anbodearg Posted September 23, 2020 Posted September 23, 2020 Hi all, I was running Armbian as a LAMP server on x96Max board on emmc. I was using a USB Wifi dongle, and also a USB thumbdrive for local storage. Everything was working great..24/7 for a few weeks. Then suddenly just stopped. Now the board won't start-up at power-on. Tried toothpick reset, and also I've tried several PSUs, which work ok with other boards. I have a 5V/4A PSU, and a couple of 5V/2A PSUs. There's no LED, and no HDMI signal. And the Wifi dongle doesn't light up (so the OS isn't starting). Also I've checked for voltage 5VDC at different points on the board - eg the USB ports, and there is 5V. I can't find any fuse on the board, and I cant see any damaged components. (did the CPU just overheat and die?) Any suggestions? Thanks!
Bozza Posted September 23, 2020 Posted September 23, 2020 If everything else fails you can try the oven method. Please do pay special attention to the temperature and time.
NicoD Posted September 23, 2020 Posted September 23, 2020 1 minute ago, Bozza said: If everything else fails you can try the oven method. Please do pay special attention to the temperature and time. Good joke. But that ain't the way to repair electronics. But what does Linus know except for what he reads in his scripts. With the box, are you sure you didn't plug an adapter with a higher voltage? I've got 5V, 9V and 12V adapters all with the same plugs. So I'm very careful with that. I've never installed Armbian on the eMMC of my X96Air since you kinda need Android for when something goes wrong. There are other TV-Boxes that boot from sd by default. But here I think you are kind of scr*w*d. Maybe check here for an answer? https://www.getdroidtips.com/stock-firmware-x96-max-tv-box/
hexdump Posted September 23, 2020 Posted September 23, 2020 i think the best you can do is trying to connect a serial console to it - then you'll see for sure if it still gives signs of life from it or not and what you get then might help you to find possible options to recover it if recovery is still possible ... a dead emmc might result in the behaviour you describe: as the balbes images use the legacy u-boot on emmc on the box for booting on amlogic and a broken or dead emmc might result in nothing happening when turning on the box, but of course it can also be completely dead or just something trivially corrupted. 1
anbodearg Posted September 29, 2020 Author Posted September 29, 2020 On 9/23/2020 at 2:56 PM, NicoD said: Good joke. But that ain't the way to repair electronics. But what does Linus know except for what he reads in his scripts. With the box, are you sure you didn't plug an adapter with a higher voltage? I've got 5V, 9V and 12V adapters all with the same plugs. So I'm very careful with that. I've never installed Armbian on the eMMC of my X96Air since you kinda need Android for when something goes wrong. There are other TV-Boxes that boot from sd by default. But here I think you are kind of scr*w*d. Maybe check here for an answer? https://www.getdroidtips.com/stock-firmware-x96-max-tv-box/ Thanks, NicoD. Yes, I'm sure I did not use wrong adapter. I have 2 boxes with both 5V/2A adapters, and I was able to confirm the PSU was ok - by checking it on the other box. I have switched now from this X96Max+ (S905X3) to another box S905D. The S905D has been running with no issues 24/7 for 5 days now. The other one did not last that long. It seems to me that the problem was a hardware issue with the x96Max box. I don't know why, but the X96Max+ board just died. Maybe it got too hot. I was looking at the CPU temp sometimes, but I didn't see a temp more than around 70 deg. C. Maybe the connections for some of those chips is not so good. Maybe the oven/re-balling is a solution. I might try it sometime. Thanks anyway for your help!
Bozza Posted September 29, 2020 Posted September 29, 2020 My box was temporarily bricked because one of the USB slots became damaged. Neither the LED display nor the LEDs would come on. The pins inside the USB slot were touching causing a short-circuit on the pcb. If you have a multi meter you could check if there is a short anywhere on your pcb. The main two things that I can imagine that have happened to your board is either a short circuit caused by the USB or Sd slot if you were using those excessively or perhaps a chip or other component becoming undone and requiring a reballing. Good luck and keep us updated!
anbodearg Posted October 5, 2020 Author Posted October 5, 2020 On 9/29/2020 at 4:54 PM, Bozza said: My box was temporarily bricked because one of the USB slots became damaged. Neither the LED display nor the LEDs would come on. The pins inside the USB slot were touching causing a short-circuit on the pcb. If you have a multi meter you could check if there is a short anywhere on your pcb. The main two things that I can imagine that have happened to your board is either a short circuit caused by the USB or Sd slot if you were using those excessively or perhaps a chip or other component becoming undone and requiring a reballing. Good luck and keep us updated! Hi, I was using USB thumb drive running a slideshow 24/7 (the images were on the USB, and the OS running on the emmc). But, I didn't see any short circuits. I checked different pins on the board, and 5V (or 3.3V) was present. I swapped out the board with another, and the new board has not shown any issues ... more than 1 week now non-stop. The only thing I can think of is a component becoming undone and requires reballing. I might try the oven option. Thanks!
anbodearg Posted October 6, 2020 Author Posted October 6, 2020 I was thinking of reballing, until I watched this video from Lewis. Maybe oven would fix it, but unless it's a permanent fix it is no good to me. Next time, I think I will just return for refund (unfortunately, I opened it).
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