ACER C7 Failure rate with solution

BedfordITguy

Our school district purchased 418 chromebooks, and out of 418, so far 34 of them come up with "chrome os is missing or damaged". We sent some back for replacement until one of our kids dropped one, which caused the error to come up. After disassembling the C7, I noticed a little chip popped out (TPM), and the SSD drive cable wasn't completely seated, and the clip for the ssd cable wasnt pressed in all the way. I took apart all of the chromebooks that we were sending back with the same error, here is what i found, and the solutions:

 

Remember to unplug the chromebook and disconnect the battery before doing anything.

 

1. The TPM module has a foam pad that holds the TPM module in place while the bottom cover it on it, the foam pad is placed off-center of the socket, which will cause it to disconnect when pressure is put in that general area with the cover on, so I moved the pad, and reseated the module.

 

2. The SSD Cable that connects to the motherboard moves around when the chromebook is shifted or bumped, if this happens a little bit every day, eventually the cable will come loose. To fix this, un-clip the black clip from the socket a little bit, reseat the cable all the way up to the black line on the ribbon cable, then press the clip back on. Then put some tape over the clip and cable to hold them together.

 

This fixed 32 of 34 systems that were put in our repair depot.

 

It seems to me that a little more care could be put into the assembly. I hope acer reads this and corrects the problem.