Generally hardware hacking works when generic, commodity hardware is used for single purpose (ie SIM cards for ebook downloading). On the Kindle this is custom hardware. It very specifically avoids competition with smart phone and tablet manufacturers and Whispernet with cell signal providers, yet still provides unlimited, forever book downloading. Basically for Amazon's custom variations on PDF files. Rab77hp provides the hardware answer for this, but I wanted to provide the “design” rational. This business model has to defeat any hardware hacking absolutely. My first thought when these came out was: how could I hack it to get free, unlimited texting usage? Kinda the mirror image what you're hoping to do. Neither be done, at least not without spending much more money and time than buying a new smartphone or tablet and paying for a cell signal provider.
For technical information https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os "From MRChromebox.tech ChromeOS Device Firmware The firmware used by ChromeOS devices is built around serveral open-source projects, and consists (mainly) of a hardware init component (coreboot) and one or more payloads (depthcharge for Verified Boot and ChromeOS, SeaBIOS for Legacy Boot Mode) which are subsequently executed. The firmware resides on an SPI flash chip… The shaded sections at the bottom are read-only, which is enforced by the firmware write-protect screw on the main board" Actually on this model, I believe there’s a switch under a panel on the side to get into Developer Mode. This will also erase the SSD. Also Chrome OS partition layout is crazy, with about a dozen partitions. It only gets more complicated from there. Have you looked into Crouton?
Get into Developer Mode as described in https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices/samsung-series-5-chromebook Download firmware from MrChromebox.tech. There’s more instructions there and elsewhere on the web, even another site or two for the boot firmware. (try Github) But I’m going to stop there, because the solid state drive is far too small to do anything useful with Win10, or nearly any other operating system. It’s painfully slow and buggy. You might try Gallium linux, or Chromium (the open source version of ChromeOS), but still… this is mainly learning exercise, and a bigger hazard than bricking, because; Yes, its doable, but the results are disappointing. Fortunately this Chromebook is cheap enough compared other notebooks that you might want to try it, but don’t expect premium online games to work.
This is a bit overdramatic, especially now in 2018, when a new Samsung Chromebook 3, with twice the RAM memory is going for $150 at Walmart. Anyone who is already set on opening one of these up, with knowledge that neither the RAM nor disk drive can be upgraded, is already taking a lot of chances on bricking the device. Anyone looking to re-purpose one of these that was distributed to school use is bound to be disappointed. I dare say, giving warnings in red lettering and even shouting in capital letters at someone who is already doing a “teardown” is counterproductive. There is no further danger of physical injury, or additional electrocution hazard which I think capitalized red-lettered warnings should be reserved for. Sorry Josh, I just disagree with your choice here. In fact, I may change it.
Infineon SLB9635 is a dead link. https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-T... is a relevant PDF, Although the information has no use for troubleshooting or repair, anyways. Even in it’s intended purpose, to protect against attacks where the attacker already has physical access and administrative rights (admin passwords) any Trusted Platform Module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Pl... has quite limited utility. Nice attempt to provide complete information, I suppose.
Acer and Crucial insist that 4 GB is maximum ram, but I’ve successfully installed 12 GB and I’ve read reports on the web of 16 GB. It uses the same memory as my 2012 Mac Mini, (my source for the additional RAM) Adding a SSD will make this a powerful machine indeed. The main limitation is that although it will run the (aging) Chrubuntu (an Ubuntu install running on the Chrome kernel), it will not dual boot with linux. The firmware needs to be flashed in order to install a newer linux distro (Gallium OS or a specialized Mint 18), and this will effectively end it’s ability to run Chrome (although I beleive the firmware can be re-flashed so as to return it to Chrome OS .)
This is a bit overdramatic, especially now in 2018, when a new Samsung Chromebook 3, with twice the RAM memory is going for $150 at Walmart. Anyone who is already set on opening one of these up, with knowledge that neither the RAM nor disk drive can be upgraded, is already taking a lot of chances on bricking the device. Anyone looking to re-purpose one of these that was distributed to school use is bound to be disappointed. I dare say, giving warnings in red lettering and even shouting in capital letters at someone who is already doing a “teardown” is counterproductive. There is no further danger of physical injury, or additional electrocution hazard which I think capitalized red-lettered warnings should be reserved for. Sorry Josh, I just disagree with your choice here. In fact, I may change it.
Infineon SLB9635 is a dead link. https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-T... is a relevant PDF, Although the information has no use for troubleshooting or repair, anyways. Even in it’s intended purpose, to protect against attacks where the attacker already has physical access and administrative rights (admin passwords) any Trusted Platform Module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Pl... has quite limited utility. Nice attempt to provide complete information, I suppose.
Acer and Crucial insist that 4 GB is maximum ram, but I’ve successfully installed 12 GB and I’ve read reports on the web of 16 GB. It uses the same memory as my 2012 Mac Mini, (my source for the additional RAM) Adding a SSD will make this a powerful machine indeed. The main limitation is that although it will run the (aging) Chrubuntu (an Ubuntu install running on the Chrome kernel), it will not dual boot with linux. The firmware needs to be flashed in order to install a newer linux distro (Gallium OS or a specialized Mint 18), and this will effectively end it’s ability to run Chrome (although I beleive the firmware can be re-flashed so as to return it to Chrome OS .)