dale

DISCLAIMERS (PLEASE READ):
Everything you can find in this thread (binaries, texts, code snippets, etc...) are provided AS-IS and are not part of official Armbian project. For this reason not people from Armbian project nor myself are responsible for misuse or loss of functionality of hardware. THIS POST explains very well the troubles with TV Boxes and why they are not suitable for everyone Please don't ask about support or assistance in other non-community forums nor in the official Armbian github repository, instead post your questions in this thread, in the TV Boxes forum section (hardware related) or in the Peer-to-peer support section (general linux/software related).  
Following the recent thread on LibreElec forum about an unofficial image for rk3229 devices, I would like to make public the work made by me and @fabiobassa about bringing rk322x support to armbian.
The project is now in -> mainline Armbian <- development fork -> here <-
 
This first page and the last 3 or 4 pages of the thread are enough to get up to date with recent developments.
Many useful experiences are scattered through the thread, but the most important things are collected here in the first page, so please read it carefully!
 
Mainline kernel is fully supported and will receive most support in the future. Legacy kernel 4.4 is deprecated, but is kept around only for special purposes.
 
What works:
Should boot and work flawlessy on all boards with RK3228a, RK3228b and RK3229, with either DDR2 and DDR3 memories. Mainline u-boot Proprietary OPTEE provided as Trusted Execution Environment (needed for DRAM frequency scaling) All 4 cores are working Ethernet Serial UART (configured at 115200 bps, not 1.5Mbps!) Thermals, CPU and DRAM frequency scaling OTG USB 2.0 port (also as boot device!) EHCI/OHCI USB 2.0 ports MMC subsystem (including eMMC, SD and sdio devices) Hardware video acceleration NAND is available only on legacy kernel. To fully boot from NAND, use the Multitool and its steP-nand installation (instructions are below) Various WIFI over SDIO are supported (SSV6051P, SSV6256P, ESP8089, Realtek chips, etc...), ssv6256p driver is available only on legacy kernel Full GPU acceleration U-boot boot order priority: first the sdcard, then the USB OTG port and eventually the internal eMMC; you can install u-boot (and the whole system) in the internal eMMC and u-boot will always check for images on external sdcard/USB first.  
Unbrick:
Technically, rockchip devices cannot be bricked. If the internal flash does not contain a bootable system, they will always boot from the sdcard. If, for a reason, the bootable system on the internal flash is corrupted or is unable to boot correctly, you can always force the maskrom mode shorting the eMMC clock pin on the PCB. Here there is the procedure, but you can also google around if you get stuck on a faulty bootloader, the technique is pretty simple and requires a simple screwdriver.
 
There are however some unfortunate cases (expecially newer boards) where shorting the eMMC clock pin is difficult or impossibile, like eMMC or eMCP BGA chips with no exposed pins. In those cases pay double attention when burning something on the internal eMMC/eMCP and always test first the image from the sdcard to be sure it works before burning anything on eMMC/eMCP.
 
Some useful links with pins, pads or procedures for some boards:
Generic procedure for boards with non-BGA eMMC MXQPRO_V71 - eMCP H20 - eMCP ZQ01 - eMCP  
NAND vs eMMC vs eMCP difference:
RK3228 and RK3229 tv boxes comes with three different flash memory chips: eMMC, NAND and eMCP.
It does not depend upon the market name of the tv box and neither the internal board; manufacturers put whatever they find cheaper when they buy the components.
 
NAND chip is just the non-volatile memory eMMC chip contains both the non-volatile memory plus a controller. eMCP chip contains the non-volatile memory, a controller for the non-volatile memory (like eMMC), but also contains a bank of DDR SDRAM memory on the same physical chip.  
The difference is very important, because eMMC and eMCP are far easier to support at various levels: the controller deals with the physical characteristics of the non-volatile memory, so the software has no to deal with.
NAND chips instead are harder to support, because the software is required to deal with the physical characteristics and non-standard things that depends upon the NAND manufacturer.
 
