Trying to add support for S905x4 tv boxes

[Cromium]

Hello, I am trying to add support for H96 Max X4 android box

 

Here are the specs of my box:
SOC: amlogic S905x4
RAM: 2GB
Pictures

 

I am trying to run this box as a raspberry pi alternative as I can't find a pi anywhere.

 

I know that there is no official or unofficial support for this chip so I plan to add support for this box myself.
After some research, I found that there are 4 variants according to coreelec community and they have already added support
for generic S905x4 boxes. So my first intuition was to boot coreelec and try to move on from there.

 

I tried their prebuild image and followed their guide but no success. The box didn't boot to coreelec.
After that, I also downloaded the armbian community build for S9xx-box and then replaced

the dtb file with the one that I pulled from coreelec image

 

I also renamed the u-boot-s905x2-s922 to u-boot.ext but still it didn't boot. I did so cause I found that S905x4 is very similar
to S905x3 so I thought that it might work and it was suggested in this forum post

 

But no It didn't work.

 

After all my initial failed attempts I then opened up the box and found the UART pins quite easily.

I am currently quite new to hardware hacking and don't even have a USB to TTL converter in hand.

I ordered one on amazon it will be delivered in a couple of days still I did some probing with a multimeter and

found out which pin is TX and RX but I am not quite sure.

 

PCB pic

I am attaching the photos for someone else who stumbles upon this post and can use this info

 

I know that U-BOOT used by these boxes is used by many routers but as I am so new I am not sure how I can use UART to build my very own dtb or U-BOOT.ext for this box
When I tried opening the dtb file That I pulled from coreelec I could not read it at all it looks like it was encoded.

 

Here is link to the file I pulled from coreelec
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqsohy4na0tnj6i/sc2_s905x4_2g.dtb?dl=0

 

If someone has resources that can help me build my own U-BOOT and dtb for this box it will be very helpful.

[SteeMan]

Since there is no mainline linux kernel support for the s905x4 that I am aware of, I suspect that coreelec is using the android based kernel.

Note that currently the boot environments for coreelec and armbian are incompatible.  So if you install coreelec, you will need to reflash android in order to use armbian.

Also note that the armbian amlogic environment uses the native firmware (android installed) boot loader.

You have an ambitious task ahead of you, good luck.

Since Armbian is community based, anything want to submit to the project as a result of your efforts would be welcomed.  If you need advice on PR submittal, I'd be happy to help.

 

[Incursionin]

I did the same thing, compiled image  from armbian sources , changed dtb file (coreelec works on my tvbox - h96max plus ultra), renamed u-boot file and all i get is android crash with android recovery droidlogic message , so did you make any success?