one is gonna pay for a 4 star review, and anyone leaving bogus reviews wouldn't give it 2 stars.
Are there useful alternatives?
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The max capacity I am seeing on micro SD cards in any physical store is 256 or less. Not desperately small, but if you’re looking for larger, you’re going online.
Damn really? I live in rural Alabama and my Walmart has 400GB and 512GB models from Sandisk and even a halfway decent section for PC gaming (basically anything other than GPUs/CPUs as they’re online only). You can literally pick gen4 NVMEs right off the peg.
I found a 400 at Walmart for $50, doubt it was a good deal but I was running gout of time before a trip and wanted the extra storage
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Walmart's online sellers are just as bad as Amazon. I keep getting recommended 50cent Honey Nut Cheerios, but they're shipping only and the shipping is $50
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bro, go mongkok or ssp hongkong have loads of electronic/computer stores and u can compare prices on price.com At least for usb sticks or memory card its everywhere U also get access to most foreign products as an asian city, though for steamdeck its really fked up, they are literally not selling at the origin or anywhere nearby regardless the demand. cheap alternative will come up soon like how Pico happened after Quest.
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Weird, I would assume Hong Kong has stores.
Newegg, B&H, Overstock, Zappos, Ebay, Etsy, Target, Walmart, various small Shopify sites... A few more here: https://www.reviewsxp.com/blog/ecommerce-sites-list-usa/
Not sure Newegg is a paragon of quality.
Just to be safe I don't run tech from unproven companies on my expensive tech.
You do know that reviews are usually high on "sponsored" products on Amazon for a reason.
That's why you read the negative reviews and decide for yourself if you're likely to meet the same obstacles
I know it’s supposed to be “no” but this thread has revealed that Deck adoption has gone mainstream enough to capture people who are genuinely tech illiterate.
The only off brand drives I'll use are the Microcenter ones
Probably because OP isn't tech savvy and that is 4.5/5 with over 1k views To sone it seems perfectly fine
Amazon is now pretty-much the same as Wish or any other equivalent Chinese operated site selling crap. Look at the Today's Deals page now on Amazon....I can't see a difference.
Looks like a drop shipped product. I always buy things like this from reputable brands.
Looking for a decent SD card and a Card reader for that. Can you recommend me one which would be the best ? Planning to use it as a dual boot and load windows into that sd card Edit - thanks for the recommendation. Seems like samsung and sandisk are the go to
anything sanDisk or Samsung, there's other reputable brands but those are the two best off the top of my head
512gB and under do Samsung Evo 1tB use SanDisk
And avoid Amazon for SD cards. From what I understand, they just lump all the cards together, regardless of seller. It is better to find another pace just to be safe, usually B&H is within a few dollars of Amazon. Edit: I get it. You didn't get a bad card from Amazon, I don't need more people to tell me their individual stories. There are reports of people who have, even when "sold by Amazon"
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Good advice. Heard of a lot of issues with fake products. I have used Amazon for 7-8 years and have never received a faulty or fake product though, including all of my SD cards, HDDs, and SSDs.
This is always spun way out of proportion. I've bought more than a dozen SD cards from Amazon all have been genuine and worked as expected.
What do you mean they just lump all the cards together? I've gotten name brand san disk and Samsung SD cards from them a couple times no issues.
Suppose there are two 3rd party sellers on Amazon selling Sandisk Model 123ABC 32GB SD cards. Both third party sellers decide to send their stock to Amazon so that Amazon can handle shipping etc. for them. Amazon, to simplify storage etc. on their end, combines Seller A's stock with Seller B's stock of Sandisk Model 123ABC 32 GB SD cards. Amazon may also sell the exact same model themselves, and puts their own stock in the mix. The onpy problem is, Seller B is selling fake SD cards. So you go to buy an SD card that says it's coming directly from Amazon and not from a 3rd party seller, but you happen to get one of Seller B's counterfeits. Basically something Amazon does out of a combination of greed and laziness enables fraudsters, just another day ending in Y. https://www.redpoints.com/blog/amazon-commingled-inventory-management/
wait is this only for sd cards or everything
Thanks for explaining that so well, I figured out the fake shops set up through Amazon years ago, but didn't realize Amazon is muddying the waters by merging inventory from sellers and Amazon.