If you have a NAND chips you're unlucky because mainline kernel currently cannot access it, but also because you need special care and instructions explained later.
 
You can discover if you have a NAND, eMMC or eMCP chip looking on the board are reading the signature on the flash memory chip.
The Multitool (see later) also can detect which chip you have onboard: the program will warn you at startup if you have a NAND chip.
 
NAND bootloader upgrade:
IMPORTANT: don't do this is you have an eMMC or eMCP; skip this paragraph if you are unsure too!
For very expert people who are having issues when (re)booting images, there is the chance to upgrade the bootloader on NAND.
The NAND bootloader is nothing else than a regular idbloader (see official rockchip documentation) but contains some bits to correctly access the data on your flash memory.
Upgrading requires to erase the existing flash content, in the worst case will require you to follow the Unbrick procedure above or restore an older but more compatible bootloader.
If you are not mentally ready to overcome possible further issues, don't do this!
 
The detailed instructions and the binaries are available at this post
 
Multimedia:
Mainline kernel: 3D acceleration is provided by Lima driver and is already enabled. Hardware video decoding: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/19258-testing-hardware-video-decoding-rockchip-allwinner/ Deprecated legacy kernel: multimedia features, like OpenGL/OpenGL ES acceleration, hardware accelerated Kodi, ffmpeg and mpv you can take a look to this post An effective tutorial from @Hai Nguyen on how to configure a box as a hi-quality music player using an USB audio card, and controlling it via remote control is available in this post  
Brief explanation about kernel naming:
current kernel is the mainline LTS kernel version, most maintained and tested. This is the suggested version for production devices. If you don't know what to pick, pick this. legacy kernel (version 4.4) is provided by manufacturer; it is deprecated, unmaintained and not suggested. edge kernel is the development mainline kernel version, with experimental features and drivers; usually stable but perhaps suitable for production devices.  
You can switch from one kernel flavour to another using armbian-config or manually via apt.
 
Installation (via SD card):
Building:
You can build your own image follow the common steps to build armbian for other tv boxes devices: when you are in the moment to choose the target board, switch to CSC/TVB/EOL boards and select "rk322x-box" from the list.
 
Download prebuilt images from the following links:
Archive builds (GPG-signed) - https://imola.armbian.com/dl/rk322x-box/archive/ SUGGESTED - Nightly built from trunk each week by Armbian servers (GPG-signed) - https://github.com/armbian/community Old images provided by me (unsigned and outdated) - https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable  
Archived/older images:
https://armbian.hosthatch.com/archive/rk322x-box/archive/
 
Multitool:
The Multitool is a small but powerful tool to do quick backup/restore of internal flash, but also burn images and general system rescue and maintenance via terminal or SSH.
Compressed images will be uncompressed on fly.
Multitool - A small but powerful image for RK322x TV Box maintenance (instructions to access via network here)  
Quick installation instructions on eMMC:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn image to flash" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually mmcblk2) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC, etc... Run sudo armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed and configured!  
Despite the procedure above is simple and reliable, I always recommend to first test that your device boots Armbian images from SD Card.
Due to the really large hardware variety, there is the rare chance that the images proposed here may not boot. If a bad image is burned in eMMC, the box may not boot anymore forcing you to follow the unbrick section at the top of this post.
 
