Chromebox CXI3(DT.Z0UEH.002) Fails to boot ish or display output just doesn't seem to work,12 boxes.

We have had these Chromebox's for several years with not issue. Now they are all dropping like flies. The issue is extremely hard to diagnose. I feel it's the bios firmware. But maybe someone can help we have 100's of these in the district and getting more and more with the issue every day. So what is happening is you try to turn them on and no video output. The ethernet lights are active so it looks to be booted but no HDMI output to the monitor. The monitors, cables and power supplies have all been tested and check out. I can usually perform a recovery with a USB drive and the output works just fine. Until it goes to boot into the actual OS then again nothing. I have reflashed them several times with different recovery images IE versions of chrome OS. Makes no difference. Some times you reflash them and they are working but if you take external power away for a little while say to walk the device over to another building to install it then it quits working again. We have tested the internal batteries and they are good as well. Something off the wall we tried was to flash the bios with a 3rd party firmware MR Chromebox and then load up Chrome Flex. Seemed to do the trick and now it works great accept no more sound as the there are no drivers for the audio chip in chromeflex. Honestly from everything we have tried to get these working we feel it could be some glitch in the bios firmware and once its updated to that firmware you have no way to revert it. I have locked the versions back to 126 just to see if that will help but it does not seem to as I had some that have been sitting on a shelf for a long time. I loaded one up it started with version 104 and upped to version 126 but again showed the same symptoms of no HDMI. We do have a Suzy cable hoping to pull some kind of log or something with any insight on to what is going on but we are not experienced enough with it to figure out how to pull a log or if its even possible. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can help. We are at the point of just giving up and having to purchase all new Chromebox's from a different manufacture. Not that the district can afford to do that, but we are at a loss.

[Edited the topic title to include the topic issue.]

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preetham_83

Reset BIOS/UEFI: Access the BIOS/UEFI setup by pressing the designated key during boot (usually F2, Del, or Esc). Look for a "Reset to Default" or "Load Optimized Defaults" option and select it. Save the changes and exit.

Boot Order: Check the boot order and ensure that the primary boot device is set correctly (usually the hard drive or SSD). If you have multiple drives, try changing the boot order to see if it makes a difference.

Secure Boot: If your BIOS/UEFI has Secure Boot enabled, try disabling it temporarily to see if it resolves the issue.

billsey

Any chance do you think that the drives are failing?

DannyDV

Two years later, and now we have exactly the same! One by one the Chromeboxes stop working. Are stuck in the boot proces. OS version 125 - 129.

cmur318

Same issue here since update 129.0.6668.80. I have tried multiple different HDMI's. removed SWAP, power washed, & even complete recovery and issue still persisted. I am currently giving a USB/C-HDMI cable a try and then I'll be upgrading the ram to see if any of that is also a waste of time. I recommend filing a bug w/ Chromium, this way in a year and half you may get a surprise email telling you the issue is obsolete. Sorry you are all also going through this….definitely not fun.

billsey

Yeah, I'd be extremely surprised if it were a firmware issue, since there has been no change there since introduction in 2018. Very likely issues with the OS, but hard to image what specifically.

cmur318

Spoke w/ Google "Support" and they kept trying to have me believe it was Acer's issue and to call here. I had to plead w/ them to reach out to ChromeOS/Chromium to tell them this is not only affecting single individuals but school districts as well. I am 100% confident if there do get back to me, it will be with utter nonsense.

cmur318

No word from Google and can confirm USB-C/HDMI cable & RAM upgrade was futile as expected.

kah107

I am having the same issue with Acer CXI3 Chromeboxes. Just started two weeks ago with OS version 129. Does anyone have any additional suggestions?

ASSISTSheffield

Running into the same issue with Acer CX13 and would appreciate any tips.

DannyDV

There is an active Chromium topic about this, but not much happens there, We now have over 12 chromeboxes that are not starting up. Only a blue light. Stuck in the boot proces.

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/372759423

We have problems with this type: DT.Z0UEH.002

MHi

Even after ChromeOS update 131 which was supposed to solve those kind of problems, nothing has changed. Power down issues and random restarts are still there with my ACER Chromebox CXI3 SION D6Y-A7-E4Q-Q6Q-A75. Powerwash and ChromeOS recovery have already being tried a couple of times.

ACER, please do something! This is clearly a big bug in an update…

billsey

Google is the entity that provides those updates, not Acer. Acer doesn't have any visibility into the OS changes at all that I can image. What does Google say on their support sites?

