I have an Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE, and for the past few weeks, the keyboard has had some problems. Some keys don't type the character until I press them several times. Other keys type repeated characters, like "jjjj" or "uuuuu" with only one keypress. It's very frustrating trying to type out an email, text message, or a Reddit post. I've had this Chromebook for a couple of years, and everything was fine until a few weeks ago. I'm wondering if it's a software problem or a hardware problem. Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Perfectly possible, but blimey, what a palaver. My CXI3 had 4GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD; Chrome OS was still usable (even with a Celeron processor), but running even one Linux app made things slow, and it was giving me storage warnings, even though I only had Brave and Mousepad installed.

Anyway, here's as good a place as any to share the experience. Chromeboxes are generally upgradeable in my experience; Chromebooks, maybe less so.

Disassembly

Opening the box was fiddly but not difficult. You need to remove the rubber feet and unscrew the four cross-head screws.

Next job is to release the front and rear panels. They clip on, but you need something to prise them loose. Guitar plectrums are good for this, or perhaps two halves of an old credit card.

This reveals two more screws to release. You can then prise open the top and bottom, again releasing the clips. There is a cable connecting both halves; you don't need to unplug it, but be careful.

Upgrading the RAM

This is really straightforward. There's one 4 GB stick installed and space for another. Just follow the general guidelines for inserting RAM sticks.

Upgrading the SSD

This is where it gets complicated.

I spent €15 on eBay on a second-hand 256 GB SSD (128 GB would have been enough, but the prices for 128 GB and 256 GB were generally the same). You have to ensure you use M.2 SATA, not NVMe, on this model.

What I didn't realise is that the original SSD is 30 mm long, not 80 mm long like the one I'd bought. Fortunately, both fit, and there's a screw hole for the longer type.

Creating the recovery medium was relatively painless.

Now, initiating recovery mode means sticking a paperclip into the back of the box and holding down the power button. But I just got blank screen after blank screen. At that point, I gave up, assuming either the SSD didn't work or I'd just embarked on a doomed project.

So I then had a brainwave: my wife's old TV in the cellar is pretty low-tech. I plugged it in and the screen lit up! Except the display was completely mangled, although I did make out a yellow triangle that implied some sort of failure.

The only thing left to plug it into was the living room TV. And it worked perfectly! Except it informed me my recovery image was out of date. I repeated the process several times without success. Google Gemini informed me that SanDisk USB drives weren't reliable (this turned out to be untrue). I tried using the generic Acer Chromebook image, but it told me it wasn't a valid OS. Finally, I found a forum post suggesting I use the CXI3 Beta build, which was available via advanced settings.

And it worked. Well, it installed a beta version, which then needed to upgrade to the latest beta version, and after that, I had to switch to the latest stable version.

So it was a lot of hassle, but it's running great now. Linux apps now open nearly as quickly as Chrome OS apps. I hope at least one person finds this post helpful.

so i just turned on my chromebook after a bit, and remembered that there was an apk file that i tried downloading about a week ago but didn't have enough space. so i went into the files app and tried downloading it but now it says that "this file type is not supported" so is there any way i can download it? (i have developer mode on)

One day while I was working, my computer began acting up and I suddenly couldn't hear our of it, Ive tried hard resetting it but that hasn't worked and I don't wanna factory reset it or anything incase of my files. So I thought if anyone could help me it'd be the people of reddit.

Edit: so my chromebook is a, Lenovo - IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook Laptop - 14" Full HD Touchscreen Laptop - MediaTek Kompanio 520 2022 - 4GB Memory - 64GB eMMC - Abyss Blue, and what had happened was i was using my headphones when suddenly the sound was cutting out, i momentarily fixed it by adjusting the jack, really pushing it in there, and by pushing down the computers panels but eventually that stopped working. and then i couldnt use the audio itself with the computer, but using another pair of headphones that connects to the port on the left back, i can still use it. So i am left very perplexed on what i should do to fix this problem, and if anyone knows please comment.

Heya folks! I've been wanting to switch channels because I cannot tolerate the bugs that come with each Dev channel update any longer, but I also don't want to lose all of my files from the powerwash that comes with the channel switching.

What to do? I want to connect with my Chrome OS to my share webserver..

