I am attempting to disable write protection on the motherboard. The documentation says to remove the indicated screw.
Steps to Reproduce
I have disassembled the computer and removed the heat shield. The board then looks exactly like that for CAROLINE in the MrChromebox documentation, i.e. just like the picture below. There is no screw shown in this picture and there was no screw on my motherboard. However, there was a thin ring of conductive tape at the site indicated by the red circle.
I peeled off the tape and gently wiped off what felt like a bit of the adhesive material (stickiness) that was still left on the contacts.
I then reassembled the computer, booted it, entered developer mode and successfully downloaded and ran firmware-util.sh.
I successfully used the script to back up my old firmware on a USB drive. Then when I attempted to install the new firmware it failed saying that write protection was still enabled.
Expected Behavior
I had expected write protection to be disabled. I am wondering if others had a similar issue or if they have any ideas about how to proceed. I can only think that maybe there is still a tiny piece of tape or conductive adhesive still bridging the tiny gaps on the contacts, but I couldn’t see any before I reassembled the computer. Any ideas?
there’s no screw there because it’s one of the heatshield screws, IIRC.
There’s obviously still something there allowing conductivity. If you didn’t put a piece of tape over the screw hole, then it’s likely the heatshield mount doing so when you reassembled
also, marking out standard part #s on things is silly and unnecessary.
I had noticed that someone thought the hole was for one of the heatshield screws, but it is not. There are five heatshield screws and none are very close to that hole. The image I linked to was the one linked to on the MrChromebook documentation site that mentions CAROLINE; it is not my photo. I will try putting tape over the contacts when I open it up again. Thanks for your suggestion.
Oh, I take that back – it is one of the holes for the heat shield! So the screw must have been completing the circuit. I will leave out that screw and that should solve my problem. And I will put tape over it just to be sure. I will send a confirmation when I get a chance to work on it tomorrow. Thanks again.
Ok, that was the problem. Today I put tape over the “foot” of the heatsink that sits on the write-protect screw hole and I reinstalled the heatsink without using the screw that goes in that hole. Once I re-assembled the computer and rebooted into Developer Mode, I was able to successfully run the firmware utility script and install the UEFI firmware. Now I can boot Fedora Linux with no problem. Thanks for the help and thanks for the MrChromebox and the chultrabook services.