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I purchased a Steam Deck OLED about a year ago hoping to play my favorite video games outside of a Microsoft environment (the Xbox Live costs were getting annoying).
Everything worked fine for a while until EA games stopped launching via Steam OS. This fact motivated me to look into dual booting with the Windows 10 edition that’ll be supported for another 5-7 years, despite the commercial editions losing support in October 2025. I followed this guide, and got W10 dual boot up and running with Ventoy and GParted.
Fast forward to 2025, and the new Battlefield 6 beta just launched. I was hoping to try the beta out knowing that I probably wouldn’t buy the game (all BFs since BF1 are COD trash) and that BF4, BF1, and BFV all launch in W10 on Deck.
But then I receive this error: “SecureBoot is not enabled. Learn how to use SecureBoot at [go.ea.com/SecureBoot] (111)”.
I’ve done some research to try to figure this out, following EA’s own guide to enable Secure Boot:
Running msinfo32 shows that my BIOS Mode is UEFI, and Secure Boot State is Off.
Running tpm.msc shows that “The TPM is ready for use” under Status.
Entering Disk Management, right clicking on C:, selecting Properties, Hardware, Micron_2400_MTFDKBK1T0QFM, Properties, Volumes, Populate, and my Partition style is shown as GUID Partition Table (GPT).
Now I enter Advanced Startup to view BIOS settings, Troubleshoot, Advanced options, UEFI Firmware Settings, Restart, and the Steam Deck boots into the InsydeH2 BIOS menu.
From here, EA says these BIOS settings are specific to the manufacturer, so I go exploring. Under Setup Utility, I see Main, Advanced, Security, Power, Boot, and Exit menus to the left side of the screen.
When I click through these, I see the following:
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BIOS Release Date = 08/01/2024
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VBIOS FW Version = 113-AMDSphJupiter
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Current TPM Device = TPM 2.0 (FTPM)
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TPM State = All Hierarchies Enabled, Owned
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Quick Boot = Enabled
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Quiet Boot = Enabled
I don’t see any specific mention of “Secure Boot”.
I have read that the only way to enable Secure Boot is to go through these steps. I don’t have the time or energy to do that now. Maybe this weekend.
Has anyone else gone through similar troubleshooting?
Is the above the right path forward for my use case?
Are there any risks I should keep in mind if I want to enable Secure Boot?
What ways can I protect myself from my n00b carelessness?
Thanks for your time!! I don’t post much, but all the reddit posts out there failed to answer my specific problem. And who on Lemmy doesn’t like more content?
As far as I understand, the steps you linked to are currently the only way to do this. Personally, it’s not something I’d be willing to go through. That guide explicitly states that if you accidentally lose the keys, you’re not able to disable Secure Boot.
Additionally, since the SteamOS kernel needs to be signed manually, this seems like you could run into some “fun times” when SteamOS updates the kernel and loses the signature. You’d need to re-sign the image every time the kernel gets updated.
To me, the risks outweigh the rewards - especially since we don’t know how well BF6 runs on the deck. Of course, at the end of the day its a choice you have to make yourself, but that’s my take on the matter.
Yeah I figured this is the end of the rope for Steam Deck Secure Boot. I bumped the Steam post that the creator of the GitHub guide made to see if things have changed since 2022/2023, but I’m not betting on it.
Honestly if I go through with any troubleshooting to fix Secure Boot, it just means I’ll be bending the knee to EA who are a shit company in the first place. I’d rather boycott one of their games for these shitty practices and play some of the older BF games that at least still have server browsers and don’t require Secure Boot (yet).
Risks absolutely outweigh the rewards on this one, 100%. Hate to see so many EA and M$ shills out there defending all this