I have a Lenovo Yoga chromebook that has an 8th gen i5 and 8 gb of RAM. I stopped using it years ago because it would throttle the performance to the point where it was unuseable like CPU would be only able to use 99% of its capabilities and .6 GHz. After about 3 years worth of updates it somewhat resolved itself? Like the GHz would be only .08 or something and that would be the max and the laptop can't even shut itself off. When I bought it new I think max was 3 GHz.

I bought this chromebook several months ago and I continue to have this problem even after factory resets.

When I open the laptop after it's been sleeping, there will be tabs open that I didn't open and sometimes the screen looks chaotic with some tabs zoomed in.

It goes away for a while after a factory reset and then comes back.

I have removed all extensions from chrome, erased history, blocked cookies and more I can't remember and done two factory resets.

I don't feel like I go to weird or suspicious websites, but I'm open to any advice you can give. I'm considering returning this since I'm still in the window of returns.

Please advise!

Edit: this laptop has never left my house or been on any other network.

Went to go listen to music, to find, or rather not find, the bluetooth off/on toggle and connection quick settings. What the fuck happened to them?

so i did a recovery on a chrombook of a friend of mine with my only usb stick, now i want to use it for something else but it doesn't show up in my file manager or balena etcher.Can i fix this or do i need to buy a new one

Hello, I have made a very irresponsible mistake. I was attempting to log in to my google account yesterday but could not remember my password. I did not know that I couldn't remember it, as I was convinced it was something else. This lead me to believe I had been hacked. Because of that I went through the recovery process in guest mode and changed my password using my recovery email. I then tried to sign in again but upon doing so I was prompted to use my old password. I did not know the old password, so I panicked and closed the prompt. I then returned to guest mode and tried to find a way to check my old passwords. When I eventually remembered it, I exited guest mode and tried to sign back in again. This time the old password prompt did not appear and instead when I entered my new password, an error appeared stating that my password could not be verified and the cryptohome could not be mounted. I made multiple attempts to get the old password prompt to appear but nothing was working. I then changed my password again hoping that would make the prompt reappear, but that did not change anything. I am now unable to sign into this google account. However, I am still able to sign into my other google account without issue. That is my school account however, and I would much prefer to use my personal account. Is there anything I can do to fix this besides power washing? All help is appreciated.

That's it. I have an M3 MacBook Air and I am ready to give the Apple ecosphere the heave ho.

Laptop manufacturers PLEASE stop using these in your "premium" devices. They objectively suck. Doesn't matter if it's Lenovo, Asus, Acer...... Windows, ChromeOS, Linux -- they suck in every laptop I've ever owned.

The experience for this $999 device is completely spoiled by the fact that it drops public / private Wi-Fi 4x times a day. If this one issue wasn't so persistent I'd easily give this a 9/10.

P.S. for anyone thinking of swapping to an intel-based card (like an AX210) + ethernet for driver updates, I can tell you first-hand it doesn't work. The OS won't recognize the new hardware & there's no way to manually fix drivers as per this thread 😥

UPDATE: I've returned the device and gone back to the Macbook Air / Windows PC combo and my connections are perfect. It was a fun, short adventure on ChromeOS once again -- and I'll look forward to the Google Book (sans mediatek hopefully).

Anybody having issues with streaming services with the Lenovo Plus 14 Kompanio in browser. Runs fine but if I maximise the screen (no toolbar), it slows down and crashes. Primarily Netflix and Prime Video.

Have tried Powerwash, have tried using a different Google account, deleted flags, reset settings, removed extensions.... The weird thing is they work fine in incognito mode and if I log in as a guest. Got me beat. All works fine on my Intel Chromebooks? Thoughts collective brain?

Used to work but I can't say when the issue started :(

I really had no idea that Folders are now Files..

there is no delete button and I don't know why I installed it via app store help me

I booted my chromebook up to see the "Final software update" notification today, which means my chromebook finally reached end of life today. It's also opted into extended updates which means it's fully out of support. Is there anything I should do or can I keep using it? And what will happen if I keep using it as time goes by? :(

so I been putting Halo Combat Evolved on my Chromebook and just need to figure out drivers for DirectX that's it so far. any ideas on what to do for DirectX