Here is some hopes for H616 tv Box

[BigZero]

I had X96 Mate from long time, which is 4GB/32GB with H616 CPU, (It is almost same as Tanix TS6s)

Tried many images from orange pi for same chip, none worked perfectly. 

Found out Sunix Linux community got support for H616, but they don't build full OS images,

After hell of searching found a repo from https://github.com/warpme/miniarch

He hosts MiniArch SD card image which works on many devices, 

from same link got SD card image for Tanix tx6s  which also worked on x96_Mate (both got H616)

 

Here is the file I used - https://github.com/warpme/miniarch/releases/download/20230106-6.1.5-g78293cd3/MiniArch-20230106-6.1.5-board-h616.tanix_tx6s-SD-Image.img.xz

 

1- Wrote img to SD card using Etcher

2- Inserted SD card in Device

3- Powered ON the device and it Booted from SD card

4- followed update instructions on GitHub Repo.

5- Rebooted after all updates,

6- Basic Arch was ready to be used 

Here USB keyboard , LAN, HDMI worked normally.

 

After reboot, logged in as root, and ran "start" command,

Now here selected option 5, which is install EndeavourOS

Process just ask you Yes/No questions, then you can select your DE, location etc. Automated script downloaded bunch of files and started its installation.

Got the message that installation is done successfully and came back to terminal.

Rebooted from terminal

After this point got only blank screen , dont know it is still booting without HDMI or not

So need to revert back to step -1 writing basic image to SD card.

And this time sticking to terminal only.

 

all this process is done on SD card only, and android on eMMC is safe .

 

 

 

 

[SteeMan]

This post is not Armbian related and therefore off topic.  However since the information is generic others might find it useful so the post is being allowed, in the hopes that someone would pick up this work and bring it into the Armbian fold.  Any volunteers ?

[BigZero]

Update --

 

While first installation I did not expand my SD card, so installing script gave me successful msg but my SD card was full and due to which screen went blank on reboot.

 

2nd time before doing any updated I expanded SD card, option is available in "start" script.

 

Installation of EOS took 2-3 tries, might be due to large files download , network connectivity etc..

 

after 3rd time lightdm was not loading, had to install it manually

 

after this, got the GUI login screen, but could not login.

 

with lightdm , gtk greeter was missing, then xfce goodies was not installed with EOS scripts.

did all these those thru pacman -S

 

after this, I was able to login and now I got full Desktop on H616, 

I can play 720p on CPU, 1080p was glitchy,

Apache, Chrome, nodejs , ffmpeg etc was installed without any issue. (these are required for my project)
Did not test anything else.

 

What not Working
1- WiFi 
2- Audio
3- GPU  (not sure)
4- YouTube not starting play due to audio issue.

 

Don't know how to shift from SD to eMMC, will have to search for this now. 

(posted these finding on EOS forum too)

 

To DO - 

1- SD to eMMC

2- Trying to put Armbian on SD (might be mix and match)

[BigZero]

Update 2 -

Somehow HDMI is loosing signals every 2sec, even on Android.

So no more testing from my end. 

[TeroDada]

Seems like a problem with the HDMI cable or the power cable. These are very poorly made. I usually power with a USB to USB cable instead of the default adapter.

[BigZero]

Nope had a bunch of HDMI cables and adaptor laying, checked it is HDMI sync issue or poor soldering of hdmi connector on the board.

 

@TeroDada as you use usb to usb for power, that means you giving only 5v0.5A to the box, is it sufficient? Normally adaptor used are 5V2A.

With 0.5A box behaviour is always bad for me. Box need minimum 1A adaptor for smooth function.

 

[merxx]

Hi all, 
my tvbox ,Q96X : 

H313, 4GB DDR3 (8 x Samsung chip), 16GB eMMC (Samsung) , eth100, wifi on SDIO (SV6256P, max150mb/s), optical spdif, 2xusb2.0, sdcard in, android 10.

 

I read somewhere that h616 and h313 are very similar, so,
inspired by BigZero, I tried Miniarch, (MiniArch-20230212-6.2.11-board-h313.x96_q-SD-Image)

system installed (easily) on microsd.

