M.2 Adaptor alternative

[S265]

Hi all. The M.2 accessory for the Pinebook Pro is no longer available from the Pine64 Store. Has anyone come across similar parts that may work?
For example is their such a thing as a flexible cable and M.2 card holder? As the Pinebook Pro is older hardware now, the suppliers may not be interested in replacing these original parts.
It would be nice if a new Pinebook was released with updated hardware, but Pine64 seems to be occupied with other things.

[S265]

It is too late! It seems the Pinebook Pro has reached end of life. It fails to boot. No red light, nothing. Despite a lot of Googling and searching of Forums here, it remains dead. I wish I had another Pine64 product to replace it. It begs the question, I wonder what the main Pine64 sellers are now? Anyway, I will look for another Laptop that runs a Linux distro. 


Has anyone found a Linux friendly laptop at a moderate price recently?

[KC9UDX]

Have you
1) verified that your power supply is good
2) removed the battery and connected the bypass cables
3) removed the eMMC, disabled the SPI NOR ROM, and tried booting to a known good micro-SD card image
?

I bought one early 2020, one in 2021 and another in 2022. They all still work beautifully. I'm writing this on one. I only run Linux on one of them and it doesn't get updated very often. I think a lot of the problems people have with these comes from running Linux.

[S265]

Have you
1) verified that your power supply is good
2) removed the battery and connected the bypass cables
3) removed the eMMC, disabled the SPI NOR ROM, and tried booting to a known good micro-SD card image
?

I bought one early 2020, one in 2021 and another in 2022.  They all still work beautifully.  I'm writing this on one.  I only run Linux on one of them and it doesn't get updated very often.  I think a lot of the problems people have with these comes from running Linux.

Thanks - looking into this. Is it easy to bypass the battery?

[KC9UDX]

Thanks - looking into this. Is it easy to bypass the battery?

Yes.  Just make sure you totally remove the battery; because otherwise it is very easy to accidentally power up with the battery plugged in and bypassed which will result in damage.  There are four screws holding the battery down.  Remove those, unplug the battery, and place it aside.  All that's left to do is plug in the two ends of the bypass cables.

Before you get started, close the lid.  After taking the bottom cover off, don't turn the unit upside down right side up, or you will lose the shims needed to hold the case together properly.  And with the bottom cover off, do not try to open the lid (display half).  The plastic bottom case without the metal bottom cover is very fragile.  It cannot handle the torque of operating the hinges.

Whilst you have the bottom cover off, put a drop of oil on each hinge.

Note that several users have reported failed power supplies.

[S265]

Thanks mate! You prompted me to look further. The PinebookPro is now live when I thought it may be due for recycling. How cool is that! I used a Manjaro script to install Tow-Boot? on the SD card. It was available as an image file. It booted and started the recovery process. Soon I was booting the emmc card with Manjaro installed. It is early days but the PinebookPro is alive and well. Thanks to you.