Quick installation instructions on NAND:
Build or download your preferred Armbian image and a copy of the Multitool; Burn the Multitool on an SD card; once done, place the Armbian legacy kernel image in images folder of the SD card NTFS partition; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; OPTIONAL: you can do a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Burn Armbian image via steP-nand" from the menu, then select the destination device (usually rknand0) and the image to burn; Wait for the process to complete, then choose "Shutdown" from main menu; Unplug the power cord and the SD card, then replug the power cord; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt. On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options Congratulations, Armbian is now installed!  
Alternative: you can install the bootloader in NAND and let it boot from SD Card or USB:
Download a copy of the Multitool and burn it on an SD card; Plug the SD card in the TV box and plug in the power cord. After some seconds the blue led starts blinking and the Multitool appears; RECOMMENDED: make a backup of the existing firmware with "Backup flash" menu option; Choose "Install Jump Start for Armbian" menu option: the Jump Start uses the internal NAND to boot from external SD Card or external USB Stick; Follow the general instructions to boot from SD Card below, skip the first erase eMMC step.  
Quick installation instructions to boot from SD Card:
If you are already running Armbian from eMMC, skip to the next step. Instead if you are running the original firmware you need to first erase the internal eMMC; to do so download the Multitool, burn it on an SD Card, plug the SD Card and power the TV Box. Use "Backup flash" if you want to do a backup of the existing firmware, then choose "Erase flash" menu option. Build or download your preferred Armbian image; Uncompress and burn the Armbian image on the SD Card; Plug the SD Card in the TV Box and power it on; Wait for 10 seconds, then the led should start blinking and HDMI will turn on. The first time the boot process will take a couple of minutes or more because the filesystem is going to be resized, so be patient and wait for the login prompt; On first boot you will be asked for entering a password for root user of your choice and the name and password for a regular user Run sudo rk322x-config and select your board characteristics to enable leds, wifi chips, high-speed eMMC or NAND, etc... Run armbian-config to configure timezone, locales and other personal options, or also to transfer the SD Card installation to internal eMMC; Congratulations, Armbian is running from SD Card!  
A note about boot device order:
With Armbian also comes mainline U-boot. If you install Armbian or just the bootloader in the eMMC or the Jump Start on internal NAND, the bootloader will look for valid bootable images in this order:
External SD Card External USB Stick in OTG Port Internal eMMC  
Installation (without SD card, board with eMMC)
If you have no sd card slot and your board has an eMMC, you can burn the armbian image directly on the internal eMMC using rkdeveloptool and a male-to-male USB cable:
 
Download your preferred Armbian image from Armbian download page and decompress it. Download the rk322x bootloader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Download a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everything went well, run lsusb: you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool rd 3 (if this fails don't worry and proceed to next step) Run sudo rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 image.img (change image.img this with the real Armbian image filename) Unplug the power cord Done!  
Installation (without SD card, board with NAND)
If you are in the unfortunate case you can't use an SD card for installation and your board has a NAND chip, you still have an option to use the quick Multitool installation steps via USB.
 
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b Run sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0x4000 u-boot-main.img (download u-boot-main.img.xz , don't forget to decompress it!) Unplug the power cord  
Now you can follow the instructions on how to install on eMMC/NAND via SD card, just use instead an USB stick to do all the operations and plug it into the USB OTG port. Once you reboot, USB OTG port will be used as a boot device.
 
NOTE: NAND users without SD slot may be unhappy to know that it will be difficult to do extra maintenance with Multitool in case something breaks in the installed Armbian system: installing u-boot-main.img makes the installed system unbootable because it is missing the NAND driver.
 
 
Alternative backup, restore and erase flash for EXPERTS:
These backup, restore and erase flash procedures are for experts only. They are kept here mostly for reference, since the Multitool is perfectly able to do same from a very comfy interface and is the suggested way to do maintenance.
 
Backup:
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the tv box Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b change directory and move into rkbin/tools directory, run ./rkdeveloptool rfi then take note of the FLASH SIZE megabytes (my eMMC is 8Gb, rkdeveloptool reports 7393 megabytes) run ./rkdeveloptool rl 0x0 $((FLASH_SIZE * 2048)) backup.data (change FLASH_SIZE with the value you obtained the step before) once done, the internal eMMC is backed up to backup.data file  
Restore: first we have to restore the original bootloader, then restore the original firmware.
Running rkdeveloptool with these switches will accomplish both the jobs:
./rkdeveloptool db rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Downloading bootloader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.238_256.bin Upgrading loader succeeded. ./rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 backup.data Write LBA from file (100%) Download here:
 
Erase the flash memory: clearing the internal eMMC/NAND memory makes the SoC look for external SD Card as first boot option.
If there isn't any suitable SD Card, the SoC enters maskrom mode, which can then be used for full eMMC/NAND access using rkdeveloptool. This is perfectly fine if your box has an eMMC flash memory.
NOTE: In case you have a NAND flash memory this option is however discouraged. The original bootloader contains some special parameters to correctly access the data. Clearing the flash memory will probably garbage the NAND data and restoring the bootloader may require some special instructions.
 
