Posted on the 26th July 2022

Education

With the release of ChromeOS Flex, old out of date equipment can be used, saving on investment costs of new equipment. If you have unused laptops or desktops, this may be the answer to increase the amount of equipment available to your students.

I am currently testing on 3 different laptop models;

• Lenovo 100e 2nd Gen
• ACER Travelmate Spin B311R-31
• HP ProBook x360 11 G3 EE

All these models are listed on the ChromeOS Flex certified models list so should work without any issue.

ACER TravelMate Spin B311R-31

First boot with the ChromeOS Flex USB, didn't seem to do anything, the laptop just sat at the ACER logo, but, you need to wait, around 1 minute for the USB to boot, it then sits at the ChromeOS Flex logo for a short while, before booting in to the ChromeOS Flex setup screen.

First boot affter install, and again, the laptop seems to sit at the ACER logo for quite a long time, so be patient, it will eventually boot into ChromeOS and allow you to set it up.

After I enrolled the device into Google Workspace for Education, the subsequent boots were much quicker.

Lenovo 100e 2nd Gen (Model 81M8)

The Lenovo wouldn't boot from the USB at boot, so I had to go into BIOS (Fn+F2) and set the USB HDD: Generic Flash Disk to the first boot device.

As with the ACER, the Lenovo sat at the LENOVO logo, and ChromeOS Flex logo for a while, so be patient.

First boot after install, I got a black screen. I waited 3 minutes, but no sign of life, so I rebooted.  

It sat at the LENOVO logo, and after a few minutes, I rebooted and went into BIOS, thinking maybe it was trying to boot from USB, however, it was now set to boot from ChromeOS Flex.

After exiting BIOS, it booted straight away (very strange).

Subsequent boots seemed to work just fine, and it didn't happen on the other 3 LENOVO laptops I installed ChromeOS Flex on.

Update 27th July 2022

Although ChromeOS Flex seems to work well on this model, I have noticed that, during boot it does hang at the LENOVO logo for approximately 1 minute. It appears as if it is not working, but it is.

HP ProBook x360 11 G3 EE

The HP ProBook x360 11 G3 EE didn't boot from USB at startup, so I had to enter the boot menu (F9). The odd thing with the HP is that USB or USB HDD is not listed, but the USB appears as Windows Boot Manager (second one in the list). Choosing this option booted from the ChromeOS Flex USB.

The HP was the quickest to boot into the ChromeOS Flex install (no hanging around at logo's) and to install.

Lenovo 100e 2nd Gen (Model 82GJ)

Although I had 6 Lenovo 100e 2nd Gen laptops, it appears 2 of them were a different model (82GJ). While trying to install to this model, I hit a snag, well a large hurdle, ChromeOS Flex would NOT install, instead it complained that "The installer couldn't find a valid destination to install ChromeOS Flex".

I updated to the latest firmware version (FRCN23WW) but this made no difference (except stopped the mousepad working during ChromeOS Flex install).

I have not as yet found a way to install ChromeOS Flex on this particular model.

If you would like to use ChromeOS Flex and need help or advice, please contact me by using the "Message Me" form below.

Find out more about ChromeOS Flex here.