[jtadeia]

As you all know, Matt is the best, he fixed the particular issue I was having with my TV.
Thanks, All good

[Matt Devo]

Matt, you are amazing and after reading a lot, I'm in need of some help. I have an Asus Chromebox and had an internet issue during a dual install. Also my firmware back up usb was corrupted and when I follow the wiki I am not able to download the firmware back up image ((Asus) curl -L -o stock-firmware.rom https://db.tt/sLQL9i1p ) using the ChromiumOS prompt as directed. I have tried to use the recovery process, but I'm thinking my firmware is corrupted. When it boots, I can hit ESC and boot from my ChromiumOS usb, but if it goes to the internal drive, I get stuck at unpacking kernel. What I think I need is the firmware rom for my box. When I follow the wiki from the ChromiumOS prompt, my screen flashes a bunch of code and the stops.

Again, thank you for your great work and I will donate for sure if you can direct me though this mess. At one time I had Chrome and Unb running great, but wanted to try a diff setup and got into this mess.

Thanks for any direction.

what type of install are you trying to set up? If you're able to boot / hit ESC / boot from USB, you should be able to install whatever OS you want at this point. If your firmware were corrupted then you wouldn't even be getting video output, so that's likely not the case.

---

As you all know, Matt is the best, he fixed the particular issue I was having with my TV.
Thanks, All good

the issue turned out to be related to the "headless" booting option in the VGA BIOS. I've now made that a user-selectable (and non-default) option when installing/updating the firmware, since it's only needed if you're running a server without a connected display.

[manu08]

Matt, I've been following your videos & wiki but seem to be a little lost after some experimentation.

I have 2 Asus Chromebox's M004U with separate configurations but let's focus on one for the time being.

I followed the instructions from the initial thread to install OpenELEC + ChromeOS. OpenELEC worked fine but I want to instead do a ChromeOS + Ubuntu setup on this particular Asus Chromebox.

I don't remember if I installed the custom firmware and my impatience resulted in me (perhaps) making a mistake I can't fully understand.

So here's the scenario:
- I had the ASUS ChromeBox successfully working with the OpenELEC + ChromeOS configuration by default going into OpenELEC.
- I decide I want to uninstall OpenELEC & instead do a ChromeOS + Ubuntu install, or a standalone Ubuntu install.
- Unable to understand exactly how to do a standalone Ubuntu install I go ahead with trying to do a Ubuntu + ChromeOS configuration.
- I lost all the recovery USB's that were created during the initial setup, so, instead I created a new recovery USB stick using the Chromebook Recovery Utility downloaded off https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1080595
- I put the Asus Chromebox into recovery mode by pressing & holding the Recovery button then switching on the power & letting go off the recovery button to put the box into recovery mode
- On the recovery screen it shows a bunch of firmware info on the top left, screenshot: http://s22.postimg.org/3l19p4kr5/IMG_0428.jpg
- I insert the USB & let the box finish recovering itself, it confirms by saying "System recovery is complete"
- When the box reboots it says OS verification is OFF (with the black text on the top left as mentioned above) and then goes into a command prompt screen after 5-10 seconds where it seems to get stuck, screenshot: http://s18.postimg.org/f8lzznfzd/IMG_0429.jpg

My only option at this point seems to be is to force the box to switch off by holding down on the power button. I'm not able to get into ChromeOS - would this be done by pressing CTRL+L (or CTRL+D?) on the first boot screen that says "OS verification is OFF"? I tried both keyboard shortcuts with no avail.

Appreciate if you could point me in the direction to get this Asus Chromebox back up & running. Looking to do a standalone Ubuntu install, or Ubuntu + ChromeOS. Prefer the standalone because I don't intend on using ChromeOS whatsoever.

Edit: False alarm, my keyboard wasn't correctly plugged in. I reconnected it & got into Chrome OS by pressing CTRL+D. I'll try to run through the steps to get Ubuntu + ChromeOS set up now following the instructions from the initial post. I believe I can continue from Step 4 onwards that says "Download/run the EZ setup script, choose desired dual boot configuration, select partition size"

[Matt Devo]

Edit: False alarm, my keyboard wasn't correctly plugged in. I reconnected it & got into Chrome OS by pressing CTRL+D. I'll try to run through the steps to get Ubuntu + ChromeOS set up now following the instructions from the initial post. I believe I can continue from Step 4 onwards that says "Download/run the EZ setup script, choose desired dual boot configuration, select partition size"

correct. when switching from one dual-boot setup to another, you need to do a factory reset (to restore the original partition setup) then re-run the script from the start, just like before. As noted in the wiki, it's advisable to use the script to reset the boot flags/options to the default to avoid it automatically booting the (broken) legacy BIOS and without a bootable OS.

once you've got that sorted, let's fix box #2

[tml2k2]

please help Matt, after Jan 06 coreboot i'm having problem with the power led on my acer chrome box running standalone openelec, upon system booted the led turn off, i didn't have this problem with the previous one.

