I've got a Lenovo Chromebook 500e gen3 that just won't power up properly. When I hit the power button, a white light indicates that it's on, but the screen stays completely dark—I've even tried hooking it up to an external display, but no luck there either. I recently installed Arch Linux with Hyprland using MrChromebox's legacy boot option, and I've been able to boot into Arch successfully many times before. Out of nowhere, this issue popped up, and I've noticed the device getting pretty hot lately. I wiped ChromeOS entirely before installing Arch, so it's just running Arch now. My Chromebook specs are: 64GB of storage, 4GB of RAM, and an Intel Celeron processor. Any ideas on what could be wrong or how I can get it to turn on?
2 Answers
Hey there! Sounds like a frustrating situation. First off, double-check if you did a full legacy firmware replacement or just a legacy replacement, as that can make a difference. If you haven't already, try doing a hard reset. Sometimes that can get things back on track. Also, overheating could indicate a hardware issue, maybe even a worn-out internal monitor ribbon. Have you tried gently opening and closing the lid a few times? Occasionally, that can help too. Good luck!
I can relate! Chromebooks can be a bit tricky with Linux. The fact that it gets hot is a huge red flag—could point to hardware issues. You might want to consider using a lighter distribution, as Arch can be a heavy load for Chromebooks. If you're thinking of reinstalling, maybe give Debian or lightweight distros like xfce or LXDE a go. Those work well on lower specs.
Thanks! I was actually looking into lighter distros for when I recover it. I'll definitely check those out.
Thanks for the tips! I've tried the hard reset and it seems like that might have helped a bit. I'll give the lid thing a shot and see if it works.