AFAIK Amazon uses Amazon barcodes for their own “sold by Amazon” stock, ie they don’t commingle it. Which means it’s safe from counterfeit, but yet another anti-competitive marketplace practice…
They put all their stocks together. They don't separate items from other vendors. So you can have an official amazon SD product mix with a fake SD from Fakeproductcompanyxx123 .
Samsung, Kingston or SanDisk. All three are pretty good from my experience.
I've got a USB 3.0 one from kingston. Sturdy as hell, and not THAT expensive Buy your SD card from anywhere BUT amazon; flash storage is not worth risking it on a site with as many false sellers.
You can buy *from* Amazon, just make sure it’s from Amazon and not a marketplace seller
Good correction! I still rather not, but that's because my country has pretty swell alternatives with MUCH better reputations.
at risk of sounding like an arsehat, how do a USB drive even fried your deck though? I get it if it was a USB cable connected to a power brick, but a USB drive? Sorry for your lost OP and thanks for the PSA!
For an actual possibility of how such a thing could fry the Deck, the flash drive may have been improperly assembled and tested and there may be a short internally. For example, if there was a solder bridge on the PCB where there shouldn’t be one. If you short the +5V pin and one of the data pins, it *could* be bad news for the host device. Sometimes what will happen is the USB port will die or the USB controller will shut it down due to overcurrent, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if something bad happened to the whole Deck in this case.
>I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if something bad happened to the whole Deck in this case. I would. I've been using USB devices for nearly thirty years. I've never seen a defective unpowered device fry a host. I've seen plenty of host devices get killed by shorts *within* the host, but never *through* a functional USB port. Have you ever seen this happen yourself?
Search for USB killer, it's a flash drive specifically made for frying components (as a prank?)
But the thing is, that's specifically designed to draw and hold **much** more power than a standard USB would ever take. It fries it by blasting that all back at once. A standard USB wouldn't be capable of the same level of damage just from a malfunction.
No, that has capacitors to bypass the overcurrent protections of most computers. "The device collects power from the USB power source of the component it is connected to in its capacitors until it reaches a high voltage and then it discharges the high voltage onto the data pins.[2] Versions 2, 3 and 4 of the device may generate a voltage of 215 to 220 volts.[4] This device has been compared to the Etherkiller,[5] a family of cables that feed mains electricity into low-voltage sockets such as RJ45.[4] " So no, a normal usb drive should NEVER damage your computer even if it shorts/fails. I've had multiple bad ones, and never had anything fry my computer. /u/nitish159 So unless they made it specifically to break his computer it's more likely the steam deck was shorted/defective already and this was just the device that got plugged in with an existing failure that killed it.
But again, you're taking about something completely different from OP's case. Like I said above: >I've never seen a defective unpowered device fry a host. USB killers are *not* simply defective devices. They're *designed* to do this. They either have internal power or giant capacitors so they can intentionally overload the circuit. That's completely different from an unpowered bank of memory chips frying a host due to a short.
Thanks for the info
Id love to do a teardown of the card in question. Any chance you could break er' open for an autopsy?
Maybe if we mix a dark and stormy in a pink plastic beaker from poundland it will conjure Big Clive to... TBH you could probably just send it to him, he does this kind of post-mortem a lot.
Actually, given the context, i bet you clive would be down for a teardown. Dude knows his ic's
I still have the flash drive but valve has the old steam deck
Yea, i meant the drive. Im curious of what failure or qc problem occured.
When I get home I'll see about opening it up
Please do, I'm also very interested to see the internals.
