[teki4u]

So here I am, posting this from my new Asus Chromebox. Any work on the viability or Possibility of loading XBMC on this thing? If so, How? Ideas, recommendation?

Can you try the following (Info within description) to see if it work and post your feedback about video playback. Thanks in advance.

[noggin]

Question, are there any msata to Sata adapters you can use to install a regular 2.5ssd? There seems to be enough room where I could put some double sided tape on the bottom for it to fit inside. I ask because I have an extra 2.5 laying around and rather use that with it instead of buying a new msata drive. If it is possible, any idea on how to power my ssd?

I'm pretty certain that the specs I've seen for the Asus Chromebox suggest it is using M.2 (NGFF) SSDs not mSATA. This is a newer format which is replacing mSATA in some machines. My Acer C720 needed an M.2 drive as well. There wasn't much choice a month or two ago - but I suspect more are coming to market.

I've seen quite a few converters that do the reverse of what you want (allow you to connect an M.2 SSD using conventional SATA connections) - but can't remember seing the reverse (though they do exist for mSATA to SATA conversion so you'd think someone would produce them)

[mrchief]

Hell Yeah! intel haswell i3 nad 2 gig ram, I had a c2d with 1 gig ram that easily played 1080p

I'm mostly thinking about the Celeron version. If it will play back smoothly in software (hi10p h.264 1080p30), then I'd rather go with that.

idk about hi10p. i just got a N2820 (Celeron 2.4GHz dual-core) and it struggles with 1080p hi10p w/ FLAC audio. anything non-hi10p is fine including 1080p ~20Mbps dts5.1. still better than my old zotac id11.

Maybe because N2820 lacks H/W decoding?

[Ned Scott]

Hi10P is software decoded for all hardware that XBMC runs on.

[noggin]

idk about hi10p. i just got a N2820 (Celeron 2.4GHz dual-core) and it struggles with 1080p hi10p w/ FLAC audio. anything non-hi10p is fine including 1080p ~20Mbps dts5.1. still better than my old zotac id11.

However the N2820 and the Celeron 2955U are very different animals. The N2820 is a re-branded new version of the Atom, with on-board Ivy Bridge Intel Graphics. The Celeron 2955U is a Haswell device, with similar architecture to Pentium/i3/i5/i7 - and thus significantly more powerful in CPU terms, and has a more modern GPU as well.

For Hi10p decoding, which is always in software on XBMC (and I believe any current PC unless GPU compute is used - as it isn't supported by GPU hardware decoding?) CPU performance is key, and the 2955U will significantly outperform the N2820 in CPU terms.

[essential]

I'm going to go ahead and ask a stupid question. Why can't we open this up, add an upgraded m.2 ssd, and some new RAM, and install Windows 7? 4GB of RAM would be plenty, and so would a 64GB m.2 ssd just to get the machine up and running. Then you would have a complete xbmc machine with no flaws. Since it's a haswell, the hd graphics video driver should be easy to find, it's just sound and nic/wireless.

$180 = ASUS Chromebox
$55 = 64GB M.2 SSD (http://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-Super...00EZ2E8LQ/)
$40 = 4GB DDR3L (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231702) (Not sure what the mobo maxes at, might have to do 2GBx2)

Total: $275 final, still better then an NUC in my opinion since that's final cost for a non Atom Haswell.

[nickr]

Because windows 7 is inferior to linux?

[jungario]

Interesting box indeed, after doing some research I came out with those components wonder if the chromebox would have obvious advantages over this set upin regards of setting up an xbmc box)
$129=Zotac ZBOX-ID18-U(http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-1-5GHz-Dual-...otac+1007u)
$45 = http://www.amazon.com/ADATA-Premier-2-5-...pd_cp_pc_1
$27 = 2GB DDR3 (http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-1066MHz-D...sodimm+2gb)
201$ , if you want wireless and bluetooth:
$8= edimax wireless adapter(http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811Un-W...ter+for+pc best seller at amazon
15$=bluetooth 4.0 adapter (http://www.amazon.com/Kinivo-BTD-400-Blu...sb+adapter) best seller at amazon
total=224$
why celeron1007u instead of Celeron 2955U? it is too close to call a winner according to cpu boss:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Celeron-29...eron-1007U

[BORIStheBLADE]

I'm going to go ahead and ask a stupid question. Why can't we open this up, add an upgraded m.2 ssd, and some new RAM, and install Windows 7? 4GB of RAM would be plenty, and so would a 64GB m.2 ssd just to get the machine up and running. Then you would have a complete xbmc machine with no flaws. Since it's a haswell, the hd graphics video driver should be easy to find, it's just sound and nic/wireless.

