Chromebook Spin 713-2W the infamous "ChromeOS is missing or damaged" message due to bad memory?

lcon

I have two Acer Chromebook Spin 713-2W laptops. One was manufactured in August of 2020 and another manufactured in November of 2020. The one manufactured in August works great and I use it daily for hours at a time. The other manufactured in November of 2020 crapped out with the infamous "ChromeOS is missing or damaged" message. When I try to restore the ChromeOS, it's a hit or miss (usually a miss) on whether or not the restore will be successful. I see on many forums that this fault afflicts many Acer Spin Chromebooks manufactured in the Fall of 2020. When I opened both Chromebooks I noticed that the one manufactured in August uses Micron memory chips, but the one manufactured in November uses SK Hynix memory chips. Could the infamous "ChromeOS is missing or damaged" and subsequent failure to restore be due to either a bad lot of SK Hynix chips used in the fall 2020 manufacturing, or poor surface mount of the chips with weak solder joints that fail over time? If so, does Acer offer any recourse to Chromebook owners that are experiencing this failure rendering their expensive laptops useless?

billsey

Typically no, the error message is due to a failed storage device, and not really associated with any specific model or manufacture date. Chromebook designs are often geared toward low cost, so they tend to use components like eMMC drives, soldered to the motherboard. eMMC drive have a shorter lifespan that other SSDs, due to a more limited number of writes that can be done before failure. The CP713-2W model series comes with eMMC drives for those versions with 64GB and some 128GB drives, the rest of the 128GB and all the 256GB versions have normal NVMe SSDs and don't have the issue show up as they age.

If yours has an eMMC drive you will need to open it up to see if the M.2 slot for an NVMe drive is populated. It's not clear whether they put those components on the eMMC designs. If the connector is there just purchase an NVMe drive of the size you wish and switch to using that instead of the eMMC.

lcon

I must disagree. The last time that I was able to restore ChromeOS on the November 2020 build Spin 713-2W I ran a memory test and it failed. It subsequently crashed again very shortly after with the "ChromeOS is missing or damaged" message. The only way I am able to temporarily restore ChromeOS is to transfer the M.2 SSD to the August build Spin 713-2W, do a ChromeOS restore on the working August build Chromebook, then transfer the restored SSD to the November build Chromebook. This negates your argument that it is due to an aged eMMC drive. My argument that it is due to a bad memory situation is supported by the the lack of an eMMC drive, the M.2 drive being good, the failed memory test and that many others have experienced the same failure on Chromebooks built in the Fall 2020 after the switch to Hynix memory, but not on earlier manufacturing dates. Acer needs to fess up to these problems being a known manufacturing defect!

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295786#Comment_1295786

Just a suggestion, see if you can find a specialist tech that will change the onboard SK Hynix memory chips for your Chromebook 713-2W as there are other chips available that could fix this issue if you say that the SK Hynix memory chips are the problem, but the cost/availability could restrict doing this mod, but you can try, as I've seen a tech online change these onboard ram chips and it worked, so its not an impossible job.

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PNWFrancaise

Same issue with the ChromeOS errors and instability. The device no longer boots up - even with soft reboots and 3 recoveries.

I purchased my 713 Spin 2W in 2021. I also have 6 Acer Chromebooks I purchased in 2015 that are still working. This thread from Reddit discusses in length the issues with the 713 models from 2020. It appears that this is a hardware issue that Acer is not addressing or honoring. I chose a higher level model (>$500) with the expectation that the device would last longer than 3 years.

One Reddit user mentioned that it took over a year for Acer to acknowledge that there may have been an issue and to begin investigating it. A one year warranty covers basic user/design issues for one device. This issue is affecting thousands of customers.

AddExtension600: I heard back from our Acer support rep today that the problem has been confirmed as a memory fault. They are unable to swap out the main board for another as they can't guarantee that a replacement won't have the same issue (we've had some units go through three main board replacements already and have the same issue). So they have requested the units back so that a component level repair can be carried out, with the soldered RAM being removed and replaced with an alternative brand.