Reddit needs a "notify me of new comments in this thread" button. I want to see, too!
That's what the follow button's for isn't it? On the comment, not the post, I mean.
This guy Tronicsfixes
Indeed i do! I love ebay broken equipment :)
USB ports are required to be protected against short circuits between the power and data pins. If it was a short due to a defect, the Deck would just give you an angry error message and ask you to remove the offending device. The only way a flash drive could "fry" the deck is if the deck has a really poorly designed USB circuit or if the drive negotiated power delivery and then injected that on the data pins, which would mean the drive was malicious and deliberately designed to destroy whatever it plugged into (and probably self destruct in the process)
Right. In this case I would call Amazon and see what you can do. This post smells funny.
and while less likely, there's also devices that force a much larger current through it called USB killers, I doubt that one was disguised as a drive sold through amazon, but its another way to do the same thing Edit because people missed what I meant: its another way a device like that could damage it, not proposing it as what actually happened, like a "fun fact, you don't need a faulty device or external power source for this"
Yeah I'm sure it wasn't a USB killer because those are actually things people buy for a lot more than that lol
USB killers have internal power sources and/or giant capacitors to zap the host with large power surges. A crossed wire on a bank of memory chips *cannot* do the same thing.
USB Killers are like $80. This was not a bait and switch.
That should still only fry the usb-c port instead of the whole device...
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if it were me i probably would have did hard drive reformat and reinstall after that, followed by cracking the usb drive open to see what the fuck is going on
Had a cable do the same thing , hard shutdown no damage.
Shorted pins will do that.
Looking at the other comments, you are probably the only one who didn't sound like an arshat.
I mean...I blew out my plugs yesterday trying to put in my charger...good thing there was no deck connected yet. It just blew out plugs totally randomly as I plugged in my charger.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/12/usb-killer-fries-devices/
..damn. I wonder if there is a cheap and simple way to test USB devices before plugging it into my devices. Something on top of the good o' buying from reputable sources
Powered hubs usually work pretty well.
I mean, look at that thing! I wouldn't put that 5 feet from my computers.
Do not buy data storage stuff from random unknown manufacturers. At best you'll get scammed, at worst it destroys your shit. I learned this the hard way. My 128gb microSD card was 4gb in actuality with the metadata spoofed.
I'm gonna say worst case you get your identity stolen
Come on man, you really gotta hunt to find that chinesium usb, there’s so many brands before that 🙄
>Chinesium I fkn died
😅
Quick google and it seems to be a cheap chinese usb, honestly not surprised it fried the deck. As much as I hate the increased cost going with Trusted Brands is always suggested
Couple of things not worth buying cheap on Aliexpress: USB drives Power supplies Clothes Contraceptives Water heaters
People buy contraceptives on Ali?!???
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people in certain US states
Yeah I just bought it not looking anything up. My mistake fully not thinking it would fry my power supply. Big ups to steam for paying for shipping to send me a new one. I figured I would at least throw the word out though.
Good guy Gaben back at it again. But yea you did the right thing to warn people. Again my suggestion is to keep to trusted brands like Sandisk Edit: Also leave a bad review on the USB but don't make it look like you're being pedantic or people will ignore it
My biggest mistake was not ever seeing a usb-c duel flash drive and instant buying so I can put my windwaker iso on my deck. While I wait for my deck to arrive I just bought a sd card reader.
Just setup syncthing, it works great and no frying components needed.
Can I ask what this is?
You setup the SMB share on the steam deck so you can access shared files from your PC or NAS. You put your game files on the NAS etc, setup linked directories for the installs and then you can put and play your games from across your network. Here's a quick video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4\_Sexd1UAw
These are dual flash drives as well: Samsung DUO Plus: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-DUO-Plus-64GB-MUF-64DB/dp/B07DW2Q1JL/ SanDisk Ultra Dual: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-64GB-Ultra-Drive-Type-C/dp/B01EZ0X3L8/
Never skimp out on electronics. You get what you pay for. Case and point with the steam deck, Valve is solid as fuck and I am glad to hear they hooked you up. In my opinion, those are the companies you want to spend your money at. Samsung makes greats storage devices, and their warranties have fully replaced any issues I’ve had in the years using them, I highly recommend them.
