Chromebook 11 CB3-131 Bootup Loop. Please Help!!!

MuadDib75

I gave my son a CB3-131 Chromebook 11 but he doesn't use it anymore so I decided to take if for my self. I had installed Google Family Link on it way back when but stopped using that ages ago. The Chromebook asked for parental authorization but I couldn't remember the credentials so I decided to perform a Powerwash. It went through the process fine. I think it asked me at some point if I wanted to update the firmware while I was at it or somthing like that so I said yes and then it rebooted once it was all finished. Now it is stuck in some sort of boot up loop. When it first restared the Chrome logo with the while background pops for anywhere between 10 to 25 seconds then the screen turns black for 5 seconds and then it does it over and over again in an endless loop. The small blue LED beside the lightbulb icon on the front left of the Chromebook stays lit the whole time while it is in this loop. I thought maybe it was applying updates or somthing so I just left it for a while but it never gets out of this endless loop. I can only power it down by holding down the power button. Powered it back up and still no change. I also tried the Chromebook Recover Utility and I selected “Acer Chromebook 11 (CB3-131, C735)” and created the recovery media on a flash drive. When I plug in the flash drive it just keep doing the bootup loop I described. I see the leed flash on the drive and then it goes dark. Tried ESC+Refresh+Power and no luck. I scowered the internet for other solutions that are to many to mention but obviously none of those worked either. I'm not going to loose much sleep if I can't get it working seeing as it is over 5 years old and it wasn't very expensive to begin wilth. It did boot up just fine after charging and before I started messing with it so I figure it's a software issue that I hope can be resolved.

billsey

You might be near the end of life on the drive, these models use an eMMC drive soldered to the motherboard, and they have much fewer write cycles available than the more expensive SSDs. But it also might just be the updated OS didn't install cleanly. It sounds though like you have gone through the process of doing the OS recovery with failures. What specific procedure did you try with the ESC+Refresh+Power? That should have gotten you to the recovery menu even with the OS itself broken.

MuadDib75

Before I tried the recovery utility at boot up I held down the ESC+Refresh+Power continuosly and then I tried it by holding how ESC+Refresh and then tapping Power a number of times. Anything else I should try?

billsey

If the drive has failed then there is not going to be a good solution. Both the OS boot and the recovery boot require the drive to work for it to get farther.

MuadDib75

Looks like it's going into the recycle bin. Thanks for trying to help me out.

ChrN

Tell you didnt trash it. It was fine.

I had two CB3-131 devices, both times I power washed them, it went into a boot loop. All you had to do is download the reinstall and boot it back up. It is easy. After that, power washing works like its supposed to. I think the issue is that the chromebook updates corrupted it somehow, so it just basically need an OS reinstall to work properly again.

if you do esc + refresh key + power key it tells you where to go to download the OS to recover. burn the iso to a flash drive with something like unetbootin, and that's it.

My biggest issue was that the ChromeOS was 2021 EOL. No more updates for Chrome browser either.

So… I just installed Windows 10 Pro on it, installed x64 windows drivers, and I am good to go.

if anyone wants to do it, this is how I did it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/17wea6v/so_i_took_a_acer_cb3131_eol_chromebook_activated/