EGTech

I have 2 Acer CXi3 Chromeboxes in our computer lab that started having issues with restarting multiple times and not staying on as they should. Got them both updated to 131 and problems with restarting/shutting down continued. In my Google admin panel I went under Devices -> Chrome -> Settings and found my bad boxes. Clicked the 'Device Settings' menu and scrolled down to the 'Power Management' setting (Under Power and Shutdown). I changed that setting to 'Do Not allow device to sleep/shut down when idle on the Sign in Screen'. (I put my 2 bad devices in a separate OU). This seems to keep both of them out of the loop of a constant restarting. It keeps them 'on' all day, but students are now able to use these stations again in our lab. If I manually shut this chromebox down now- it will cycle on and off about 8 times and it takes 10 minutes to come on, but it will come on. Goal is for it to not shut down into its loop of restarting so the 'no sleep' setting is working for us at the moment.

roodavis

I posted this earlier today before finding this thread.

"I don't see ChromeBoxes listed as a product type. Please redirect me to the appropriate discussion group if necessary.

We have 150+ CXI3-4GNKM4 CHROME/3867U/BT/4G/32GB MMC deployed in March of 2021. So not quite four years old and lately they have been dropping like dead flies. The general assumption is a video out issue. Very hard to troubleshoot past this initial issue/assumption. I currently have about 30+ sitting useless on a shelf. Most of the hardware repair companies we contact suggest that they are not worth the time to diagnose for repair and instead send us a quote for replacement devices.

These devices have an AUE of June 2028. We based our replacement cycle on this date -2yrs. Should we seriously only expect 3-4 years usage? I am looking at a shelf of retired 2012 Mac Minis that I may install ChromeOS Flex on instead."

I have approximately 30 ViewSonic branded ChromeBoxes that do not have this issue. So it is looking like I have 150-200 Acer CX13's heading to the recycle bin soon. Not good Acer!!

billsey

So, which OS version triggered the failures on your units? Did others go through the same updates without issues?

ESDIT

Hey all. Sorry for going dark. I would have figured I would have gotten and email about any responses to this thread. But did not. Another one of our labs today went to pot so I was revisiting this issue. So I have figured out a somewhat fix. Don't ask me why this works but it does. For the most part. I do still have a handful of units like 5 that still don't respond but that's better than 300.

So on to the crazy fix. You will need a working Chromebox connected to a monitor.

Step 1: Hold the power button in on the affected Chromebox until you hear the fans spin up. This should hard shutdown.

Step 2: Unplug the power and HDMI from the affected Chromebox.

Step 3: take HDMI cord from the working Chromebox that is currently running and active on the other monitor and plug it into the affected Chromebox's monitor. Wait for the screen to wake up and show the display.

Step 4: Now unplug the hdmi from the affected monitor. Push the power button on the affected chromebox a couple times. Just a tap tap tap to make sure its all discharged. Then in this order plug in the original hdmi and to the monitor and then the power. The chromebox should auto boot. You will see the power light flicker blue red ect. and then stay blue. Sure enough the screen will come up and it will boot.

Some other things to note is I have locked the versions back to 126. Not sure if this helps but seems to not resurface once you have performed the steps above.

I believe version 129 is the cause of the issue. But the issue still exists in all versions past this as well.

ESDIT

So a little more to add to the subject. Ok so I have had a new chromeboxes that just refuse to show any video. Even if you try a reset and load from usb drive. Still no video. What I have done to recover these is. Take out the nvme drive and put it in a usb enclosure. Sabrent makes a cheap one that is tool less and works well. Then plug it into a windows machine and run diskpart and clean the disk. I eject and mount the device again to make sure the clean worked. Then put that drive back into the Chromebox. I am able to flash the os back on again with a usb drive as the video starts working again. I am flashing version 126 fyi.

billsey

That certainly points to the issue being a configuration error in the OS. I wonder why a reflash without the step to wipe the partitions first doesn't deal with it…

ESDIT

My theory is that chrome must store some information on the disk that causes the video to fail. Even when trying to go into recovery mode. As a Chromebox doesn't really have a post screen. Well this one anyway. Can't speak for all of them. So its almost like the video ability gets corrupt to the point at which no video will show whether you use the built in port or an external dongle. I have tried a few that I know work with chrome but then this issue occurs they no longer function as well. I have tried triggering the recovery mode and just putting in a thumb drive and just letting it sit to see if maybe it is working but I literally left it over night and nothing changed. From my experience you have to kill the partition table and start from scratch. Since I seem to have a working fix. I'm planning to try and see if I can get the latest OS to work on some of our extra Chromebox's. Last I tried it did not. But that was a couple months ago.