My HMD (original Vive) no longer turns on properly, the led goes red and Steam VR shows varying messages, usually something like "Put your headset on to wake it" or "Make sure the base station can see your headset" - which obviously I tried both.
This started happening from one session to the next (worked fine one day, stopped working the next time I tried it). I don't think I updated drivers or anything but to be sure I installed everything fresh on another system and it has the exact same problem. It could be the dreaded sweat-problem (I was playing Beat Saber last) but I didn't notice any sweat getting into the headset and I also didn't/don't notice any visual damage.
When I use the settings dialog to look at the usb devices I see something that may be interesting: If I disconnect the hdmi cable all usb controllers show up properly and the LED on the HMD is green but obviously the screen doesn't display anything. When I do connect the hdmi cable the LED goes red and also the usb controllers except for the main one show up as grayed out and start to "flicker".
Also, there is no real difference between direct mode and the other one just the error messages are different.
The headset is almost 2 years old so out of warranty and from what I hear the repair cost is prohibitive and the support bad so I don't plan on replacing it (not with an HTC product anyway) but is there maybe something else I could try?