Obtain a copy of rkdeveloptool: a compiled binary is available in the official rockchip-linux rkbin github repository. If you prefer, you can compile it yourself from the sources available at official rockchip repository Unplug the power cord from the board Plug an end of an USB Male-to-male cable into the OTG port (normally it is the lone USB port on the same side of the Ethernet, HDMI, analog AV connectors) while pressing the reset microbutton with a toothpick. You can find the reset microbutton in a hole in the back of the box, but sometimes it is hidden into the AV analog jack Plug the other end of the USB Male-to-male cable into an USB port of your computer If everyting went well, using lsusb you should see a device with ID 2207:320b run ./rkdeveloptool ef and wait a few seconds once done, the internal eMMC is erased and the device will boot from the sdcard from now on  
Partecipation and debugging:
If you want to partecipate or need help debugging issues, do not hesitate to share your experience with the installation procedure of the boxes.
In case of issues and missed support, provide as many as possible of these things is very useful to try and bring support for an unsupported board:
 
some photos of both sides of the board. Details of the eMMC, DDR and Wifi chips are very useful! upload the device tree binary (dtb) of your device. We can understand a lot of things of the hardware from that small piece of data; and alternative is a link to the original firmware (you can do a full backup with the Multitool); dmesg and other logs (use armbianmonitor -u that automatically collects and uploads the logs online) attach a serial converter to the device and provide the output of the serial port;  
Critics, suggestions and contributions are welcome!
 
Credits:
@fabiobassa for his ideas, inspiration, great generosity in giving the boards for development and testing. The project of bringing rk322x into armbian would not have begun without his support! Justin Swartz, for his work and research to bring mainline linux on rk3229 (repository here) @knaerzche for his great contribution to libreelec support and mainline patches @Alex83 for his patience in testing the NAND bootloader upgrade procedure on his board @Jason Duhamell for his generous donation that allowed researching eMCP boards and esp8089 wifi chip

@lucky62
Here it is the linux kernel + dtb + headers for latest 5.10.37: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OOpjb3L-bFcabKkQKO4GS-hTVzIvKeXo?usp=sharing
Install all the three packages via dpgk -i and then reboot.
Backup your dtb/dtbo changed files because the directory may be wiped out during the process!
 
This is the kernel module source code modified by me: vfd.tgz
And this is the OpenVFDService executable compiled as-is by me from Arthur's original source code: OpenVFDService
 
I modified the kernel module to compile both manually and as a kernel-tree module, but also fixed some dtb nomenclature.
To compile, first run this command to create a symlink that may be missing (just run this once):
sudo ln -sf /boot/System.map-$(uname -r) /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build/System.map  
Then to compile and install:
make -j4 sudo make install make install will complain about missing signature, but don't worry, the module will load anyway.
 
Then your dtbo should look like this:
/dts-v1/; /plugin/; / { fragment@0 { target-path = "/"; __overlay__ { openvfd { compatible = "openvfd,tm1628"; gpio-clk = <&gpio2 0x13 0x00>; gpio-dat = <&gpio2 0x16 0x00>; gpio-stb = <&gpio2 0x12 0x00>; openvfd,chars = [00 04 03 02 01]; openvfd,dot-bits = [00 01 03 02 04 05 06]; openvfd,display-type = <0x00>; status = "okay"; }; }; }; }; Now I took the gpios from the dtb of the X88 you posted some time ago. I hope they are right.
 
