fabiobassa

@Aroldo Bossoni
 
The optimal would be understanding the reason why the watchdog triggers, but could be a difficult task without a hint because of the closed source proprietary trust os.
 
The easiest thing is to provide armbian images with the opensource trust os rather than the proprietary, which is totally feasible because it just requires to swap a file in the armbian build scripts. That would blow the issue away, but unfortunately the proprietary trust os provided DDR scaling and virtual poweroff. The latter is a seldom used feature, but the DDR scaling provided a dramatic improvement in performance and it is hard to give up on that.
 
Swapping the things at runtime is not savvy: when u-boot updates, the proprietary trust os will be reinstalled overwriting whatever you put in there.
 
I would be happy with opensource Trust OS and no runtime DDR scaling, but stil having it at a fixed decent rate (660MHz, instead of the default 330MHz), but some boards do not boot at all when they are instructed to boot at 660MHz.

Hello everyone!
 
I'm willing to develop a script that automates firmware, u-boot, and ROM compatibility testing with the boards via OTG.
 
I've thought of a workflow something like this:
1. Download a list of files by type from several different sources.
2. Extract files from pre-built images, ROM, loader, u-boot.
3. Check for duplicate files by size and checksum.
4. Apply and test in stages: ROM, loader, u-boot, kernel, rootfs, network, video.
5. Log what worked and what went wrong.
6. Since this process can take hours, emit a beep when user interaction is needed.
 
What I need help with from you:
Is this idea feasible?
Will it produce results and facilitate the implementation process on rk322X boards?
Can it be reused and adapted for other boards?
 
I have little experience with ROMs and ARM firmware, but if it's feasible, I intend to create a public repository for the community to help me with the development.
Thank you for your attention!

@Virgilio Junior  you can use multitool, and use the "jump start" installation: you should be able to boot from sdcard and USB as well without doing the process by hand.
Forget about the NAND, it causes troubles you would not deal with

@Mateus Lima
 
It Is not the first neither will be the last time  that china manufacturers fake soc printing.
Have a look on allwinner forum 

Found with google: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/34923-csc-armbian-for-rk322x-tv-box-boards/page/96/#findComment-218361
 

In theory, it shouldn't

This was a watchdog and trust os issue.

For anyone having this issue, i fixed by building a new multitool from OP github: https://github.com/paolosabatino/multitool/tree/master
Changing the RK322x TRUST_OS to: rk322x_tee_1.0.1-72-gf230aa2.bin

And them building a new armbian build replacing the armbian TRUST_OS with this same one. "rk322x_tee_1.0.1-72-gf230aa2.bin"

if anyone needs the builded files "multitool and armbian" feel free to email me at vitorpicinin@gmail.com

Hi @jock,
Thanks for suggestion, led me to dig down and found your update on R29 GPIO. Since multitool hdmi was working, I used it's bash to mount emmc and add overlays=led-config7 to armbianEnv.txt. It worked!!!! Thanks a lot for all your contribution!

login via ssh

wich OS system Windows balenaEtcher, linux "dd" , do you perform checksum 

@Enzo Esteban
can you check with great precision the stamp on the cpu ? In second image

To me it seems a 3328 ......... and not a 3228 . Great difference my friend !!!!!!!!!!!!

If it is really a 3328 you are simply doing ALL WRONG . They are totally different cpu's and totally different drivers

The 3328 is a 64 bit aarch64 architecture

The 3228 is a 32 bit armhf architecture

BTW if you are in Brasil, try to contact this people . Basing on our early study they did a distro fitting on these cheap tvboxes

https://github.com/educabox/educabox/tree/main

 

damn, it looks like I screwed up the WiFi chip model
Actually I have p9012s in my box. And if I understand correctly, there are no drivers for it and it won't work.
 
I had a USB WiFi adapter on a Ralink MT7601U chip. It worked in this box right away.
 
