Hello again.
manual upgrade from 5.15 to 5.18 kernel and dtb works flawlessly. everything works except hdmi. im currently running my h96 max box with board version rk3318_v1.4. my procedure was install armbian with kernel 5.15 using multitool and sd card while plugged in to an hdmi monitor/tv since multitool and 5.15 kernel works with hdmi. after configuring with rk3318-config, i plug it in to lan and continue running the box headless, then i manually upgrade to 5.18 kernel and dtb. config was 1.1GHz, ddr and emmc is option 1 (typical speeds), led conf i used is led-conf1 (YK led conf i think). seems to work fine and stable apart from the hdmi. i have attached dmesg for 5.15 and 5.18 logs if anyone can spot differences.
dmesg-5.15-kernel.log dmesg-5.18-kernel.log