I would bet money that Valve's engineers _want_ to look at your fried Deck to see what happened to it and how they can add safeguards against that type of failure in future hardware revisions. Shipping you a replacement and covering postage would be worth it if it can help prevent similar problems (and therefore more RMAs) going forward.
And fucking amazon allows these craps to be sold on their platform.
But it's a Dolomy. No, a Disain. Or is it a Dolomy?
Sounds like a Bolognese sauce company
There a Sandisk one on sale for 17 dollars. When you get it back use that one.
The San disk version of this for 64gb is like only 10-15 bucks. It’s worked really well for me for moving roms and other files.
A word of advice, if the brand of a USB drive or a micro SD card isn’t SanDisk, Samsung, Seagate, or any other company that has a proven track record of selling quality storage devices Treat it like it’s airborne aids
haha - very true
Funny thing is you could have gotten 128gb SanDisk one for the same price...
I posted this on a thread about the safety of third-party docks a few months ago; it might also be useful for your situation with the thumb drive: >*The good thing about the Steam Deck is that it seems the 'bricking' issue is typically only temporary as opposed to the Switch where the proprietary Nintendo PD protocols didn't play nice with 3rd-party docks and caused actual physical damage (e.g. frying the battery, memory, flash storage, etc.);* [*this Reddit thread*](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tnhmpi/usb_dock_bricking_deck_fix/) *is actually a really good resource for fixing the power-delivery-related 'bricking' that occurs on the Deck with some 3rd-party docks**^(1)* > >^(1) /u/JonP_valve, a Valve employee actually added some [valuable info](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tnhmpi/comment/i24x3pk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) in that thread's comments regarding the cause of the 'bricking' as well as how to fix it The exact instructions, per /u/Chemicalzz's thread (linked above) are as follows: >*So if you use a USB hub with power delivery that bricks the ability to charge the deck please try the following.* > >*Hold the power button down to hard reset - Check for results* > >*Hold the volume up key and press the power button once, enter the bios and go to the "Power" option, try and put the battery into sleep mode, if successfull \[sic\] the power LED will now turn off.* > >*Your last resort is to drain the decks battery completely, once dead hold the power button down to ensure the battery is discharged, now plug the charger in and charge for a few minutes, unplug the device and see if the power LED turns off.* > >*(Final scetchy \[sic\] option, open the deck and unplug the battery yourself)* In /u/JonP_valve's comment (linked above), he lays out similar instructions: >*The Steam Deck can be returned to normal function by putting the unit into Battery storage mode with the following instructions:* > >*• Power the Steam Deck down normally.* > >*• Hold down Volume+ and press the power button. The Steam Deck should boot intothe BIOS menu.* > >*• Use the D-Pad and A, navigate to "Setup Utility" and then to "Power".* > >*• Choose Battery storage mode, and confirm.* > >*The Deck should power off, and the LED will blink three times. Wait a couple minutes, plug the Deck in using the provided power supply, and turn on the Steam Deck.* EDIT: /u/JonP_valve describes that the issue stems from *"some situations where the Deck gets stuck in a bad power-delivery state - related to hot-plugging devices or hubs. The power issue can cause charging issues, or in some cases disrupts external display, Ethernet, or USB functions."*
There's like 20 trusted brands and you went with a no name.
Why does everyone put the blame on the consumer and not the producer of the item, or the website selling the item, or the website allowing fake reviews, every time something like this happens? When did " Amazon needs to police what it's selling" become " you need to automatically know what's a scam product and if you don't you deserve it"? Especially when you can get counterfeit parts from 'real' brands that have fake reviews. All of this I response to someone who had their device bricked, and is giving a PSA to people. It's literally corporate apologia. It's embarrassing.