P.S. I still don't understand why I assumed that I have an esp8089 chip. Since I have two such TV boxes, I even disassembled the second one to check - but it also has a c9012p chip. A mystery to me)
___
By the way, the other day after an unsuccessful Armbian firmware update I almost got a brick. If earlier I was able to restore it using a PC and a USB-A - USB-A cable, this time the PC didn't even see this box.
Maybe this will be useful to someone. I revived it by switching to mask mode by shorting contacts on emmc.
launched RK Batch Tool 1.8 and specified the path to the stock firmware (don't forget about the drivers) completely disconnected the power supply to the box shorted contacts 29 and 30 to each other connected the box to the PC. The program immediately recognized it. All that was left was to flash it My box specifications:
Rockchip RK3228A (Aida64 for some reason says that it is 3229), 2/16gb, WiFi S9012P. Board: MXQ_RK3229_V2.0 2019.07.2022
 
 

@Tavares R
if you read the 1st post you will see that this box is a half-miracle, in the meaning that it work under some intergalactic forces 🤣😎 since it's harware is quite limited
For use such as headless server is fantastic but when it comes to net browsing it shows all it's limits
In the first post also is detaiiled a way to install full hw acceleration

I tested many many many rootfs and many combinations but with XORG almost any browser is quite unusable. I dont have experience with wayland thought
Different approach with  playing video and music under libreelec with a reasonable frame rate and hw acceleration , but on this side @ilmich could be more specific

please ignore my previous comment. THE EXPERIMENTAL IMAGE DID BOOTED FROM SD CARD! IT WORKED 

I have forgotten to erase the flash on the first time... After I erased, it booted from the SD Card.

I cannot thank you guys enough!!!! <3 <3 <3  
 

@Vinicius Guastala I agree with @fabiobassa, thanks for the very detailed post of your board and broad description of the behaviour.
I would suggest you to erase the internal flash and try to boot from sdcard with this armbian image. It is an "experimental" image with opensource Trust OS; many recent boards are having issues with proprietary trust os, possibly yours has similar issues, so you could give a shot to this. By the way, the serial log output would be indeed very handy if you have the chance to find the serial port.
 
Beware also that armbian (and multitool) use 115200bps baud rate for the serial, while proprietary software uses 1.5Mbps baud rate!

Hello Guys,

This will be a long post, so I already apologize for that!
 
I am trying to install armbian in the most generic MXQ PRO 5G 4K ever. No joking when I say it’s generic, because I have some proof that this Frankenstein monster is actually a MX9 and a MXQ 4K PRO merged together.
 
Here are some board Details:
MoBo: MXQ-EP-2-V1.0
CPU: Rockchip RK3228A
Wifi: SV6256P
Storage: Samsung KMQ7X000SA – B315 (Is this a ECMP 8GB+8GB or a emmc?)
 
I call it a MXQ Frankenstein, for the following reasons:
According to the info and the picture from this source, the “MX9 4K 5G” has the exactly same MoBo “MXQ-EP-2-V1.0”, but with the SV6152P wifi instead. According to this other forum post, the OP has posted pics from his "TXC2-MXQ-EP-V10” MoBo, which looks basically identical to my “MXQ-EP-2-V1.0”, but it has the SV6152p wifi like the MX9 4K 5G, but with a RK3229 CPU instead. This post was very useful for me because of the Short Pad for Mask Mode for this version is the same as mine. In this other post, we see the same “MXQ-EP-2-V1.0” Mobo, but with with a SanDisk storage chip instead. And in the same post, in the last comment we see another user with a 8GB/128GB variant with the same SV6152p wifi from the above “TXC2-MXQ-EP-V10” So including my version, it seems we have at least 5 different versions of this horrendous Frankenstein device, for the “lowering cost reasons” we already know….
 
Despite many tentatives, I am not able to make the “multitool” (or amrbian directly) to boot, from any method. Tried many times from SD, from USB and even after it is copied directly to the eMMC, all following the guides from the 1st page from this post, but also from other internet sources. Simply I’ve got a black screen output whenever the SD Card with multitool or armbian in inserted, with no leds turned at all.
 
Unfortunately I have not done the backup from my original ROM before I have tried to write armbian directly to the emmc, because I did not know that was possible back then, and now I’m also not able to find my original ROM.
 
I have tried many (10+) different ROMs, flashing from Linux and Windows, but I ending up having the same behavior as booting armbian, with no Video and no LEDs, until I finally came across to the ROM called “MXQ-EP-2-V1.0_SV6152P_OK By: (Zer013)” from this site.
 
With said ROM, I was able at least to get the HDMI video and LED’s blinking, but I got stuck at a boot animation loop forever. For some reason, only when I flash it from Windows using BatchTool or RKDevTools it works.
 
