FilSan Posted May 7, 2022 Posted May 7, 2022 Hello guys, I have a HK1 Box 4GB/64GB with s905x3. I have followed all the necessary steps. Tried using dd on linux or elena on windows. Tried debian and ubuntu versions from https://users.armbian.com/balbes150/arm-64/ Followed this page https://zhangyuqing.cn/2988.html as well as this forum's own page https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17106-installation-instructions-for-tv-boxes-with-amlogic-cpus (same procedure) The blue light just keeps blinking no matter how long i hold the reset button. Any ideas/clues? Is this chip hopeless? Should i get a box with S905X4 or rockchip, allwinner?? I just want a box with gigabit working for a micro server. The shop's page showed this box had gigabit, but iperf3 says otherwise. I would get a raspberry, but stocks are drier than Sahara's desert. EDIT: It boots using this image But no NIC. Just wifi. I'll search how to disable bluetooth, wifi, audio, etc and recompile the dtb file to see if it's helps.
FilSan Posted May 7, 2022 Author Posted May 7, 2022 If anyone has a working dtb for this one, i'll appreciate. How can i see the hardware in the box? lspci returns nothing.
SteeMan Posted May 10, 2022 Posted May 10, 2022 On 5/7/2022 at 10:06 AM, FilSan said: The blue light just keeps blinking no matter how long i hold the reset button. Any ideas/clues? Is this chip hopeless? Should i get a box with S905X4 or rockchip, allwinner?? I just want a box with gigabit working for a micro server. The shop's page showed this box had gigabit, but iperf3 says otherwise. I'll try to respond to your questions as best as I can, but since I don't have that box, I can only guess. First you mention that 'no matter how long you hold the reset button'. It isn't a matter of time and the process is that you need to boot with the reset button pressed for about 5 seconds, then after a bit, remove the power and boot with out the reset button pressed. This second boot should boot into your sd card image. The first boot holding the reset button is installing 'multiboot' which is a set of changed variables in the uboot environment that essetially changes the boot order. Then the second boot uses this new uboot environment to boot from the sd card. Note that you should only need to do the reset button step once (unless or until the uboot environment gets reset to default). You mention the s905x4 chip. Do not get a box with this. When it comes to TV boxes, older is better. So s905x is better supported than s905x2, etc. This is because it takes a lot of time and effort for the open source community to reverse engineer and get support into mainline linux (as the cpu manufacturers don't generally support linux openly, i.e. they don't release source code, and box manufacturers are even worse at supporting their products). So the older something is the more likely someone has put in the time to get it somewhat working. So for the s905x4 there isn't any support yet, and perhaps there may never be. The same general rule (older is better) goes for the other cpu families as well, allwinner and rockchip. But if you are looking for something in the armbian community I would currently recommend looking at rockchip based boxes. That is the only cpu family that has an active tv box developer working on support. Then finally, you mention gigabit networking. I would recomend you set your sights on 100mbit networking. Generally gigabit networking is implemented in off cpu networking chips that have no/limited support in mainstream linux. It is very rare that you will get gigabit networking to work on a tv box with armbian. On 5/7/2022 at 6:12 PM, FilSan said: How can i see the hardware in the box? lspci returns nothing. Generally the recommendation is to open the box and inspect the chips on the board for their markings and work from there. 1
SteeMan Posted May 10, 2022 Posted May 10, 2022 @FilSan I wanted to comment about the other image you posted/mentioned. While that sight mentions armbian, that code really has nothing to do with armbian. Those developers are not involved in the armbian community, nor to they participate in these forums. They are essentially using the armbian name without permission for their work. 1
FilSan Posted May 10, 2022 Author Posted May 10, 2022 Steeman, thanks for your replies. Yeah, the reset button thing is not that hard. I even booted from the usb pen drive. So, no problems with that. Thanks for the clarification anyway. Makes sense to ge the older chips first. I guess the manufacturers sells a crap load of these on China alone. So, they can't care less about the LInux community. Yeah, i was doubting this box really had gigabit. But i had to see for myself Pitty, such a small box would be great for a micro server. Just dhcp, dns, pxe boot server, etc. Anyway, the NIC didn't work no matter what. Probably a different chip than others HK1 boxes. Someone said here the same model can actually have different chips. I'll get myself a fanless mini pc then. A Beelink bt3 pro II probably. Pitty the larkbox from chuwi doesn't have a giabit link, omg... such a cute tiny box.
FilSan Posted January 13, 2023 Author Posted January 13, 2023 I returned the box. Crap stuff. I rather pay a bit more and have a nice micro pc firewall from aliexpress than these crappy tv boxes.
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