CKSIT

I'm in the U.S. I have purchased some parts from https://www.chromebookparts.com (mainly daughterboards and trackpads); their mainboards are too expensive, given the relative value of the units. I have purchased replacement LCD screens and mainboards from eBay before, and I toyed with the idea purchasing replacement mainboards through Aliexpress, but I just couldn't bring myself to trust those vendors enough to pull the trigger. Thanks for the Loctite suggestion. At this point, we'll probably going to relegate these 300e devices to being spares, as we are scheduled for a new Chromebook fleet for middle school this year. Going to try the Dell 2-in-1, including 3yr extended warranty and accidental damage coverage.

We got around 170 of these (81QC) going on three years ago. We did not get an extended mfg warranty, only a 3yr accidental damage warranty. While I've had to send several off for damage repairs (mainly screens and hinges, a few popped keys on keyboards, and a few damaged trackpads), I did have to retire more than a handful because of out-of-warranty mainboard failures ("missing/corrupt OS" where recovery wouldn't work), mainly in the 2nd year of use. At present, nearing the end of our third year of use, I've had an acceleration of touchscreens going bad: touch completely not working; some regions of the screen not responding to touch; or, more prevalent lately (eight within the last week or so), phantom touches/clicks -just let the device sit idle, and watch the show. I have cannibalized parts (top-cover/screen assemblies, batteries, keyboard/trackpad assemblies, and even hinges) from devices with failed mainboards, and used those to perform out-of-warranty repairs myself. I've been surprised that screen assemblies, that were working fine when salvaged, ended up developing the phantom-touch problem within a month or two after being deployed to repair another device. It seems like that touchscreen issue is destined to arise (NB, though: these are assigned to middle schoolers in our 1:1 take-home program). One last comment I'll make is about the long-term durability of the build, or manufacturing defects. I've had to replace screws on the bottom cover of a great number of these units; the screws just come loose and fall out. On top of that, in a number of spots the anchors, into which screws go to secure things, are fragile and break easily.

I know this thread is a bit stale, but I thought I would post, since this is the first thread I've encountered that seems to address the same issue that I've been experiencing -- Apple Configurator crashing while preparing iPads when restoring a backup. I originally experienced this with OSX 10.9.x with AC 1.6 and batches of iPad 2 with a mixture of starting iOS between 7.1.2 and 8.1.3 (sorry, some students upgraded over the course of the year despite instructions not to, and I can't nail down whether a specific starting iOS might be the source of the problem). I thought an upgrade to Yosemite and AC 1.7 would resolve, but not so. And it doesn't matter the generation, because I continued to experience this with Yosemite and AC 1.7 and brand-new, out-of-the-box iPad Airs. So I agree that the restore from backup is the hang-up. What doesn't make sense, though, I have a single third-party app installed in the backup image, and I still have to "push" the app (through my MDM) to get it on the restored/prepared devices. To that extent, the idea that the cause of the crash is an app license check when multiple devices have the same name at any given point doesn't necessarily ring true, but then, again, I don't know how/when/why that app license check would happen during the prepare process. With my next batch of Airs, I'll try to wait longer in between connecting each device while preparing (that tedious process necessary to ensure that the sequential numbering matches the cart slot number).