$180 = ASUS Chromebox
$55 = 64GB M.2 SSD (http://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-Super...00EZ2E8LQ/)
$40 = 4GB DDR3L (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231702) (Not sure what the mobo maxes at, might have to do 2GBx2)

Total: $275 final, still better then an NUC in my opinion since that's final cost for a non Atom Haswell.

You can upgrade the memory and storage but you can't put windows on it.
http://liliputing.com/2014/03/upgrade-as...orage.html

[MetalGearShadow]

oohh damn looks like this for sure ima get i like asus products and for xbmc wow but still theres more boxes out there making competition

[deathtical]

I'm going to go ahead and ask a stupid question. Why can't we open this up, add an upgraded m.2 ssd, and some new RAM, and install Windows 7? 4GB of RAM would be plenty, and so would a 64GB m.2 ssd just to get the machine up and running. Then you would have a complete xbmc machine with no flaws. Since it's a haswell, the hd graphics video driver should be easy to find, it's just sound and nic/wireless.

$180 = ASUS Chromebox
$55 = 64GB M.2 SSD (http://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-Super...00EZ2E8LQ/)
$40 = 4GB DDR3L (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231702) (Not sure what the mobo maxes at, might have to do 2GBx2)

Total: $275 final, still better then an NUC in my opinion since that's final cost for a non Atom Haswell.

You can upgrade the memory and storage but you can't put windows on it.
http://liliputing.com/2014/03/upgrade-as...orage.html

That article doesn't say you can't install Windows on. I agree, why would you want to, but I haven't see anything that proves that Windows will not load on this box.

[mrchief]

That article doesn't say you can't install Windows on. I agree, why would you want to, but I haven't see anything that proves that Windows will not load on this box.

I thought that a t first too, its in the comments: http://liliputing.com/2014/03/upgrade-as...1283588956

And the original Anandtech article that it references: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7850/asus-...x-review/2

The internal EFI doesn’t support booting to Windows, so anyone looking to turn this into a cheap Windows box is likely out of luck. The Windows lockout is likely Google’s doing as the company is specifically looking to replace low end Windows PCs.

I wonder if its possible to re-flash the BIOS to one that doesn't restrict.

[desperado77]

There is a script to make SeaBIOS the default on Acer C720, could be updated for this Chromebox, perhaps it can help to jailbreak it for windows.

[speedbal]

Just got my Chromebox (thx Microcenter..... ) Here are my initial thoughts:

Very responsive. Much quicker than I thought it would be since it was using a celeron. Boot up time is 5 secs for ChromeOS. This thing does just about everything my parents or my kids would want/need to do. The idea of having a computer that I don't have to worry about for the family surely interests me. I like having the ability to just "reboot" and having a fresh clean image. For me (more poweruser) it isn't enough. Fun to play with, but I loose interest in a hurry since I am not tied to google services like some. I could probably adjust, but with my other computers/tablets.... i don't have to. So why start, right?

Developer Mode/crouton install. Plenty of guides out there, but here is mine just in case someone gets hung up like I did (Note this will wipe your drive):

1) Hold in "reset" button on the side while turning on the computer. This puts you to a white screen that says it can't find ChromeOS anymore.
2) Hit ctrl-d at this screeen
3) Hit the "reset" button again when it asks you to hit the recovery button (this is where I got hung up since it wasn't labeled recovery anywhere)
4) It will go through it's motions of wiping the drive (takes ~4mins per the counter)
5) It will reboot and take you to another white screen. It you wait here, it will eventuall (15 secs or so) beep twice and go into ChromeOS. You don't have to wait the 15 secs or so if you don't want. Just hit Ctrl-D again and it will boot to ChromeOS. I believe this screen is where you should be able to boot off a flash drive, but that isn't working yet due usb 3.0 not being supported by SeaBIOS yet. My guess that will change shortly. If you want more techincal details about this issue.... read comments on this review.
6) From here you can install crouton and side boot different versions of linux. I tried out sausy and it work out fine and was plenty responsive. If you want more details on how to do this....view the readme text on the github page. If you have questions, let me know and I will post a guide for that as well.

Since SeaBIOS doesn't support usb 3.0 at the moment, I wasn't able to test openelec (my ultimate plan for this unit). I did install the nightly version of XBMC Gotham and it worked fine on saucy. Very responsive. Can't wait for the community to start working on this device.

More to come as I am able to put it through its paces.....

speedbal

[nickr]

I am not sure if anyone can confirm whether or not you can set it up to boot to Linux without a keyboard? No point in having an xbmc box that requires you to plug in a keyboard to reboot!