Base system (ethernet, HDMI, usbports,CLI, SSH, updates and new packet installations) appears stable, running for 2 days.

main problems are :
- cpu scaling seems broken (the 4 cores always run at lowest speed (480mhz) when utilization is 100%, BUT they can reach 1000mhz when utilization is just 5%: no comment)
- thermal sensors reporting needs (massive) calibration (report says 84°C minimum, and the heatsink is only slightly warm...). I found two "thermal calibration" recurrences in the device tree, but I don't dare to modify them: one is under an EFUSE voice... XD
- system reports only 2GB ram (reporting error or fake samsung chips?)

- wifi not detected ( SV6256P (also known as FN-LINK H256A-S)),
some wifi card seems to be detected on SDIO bus, but nothing else:
(dmesg | grep 'new high speed SDIO'
[ 1.968176] mmc3: new high speed SDIO card at address 0001)
(i created a device tree file with dtc145 , it reports someting about a wifi card under
mmc@4021000
"aliases {
ethernet0 = "/soc/ethernet@5030000";
ethernet1 = "/soc/mmc@4021000/wifi@1";"
and later ...
" wifi@1 {
interrupt-names = "host-wake";
interrupt-parent = <0x15>;
interrupts = <0x6 0xf 0x1>;
local-mac-address = [dc 44 6d c0 ff 02];
reg = <0x1>;"

but "local mac address" seems to be a "default" alwinner one; my card is not Alwinner, it's FN-LINK and should have other mac addresses 😕

to be tested: audio; graphical interface (Endeavour os)

full report on miniarch's github

Edited April 28, 2023 by merxx

[TeroDada]

I have a T95 Mini with H313 and this MiniArch image works on it. I can boot using both the X96Q and Tanix TX6S image.

I also tried hexdump's image builder images, no luck with them.

But somehow this works without any issues.

 

Would be great if someone can work from this and prepare an armbian build.

[merxx]

Q96X (H313, ddr3L, eMMc5) + miniarch update:
Frequency scaling and thermal reporting fixed ; 2Gb reporting solved (fake specs) ; Wifi sv6256p will only run with kernels 4.4.x. (sv6256p problem was "fixed" on armbian with a sort of legacy (kernel 4.4.x based) edition.)
frontal led minipanel doesn't work;  audio (OPTspdif, analog) still to be tested
Anyway , miniArch seems stable on H313/H616, I will try to push it a bit 


Now, a different question
I've another Android tv box :
s905x (p212-like board) + Stock android 6 on eMMC and Armbian on SD.
1)On the board there is a white 10 pins connector. All pins are on the same row.
I already have 4 holes for console (RX TX GND ...), so, we could exclude that the 10 pins are for console.
What could these 10 pins be for? Led display? touchpad? IO?
Could I find some hint by generating and looking into Armbian's device_tree file ? Should I manually search for some node in the file system?
How could i probe the pins using a multimeter?
UPDATE (multimeter):
- pin 4+5 restarts the system 
- 1+4 gives +5V , so pin1 should be 5v and pin4 could be GND

2) wifi chip is a chinese "SCI S9082C", (32 pins mounted on a 44 pins module). It should be a clone of rtl8189ETV, just with a different VID/PID . How can i force the rtl8198etv driver to work with that VID/PID ?

3) Could I substitute the horrible stock Android 6 actually on eMMC with , say, LibreElec and keep a working Armbian on SD? So that if SDcard is IN system loads Armbian, and if SD card is OUT system loads LibreElec from eMMC? . OR, as a simpler alternative, could I safely switch Armbian SD card and LibreElec SDcard?

4) Just to be on the safe side : how do I backup my stock Android6 rom before playing a bit with armbian and LibreElec? Stock recovery menu is enough for a full stock ROM backup or should I use something like TWRP/CWM? )
Thnx!

Edited May 11, 2023 by merxx

[Wonder Xyril]

its not booting in my tv box, allwinner h313