[Matt Devo]

please help Matt, after Jan 06 coreboot i'm having problem with the power led on my acer chrome box running standalone openelec, upon system booted the led turn off, i didn't have this problem with the previous one.

nothing has changed in the code which affects that, so I don't know why it's behaving differently. I always recommend powering off fully after a firmware update (vs rebooting), so try that if you haven't already.

[tml2k2]

I start this box all over again back stock firmware and redo everything from scratch. I did reboot, shutdown lots of time but didn't help, upon reboot or cold boot from shut down the first second the led does appear but once openelec boot led is off.

[Takashuri]

I start this box all over again back stock firmware and redo everything from scratch. I did reboot, shutdown lots of time but didn't help, upon reboot or cold boot from shut down the first second the led does appear but once openelec boot led is off.

Haha, is this a bug or a feature! I want my led to be off, that thing is annoying

[airix]

Hi, I installed the openelec standalone on my asus chromebox a while back and it works awesome! I'm now trying to restore it back to factory as per the wiki, but I cannot get it to boot from my usb - I get no seabios boot menu, no option to press ESC, I've tried pressing ESC within seconds of bootup and nothing just boots into openelec, even tried several keyboards in the house.
Any ideas?

Thanks

[Matt Devo]

I start this box all over again back stock firmware and redo everything from scratch. I did reboot, shutdown lots of time but didn't help, upon reboot or cold boot from shut down the first second the led does appear but once openelec boot led is off.

sorry man, I don't have an explanation, nor can I really troubleshoot without having the hardware. If it bothers you that much, PM me and I'll provide you a link/script to revert to the previous firmware

Haha, is this a bug or a feature! I want my led to be off, that thing is annoying

http://lightdims.com/

Hi, I installed the openelec standalone on my asus chromebox a while back and it works awesome! I'm now trying to restore it back to factory as per the wiki, but I cannot get it to boot from my usb - I get no seabios boot menu, no option to press ESC, I've tried pressing ESC within seconds of bootup and nothing just boots into openelec, even tried several keyboards in the house.
Any ideas?

Thanks

use the standalone firmware updater to update to the latest/current firmware, then try again. If you don't see the 'Press ESC for boot menu' text, then your USB stick isn't being recognized. If you see it but pressing ESC does nothing, then it's a keyboard issue.

[tml2k2]

Hi Matt, back in coreboot v.3.4 you fixed the Acer missing led light, could this have something similar to that?

Too bad, this Acer cpu is the best cost and feature ratio I could find, does anyone know if the hp or the asus have real hardware acceleration because they don't have intel quick sync, only the Acer 2957u have both Intel quicksync and clear video

[Matt Devo]

Hi Matt, back in coreboot v.3.4 you fixed the Acer missing led light, could this have something similar to that?

Too bad, this Acer cpu is the best cost and feature ratio I could find, does anyone know if the hp or the asus have real hardware acceleration because they don't have intel quick sync, only the Acer 2957u have both Intel quicksync and clear video

the change made to the 2014-12-10 firmware for the Acer LED (a 1-line fix) is still present in the 2015-01-07 firmware, which is why there's no reason it shouldn't work. Intel marketing aside, there's zero difference between the 2955U and 2957U when not using Windows, so those buzzwords are meaningless. All of the Celeron ChromeBox models perform identically.

[prattmd]

Matt: if you want to add working OS to the list: CentOs 6.6 works great using your standalone.

[DarthVader]

I just ordered an Asus Chromebox and it will be here tomorrow. I want to run Kodi on it to stream media from my Synology NAS. I may also want to run Netflix on it, but I also have an XBox 360 I can use for that if it is too much hassle. I want the chromebox to be as user friendly as possible so my wife and kids can use it. I think I will pick up a PS3 remote at future shop for 20$ so have that covered. I'm not decided on what boot option to use. I think the OpenELEC with Kodi sounds the best, but should I use a dual boot configuration to be able to use Netflix easily? Will my wife be able to use Netflix on it in the dual boot configuration without too much difficulty? I've read in this thread about using a single boot option with OpenELEC then putting Chromium on a USB stick. Is that option in the first post as well? (I looked for it, but couldn't find it). Looking for some advice from the community. Thanks in advance

[Matt Devo]

because a dual boot setup requires use of keyboard shortcuts to select the OS, I'd put it pretty low on the usability scale for spouse/kids. Just run a dedicated OpenELEC setup on the ChromeBox (w/PS3 remote) and use the xbox for netflix.