The openvfd,* properties are described on Arthur's page and documentation. Those are those which I'm using, but most probably you will need to change them to fit the led configuration of your box. The most evident problem is that the segments turn on wrong displaying unreadable numbers or maybe the indicators (usb/wifi/ethernet/...) are wrongly associated.
 
Each character is controller by a byte, so each led of the 7 segment character is turned on and off by a bit of this byte.
openvfd,chars is a map: the first byte is the indicators byte, then comes the first, second, third and fourth characters. On my configuration the indicator byte is the 00, then the first character is mapped to byte 04, second character to byte 03, and so on...
openvfd,dot-bits is the map of the indicators: every bit in the indicator byte controls an indicator, there you map which bit is usb, which one is wifi, and so on...
openvfd,display-type usually is 00 (normal) or 01 if your display translate by 180 degrees (ie: characters are flipped down and specular)
 
Once you set up the dtbo and activate it in armbianEnv.txt, you can run the OpenVFDService executable:
./OpenVFDService &  
that will hopefully turn on the display and show you the current time

Boa noite KSilva! (I'm French, but I live in Algarve...)
I was in the same case as you, knew nothing about those boxes and rochchip, but, with the STRONG help of fabiobassa, I have been able to resuscitate a few of thoses boxes, and at least for some of them, able to have a stable Linux.
 
A few questions:
- Are you "fluent" in Linux and windows, do you have a windows system available?
- Do you have some experience in electronics, microprocessors and microcomputers?
- Do you have experience with serial connexions?
 
My recommendation for you:
- grab a male-male A-A usb cable, a micro (I mean MICRO) screwdriver, and a high magnification magnifying glass.
- Open your box, take good quality pictures of both sides of the PCB and  put them on the forum.
- The 2 next steps are: put the box either in Rockchip (ie. Loader) mode or in Maskrom mode, and try to connect a serial line to the box serial connection (1500000-N-8-1) to get console log, as this helps A LOT. (all cards have 3 or 4 plots for that: Gnd, Tx, Rx, Vcc . We can help you find that on the pictures; you will need a serial adapter, some thin wires that you have usually to solder on some pads and a com program - minicom works very well)
- After that, you will have to flash some firmware using the USB to USB OTG cable.
- Even if you prefer Linux (that'salso my case...), I suggest that you use windows for bringing back your box alive, as W tools are A LOT more complete, and also windows emits a sound when a new USB device is recognized, which helps a lot.
 
This page explains the boot process.
You can grab your stock firmware on this page . The archive of firmware contains RKDevelopTool.exe, which is used for flashing firmware.
You can grab also some more Rockchip tools here
 
Here are the main points that I understood:
- Armbian and Rockchip/android firmwares are RADICALLY different, and their boot process are INCOMPATIBLE. Conceptually, they are similar, but takes very different approaches.
- Let's detail the RK approach, which is very basic, unsophisticated and pragmatic. The image in flash contains the following elements at FIXED addresses, from bottom to top of flash:
- A "partition table", (Parameter in RKDevTool) which indicates the addresses of the following blobs (with extension .img)
- Loader, closed source called after reset by the HW of the processor.
- The "trusted bloc", closed source, which performs some needed magic... started by the loader
- The RK uboot, started by the trust module, which is similar to the BIOS for PC, and contains an interactive monitor, that you can start by entering a char on the serial console; otherwise it continues the boot.
- The Device Tree Block (DTB, called "Resource" in RKDevTool)): this is a binary blob  which contains all the details and parameters of the hardware. it is compiled from source, and is COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE with the Armbian DTB. This allows to have a standard kernel, which is the same for all boxes.
- The Linux kernel, started by the uboot, with a command line indicating where in flash to find the DTB, the Boot partition and the root file system.
- The Boot partition
- The Root partition (called "System" in RKDevTool), containing the Linux userland.
 