At least I was able to test different Loaders, and with this ROM, I have tested successfully all the loaders below, either flashing by Linux or Windows. (Remember: The device gave video and LEDs, but I still got stucked at ROM’s boot screen):
RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.47_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_171209.bin – This was extracted from the above ROM image that give me workin LEDS and HDMI Video rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256 from a 2020 comment on this thread from a guy trying to overclock his ddr memory. rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin from first page, from the “Installation (without SD card, board with eMMC)” section I was trying to flash different loaders in hope that some of them would make my armbian to boot from the SD card, but without any luck unfortunately.
 
I have also tried to erase the flash completely to force the SD Card boot, but I have got the same no-screen / no-leds behavior.
 
If anybody has any ideas on how to go further to install armbian in this board, I would appreciate a lot! I don’t need the wifi for the purpose I intend to use it, so minimal installation is more than enough for me.
 
I’ve been turning it on mostly with just the USB cable in the OTG port, so at least I can check the device status with lsusb in linux. Sometimes I do some tests with the power cable turned on, and I have noticed the same behavior as well. Does it make any different to turn it on by USB or Power Connector?

I’m still not able to find the Serial UART pins, even after I have tried soldering my USB-TTL in different points of the Board as there is no printed info, so this also adds to the overall complexity. Despite my efforts with the multimeter, I was not able to identify them yet. Since I’m afraid to burn another USB-TLS adapter, I’m being cautious and only using the GND and RX pins from the adapter. So far, I have found 2 interesting pins, but they only give me gibberish text, despite trying different baud rates (I have tried them all). Most promissing PIN for now is the pin labeled “K” in the pic below, as it is the one that gives me more output when the device is booting, almost in the same time as a normal system boot… So my “guess” is that the Pink K is the board TX pin…



Attached there are all the photos of the mentioned components from my board.

RK322Xs is 32 bit ARM CPUs and can only running 32 bit OS so not possible installing aarch64 OS on the hardware.
Also it have not enough RAM (normally 1 or 2 G) for running very large docker containers.

@Joshua allen
 
asking for private chat to solve personal issues  is the most unappropriate way to act in a public forum.
 
For several reasons:

1) your problem could be the same problem for other people sharing your issues, so solving for you could be solving for many
2) this is an hobby for us and not job.     Job is paid, hobby is for free.          if you need help for your personal issue you can give an advice asking for paid help
3)this really is the worst approach to an open community of people that friendly and mutual try to help each others
 
that said....
would you share what is your problem, since you already asked for help ( private help..) in another post ?

describe what is working, what not, attach procedures and photos of board , explain your moves and results
 
We will try to give you a helpful  hand.

@toro2077
If I remember well, and you can confirm by yourself scrolling in older posts, thiw wifi will never ever work since there aren't any driver avaible for this ( infamous) chip s9012p

There is still such a problem. When the device reboots, the USB Ethernet adapter does not initialize. You have to pull it out and put it in again. When the device is turned off, there is no such thing.

@Obmor
here it is a module for kernel 6.6.67 and rtl8189es. Put this module in /lib/modules/6.6.41-current-rockchip/kernel/drivers/net/wireless directory, then run sudo depmod -a and reboot.
If everything went ok, you should get 8189es driver loaded after boot; perhaps you may need a firmware to put somewhere in /lib/firmware. In case, the driver should complain about in dmesg that something is missing or wrong, and that may serve as hint to proceed further.
 
 
8189es.ko.gz

@Obmor
the ssv6051 is one of the best supported chip we studied.
but since some conflicts with 8723as/bs/cs  chip it is blacklisted
is strange because armbian-config should solve the question and give you wifi
try again with armbian-config and select ssv6051 or dig into modules blacklist and comment out ssv6051 ko

wil pm you for additional infos on your project since is a thread not concerning this forum

Everything is here: https://github.com/armbian/build/

@fabiobassa
Now I use this one: https://www.ozon.ru/product/ustroystvo-upravleniya-diskretnymi-signalami-usb-gpio-extender-1757581290/
but there are few lines. I ordered this one more : https://aliexpress.ru/item/1005005823954618.html?sku_id=12000034481303368
 

@zzc @galenzhao @Obmor tvboxes have a huge amount of wireless chip on board and supporting all of them is very difficult and time consuming taks which I can't afford anymore; the APxxxx series is usually supported because they are basically broadcom chips and the driver is there, but their functionality also depends upon the board wiring, the firmware, the nvram, etc... as you see there are several pieces in the puzzle and it is not easy to fit them without some effort.
 
The best advice I could give you if you need basic wireless connectivity, is to buy a mediatek-based (mt7601) USB dongle; the next best advice is to buy SBCs with standard or premium support (not CSC) by armbian