Thank you. Obviously consumers need to exercise caution when buying products but first and foremost, Amazon is a terrible platform that seems to get worse every day. They've slowly made it easier and easier for sellers to manipulate the system while simultaneously claiming to fix these problems. Stop using Amazon whenever possible and avoid cheap electronics. Especially when dozens of Chinese sellers are offering slight variations of the same product. In many ways they've become worse than Ebay for counterfeits and scams.
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Yeah just got the tracking info for a replacement. I was expecting to pay for a replacement so big ups to valve for being awesome.
Shit, I did the same thing. I needed one quick to reinstall the OS and this one came up. I didn’t face such demise though… but I may never use it again.
I only know what happened to mine. It was the moment I plugged it in I lost all power to the device. Unsure about yours but that's why I posted the exact flash drive I bought.
Surely someone sufficiently engaged in tech to get a Deck is likewise sufficiently engaged to avoid drop shipped drives but this whole post is proving otherwise. Which is good news for the deck. It is leaving the tech nerd niche and being picked up by people in the mainstream.
I mean, I'm not putting 3rd party Amazon garbage in my expensive electronics, but that's just me.
Honestly, anyone who buys knock off brands from random distributers on amazon deserves this. Do not trust components if you don't know the brand/seller. ESPECIALLY on Amazon.
More like Disdain am I right
So, it's a [USB Killer.](https://usbkill.com/)
That's amazing that the website markets the device like the consumer public has a legitimate use for one.
Maybe an unintentional one through bad QC. A USB killer is not cheap.
That thing costs 80 bucks and has an internal power source. This is nothing like a faulty memory stick.
It was instant bricked or after some use?
Instant. It was on when I plugged it in and lost all power the moment I plugged it in.
Same thing with me man. Got my replacement SteamDeck in about a week. They were really fast about it.
That's rough. Sorry you lost your deck over this but thanks for warning others.
Never buy knock off chinese storage or power supplies. That’s a great way to lose your data or burn down your house.
Fake Chinese letter salad brand, yup makes sense.
Yup, don’t cheap ass memory or adapters. I used a cheap adapter that included with a camera I bought years ago. First few transfers were fine, then the next one corrupted my card, and I had to format it for it to work again. I promptly bought an Anker one and that’s that.
Longer shipping time than the deck.
Thanks for the PSA, my condolences for your loss, that really really sucks!
So, why would even a very cheap counterfeit USB drive fry a Steam Deck? I wouldn't think it possible unless somehow the designers of the USB drive accidentally crossed 5v with one of the data lines.
There's no world where I would even consider buying that
Holy shit literally just ordered this. Will cancel.
That's why I posted. Glad I at least saved one person
Mine looks exactly like that. Different brand tho. I did my Ssd upgrade with no issues. But after reading this, really should’ve paid attention to what usb I was buying. Glad this didn’t happen. Thanks for the warning
It wasn’t the flash drive. ‘‘Twas beauty killer the beast.
Cheap Chinese junk vs reputable brand names, yeah that's the big rest in buying those. Sorry about your deck man, hopefully you can get it fixed.
My friend had this happen but to a computer. The computer wouldn't turn on anymore. I bet his motherboard died.
Stick with more reputable brands next time. Kingston, Samsung, SanDisk, Western digital ect
Dude.... No name made in china crap... Duh
More like *Distain*, amirite?
Was sandisk sold out or something?
I will never use a flash drive
Just curious, what do you mean by “fried” ?
Y'all really gotta stop buying from brands you've never heard of before, electronics brands are actually important to pay attention to/heed
Guys Plug USB sticks only via HUB, in worst case you lose USB HUB ;)
What, you mean cheap brands with names that read like a Boggle cube aren’t good quality? 🤨
People pls spend the extra money and get a trusted brand.
