HP Chromebox G2 unbrick

Hey everybody,

I recently bought a HP Chromebox G2 on ebay. My plan was to install Linux on it and to use it as a server.
Unfortunately I seem to have bricked it. At first I tried it out normally, to confirm the hardware is working. The chromebox also automatically did a system update, which ran through successfully.

Unfortunately I am not sure what exactly happened next. I was trying to access the developer menu, but the chromebox appeared to be stuck, so I removed the power. But after that I got just a blackscreen, though the power button lights up and the CPU gets warm.
So I think I might have accidentally triggered a hard reset and pulled the plug during that. But even trying a reset again (power + reset) doesn’t do anything.

Luckily I already had a ch341a programmer lying around (modded to be 3.3V compatible), so I attempted to install the full rom (coreboot_edk2-fizz-mrchromebox_20240914.rom) as per instructions on Unbricking/Flashing with a ch341a USB Programmer | MrChromebox.tech
(Write protect screw removed. Also carried over the VPD and HWID)

But unfortunately I got no luck so far, I still get no boot screen.

Does anyone have a pointer on how to recover from a situation like that?
It would be a shame if that hardware would go to waste. :frowning:

sure sounds like something happened to the device before you even flashed it. If you weren’t even able to boot recovery mode with the stock firmware, that’s not an issue that reflashing is going to fix

Yea I somehow bricked it, but didn’t know if the BIOS chip was at fault or not, I just assumed it was and tried a flash.

Is there any other component in the system affected by a reset, that could have been bricked?

I did nothing to inflict physical damage to the hardware, so I am hoping it is still recoverable somehow.

did you back up the original firmware? If so, I would re-flash that, then try to boot to recovery mode (use the button)