On android, there are other blobs, used for backup and recovery, in case something goes wrong.
All those blobs are usually packed together by the above RK tools, to create a complete image.
RKDevtool allows you to flash each of those blobs in a specific place in memory, erase the memory, do some low level tests or flash a complete image.
I will detail some practical instructions on a next post.
 
 
 
 
 

@dale
since you are able to manage linux and linux command , you can enjoy yourself with a chron command too:
a simple bash script that in the morning at 8:00 ( or when is usefull for you) does a
echo default-on ( ot timer or heartbeat or cpu0 ) >>> /sys/class/leds/here_the_name_of_your_led/trigger  
and the at 20:00 ( or when is usefull for you) does a
echo none ( ATTENTION: none and default on " could be inverted as logical but you will realize it by yourself ;-) ) >>> /sys/class/leds/put_here_your_led_name/trigger  
If you are electronic skilled, too, you can even control something with a simple transistor and a relay attached to that led
 

Hello, I investigated quite a bit the u-boot issue, but it is not an immediately solvable issue, so it has to wait for the time being.
About the leds, they can be controlled using the sysfs interface available in /sys/class/leds.
 
In particular, you can do cat /sys/class/leds/working/trigger that will tell you a list of acceptable options, and use echo value > /sys/class/leds/working/trigger (change value with something you got from the list) to change the led behaviour.

@dale
 
ty so much for sharing your experiments. This helps  @jock and me to better understand behaviour of some boxes that haven't sd card reader , ddr3 and nand.
The u-boot legacy we realized have some difficult to proper initialize the usb: it's random failure so quite difficult to debug, maybe jock will investigate further or/and rewrite some pieces of code to proper start USB subsystem but this requires it's time. For now we are glad your board is functional

@Seth
ty for sharing the dtb and your experiences, too

Hi @jock,
Play around with rockchip tv box is always such an interesting thing.
I tried to boot off usb drive with 3 types of image:
1) same with image flashed into NAND (buster legacy) --> Armbian could boot from usb drive
2) focal legacy image --> could not boot armbian just ignored the usb drive and booted right from NAND
3) Multiboot --> could not boot, armbian just ignored the usb drive and booted right from NAND
 

@Seth I will take a look to the dtb, expecially for the led configuration (maybe yours is a special one)
 
@dale Congrats, finally you made it! Need to understand why the multitool is not booting although, on my box it boots fine from USB. May I ask what happens exactly when you power on the box with the USB stick into?
The system hangs and you see a black screen? The led is blinking or is steady on/off? Do armbian boots instead like no USB stick is in the port at all?
edit: about the temps, yes they are a bit weird. Some chips reports rather high temperatures, I have a board with rk3229 that is idling at 82°C and easily reaches 90°C, but never had any lock-up and the heatspreader is just regularly warm.

@dale
Glad everything is working . Later personally will investigate vwhy multitool doesn t work as expected 
And don't forget help good reputation of authors with a simple like, thanks !
 
@Seth
What exactly do you want to achieve now?
Maybe I missed something
 
 
 
 
 

@dale
congrats for successful setup!
 
Anyway, i got a hold of the device tree copy from android as well as dmesg.
I figured, i'm gonna follow @hexdump's instructions. hope it all works out fine.
device-tree-copy.tar.gz dmesg_android.txt

@dale Definitely the Multitool was not behaving correctly when used from USB - I was pretty sure someone else in the past used it successfully, but probably he/she made some modifications to let it boot and work correctly.
Anyway I have uploaded a new fixed version of the Multitool. Download it again from the first page.
 
Follow the instructions to install into NAND you find in the first page, of course burn the Multitool on the USB stick, then boot with the USB stick in the USB OTG port of the box and let's see if it finally works!
 
PS: if the Multitool still refuses to load, follow the suggestion to burn the Armbian legacy image directly on the USB stick and let's see if it at least works (BTW it should work, it has been tested in the past)

@dale

hello dale, would you try this loader and give us feedback , please
 
RK322XMiniLoaderAll_V2.47_spectek_en_ddr2_rd_odt_171127.bin