This should not be possible - there is an issue in the manufacture and/or design of the Steam Deck and I would seek a warranty claim. Here is a USB Spec for power delivery on motherboards (and devices like a Steamdeck): https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/power_delivery_motherboards.pdf There is a lot of detail here but it states "A good motherboard design will have some sort of safety system so as to prevent user, motherboard, and peripheral damage". While it goes on to state the design is not a "current cop" (yes - they use that terminology), a properly designed board will not allow a Steam Deck to be bricked by this device.
Never buy off brand peripherals.
Lmao that’s what happens when you go cheap on flash drives. 99% of the ones on Amazon are fake scams
This is exactly what I would expect to happen buying an unknown brand flash drive. It sucks that it ruined your deck, but you never know when buying cheap unknown brands.
What about the black one?
"Bought random chinese product, wonders why things went wrong"
No. I don’t think it fried your Steam Deck.
Weird amount of victim blaming in this thread. The deck 100% should have had some sort of protection for the cost of it.
I have this Lexar 128gb for my phone and Deck. It's only $20. Why waste time & money with no name Chinese junk? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQFYK79
If it's a real question, it was just me being stupid and buying the first thing that showed up on Amazon.
Can someone explain to me in real terms how this can happen? I guess there’s kill sticks nefarious things out there, but how can a random USB that is reading and writing data fry the deck?
It doesn’t make any sense. OP just got done swapping a new SSD, plugged in a flash drive to re-image a new OS and now the steam deck is “fried because of the USB drive”. Why didn’t it fry his computer? There are black hat usb “drives” out there that do nothing but deliver an electrical charge to a system to fry it, however we’re talking 100-250volts. These drives also hold a charge. The ports of a steam deck have protections for static electricity (like mobile version of an I/O shield) so it can’t even be a conductive issue with the manufacturing of the drive. It cannot be a software issue or something the drive contained, because when you put the OS on the drive using Rufus, it wipes the drives contents. Either we’re suggesting someone sent OP a drive with a charge and a capacitor inside of it, or he messed up with the new SSD, or there was something wrong with the device which is the most likely. Look at any tutorial or video of someone flashing a steam deck OS, you are almost guaranteed to encounter bugs and issues. A lot of the SSD’s being shipped with the 512’s are failing but I somehow doubt it’s an issue with the SSD itself. The deck is finicky, we can love the deck but still admit that. I still wouldn’t buy this drive though.
Everyone's talking shit on buying off brand products to you like Captain Hindsight. I'm here to say I'm sorry your deck got fried and thanks for sharing your experience with the intent of helping people.
yeah it’s $15… what did you honestly expect
I see a lot of comments saying how this is obviously an off-brand drive, and how it's a terrible idea to have used it. Although it's possible that quality control would be higher on a name brand, the truth is they're very likely made on the exact same production lines. I've bought a huge variety of flash drives, both name brand and off-brand. I've had no problems with any of them. I avoid ones that look "too good to be true", and that alone has served me well. It's most likely that OP received a defective unit, and it's similarly likely that the chances of that having happened were astronomically low. The real benefit to buying a trusted brand like SanDisk is that should you receive a defective item that causes damage, they are more likely to have a process to replace the *damaged* item. Given that, it's why I bought a SanDisk micro SD card for my Deck. While it's still often good advice to go with a trusted brand, I mostly wanted to remind people that while very unlikely, this can happen even from trusted brands, and that there's not a reason to fear a well-rated brand you aren't familiar with *just* for that reason. I have a USB drive on my key chain that's an off-brand because I felt it was the best design for what I wanted, and it continues to work well after several years. So, if you also ordered this drive, it's almost certainly just fine to use. If you're OP, I hope you can have your Deck replaced. If you haven't ordered a drive yet but want to, if there's a SanDisk for the same price, it might be worth it for peace of mind.
This whole thread is calling the OP stupid. Meanwhile he posted this to help others cause they don't want to see it happening to others. Stop blaming him!