H20 Box with RK3228A bricked

[lucat1]

I have purchased the following board, named H20 from AliExpress: https://it.aliexpress.com/item/1005005623753864.html

I could boot the multitool for RK322x by holding the reset button, then selecting boot menu from Android's bootloader.

After installing an armbian release, the board does no longer boot, and a red LED turns on immediately after giving power.

I would like to try other Armbian images, but, I am no longer able to boot the multitool as I no longer have access to the Android bootloader, which I assume has been deleted by flashing the new ROM.

 

Also, any attempt at booting the multitool on an SD card are failing. Does the SD card have priority over the EMMC on this model?

Is there any way I can recover this board. I do not have a UART to usb dongle on hand, so I cannot provide you with any logs unfortunately.
If there are any simple steps I could follow to bring the board back to life, and reattempt an install, please let me know. I would also like to point out that I can find the original ROM on xda, though I haven't tried it yet.

I have left attached two pictures of the board, if they can be of any help.

[jock]

Hello @lucat1, it is not the first time I see this board on the forums. I have never seen it, so I don't know which problem it could have, only the UART debug output could tell what is going on.

 

Anyway, you should try to plug a male-to-male USB cable in the OTG port of the board and in your PC: if the board is in maskrom mode, you should be able to see the board from the PC using lsusb from Linux or AndroidTool from Windows. Once there, you can restore a previously made backup or erase the internal flash to force the board to boot from sdcard.

 

If the board is not detected on your PC, try pressing the reset button behind the audio jack connector, and keeping it pressed for two seconds while giving power to the board and then try again with the male-to-male cable.

 

Check the rk322x main thread on how to use rkflashtool/rkdeveloptool tools.

[occams razor]

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I ordered one of these on a whim with plans for running Armbian and Home Assistant eventually to replace my power hungry x86 setup.   

 

Regarding debugging, are the two exposed pads on the bottom of the PCB near the middle of the board the likely TX and RX UART connections?

Edited August 12, 2023 by occams razor

[jock]

6 hours ago, occams razor said:

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I ordered one of these on a whim with plans for running Armbian and Home Assistant eventually to replace my power hungry x86 setup.   

Not the best choice, if you accept my opinion. Much better to use a proper SBC for those kind of tasks, perhaps something with rk3328 and a decent amount of eMMC, since HA is going to write its data series.

On this particular board I don't even know if wifi is going to work, since it got a rk915a chip which currently is unknown.

 

 

[occams razor]

Quote

Not the best choice, if you accept my opinion. Much better to use a proper SBC for those kind of tasks, perhaps something with rk3328 and a decent amount of eMMC, since HA is going to write its data series.

On this particular board I don't even know if wifi is going to work, since it got a rk915a chip which currently is unknown.

 

Hi, thanks for looking. I know this thing I ordered has the potential of being nothing more than hot garbage, but it was cheapest with 2Gb ram that I found.  For HA I won't need wifi, the built-in eMMC, or even video as I was planning on using a high endurance pSLC sd card in a headless setup.  It should be an interesting experiment if it works.

[Jumperbillijumper]

I got the same box. Thanks to your tipp, I could boot multitool. I try to make a backup of emmc, but it holds by about 6%. After that I try to boot with the same method armbian (via SD Card), but I don't get a picture. Any hints?

[Rhodam]

Hello, I let you the firmware of the H20, it was very dificult to obtain, i share with you, all the tools for unbrik it because i had the same problem but no ones give me a solution, all the firmwares where bad, yo have to put it in maskmode to unbrik it with the factory tool, i let a guide but in spanish in the folder in mediafire.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/b5oi1gd9cz2zj/H20_ANDROID_TV_FIRMWARE_10

[SteeMan]

@Jumperbillijumper I'm responding to your latest comment in the other thread.  The short answer is no, no one seems to have gotten this box to work yet with armbian.  And until someone provides the requested info jock is asking for from the beginning of this thread, there isn't going to be any progress.

[Jumperbillijumper]

@SteeMan Thanks for your answer. Is there any guide how I can deliver what he needs? I have never done something similar before.

[guitoscan]

Hello guys!

 

After struggling with a dead MXQ with a Rockchip and a then with a new MXQ but with an Amlogic, here i am with an brand new H20 ready to go to garbage can hahahaha.

 

I made some test with this board and the processor is an RK32xx (32A if i remember well), but i noticed a few thing that may help to solve this board...

( i don't know if this topic is the right topic to write about, so, moderators, feel free to move or delete if i'm doing something wrong)

1 - The board don't boot from the sd card.

And when i say "don't boot", the board really don't boot if there's a sd card in the slot. Nothing, nada, niente, nitch... Only a blank screen and neither the Android shows up.

I've tried a SD with Multitool and with the uncompressed Armbian, and in the both cases the board seems dead

 

2 - The board boot the Android if there's an USB stick in any of the two USB ports

And the content of the USB is read by the OS after boot 

 

3 - The image that's Rhodam posted allow the "developer options" and allow ADB but...

(quick note: My another MXQ - with Amlogic -  have an UI that didn't allow the user to set the developer options, so i think that's important to tell). 

I tested the online ADB from google and i couldn't find the device. I used the drivers provided in the link, but the app didn't find the board.

In the other hand, my pc recognize the board (with lsusb and with the "device manager" from Windows).

 

4 - rkdevelopertools don't work (was expected)

How i said, the pc recognize the board, but, the most important commands from rkdevelopertools didn't work. Some commands to gather information about the processor worked well (images below).

 

However the important commands doesn't work or don't have a practical effect. I tried erase the flash and the rk did it but the Android still working after that.

 

And sometimes the rk appears to start the "downloading of the bootloader", however the process need to be canceled because takes to long and nothing practical really happens. In the most cases, the red message of error appears in this process.

 

And while i'm writing this, i remember that i tried use and image (i don't remember if was an Armbian or an image from another tvbox) with the tool provided by Rhodam, but the software stopped at the beginning of the processes, so, this kind of "bruteforce" doesn't work too =P

 

Well, this is the progress i made yesterday, when i restart this project.

For now, i'm feeling stuck, but i believe i have all the tools (dual-boot pc, board and a male/male usb chord) to keep this investigation and try any possible solutions to make this work on this board, so, if you guys have any hint, thoughts or suggestions, i'm opened for it and i'll keep the forum up to date with the progress. 👍

 

Thank you for your time and for the rest, i believe my English was, at least, comprehensible 😃    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by guitoscan

[Jumperbillijumper]

Hi @guitoscan, thanks for your work. Its possible to boot into multitool. The trick is to boot into android recovery and from this point into multitool. I hope that helps.

[kerta1n]

@Jumperbillijumper does that allow installing armbian onto the boxes' internal storage? I also saw your comment in the main RK3228x that you created. Were you able to get any help from there?

[Hqnicolas]

On 8/11/2023 at 10:15 AM, lucat1 said:

If there are any simple steps I could follow to bring the board back to life

Rockchip devices are unbrickable
I think you put the incompatible image, please clean the emmc with this method

Learn More on this document https://roc-rk3328-cc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/flash_emmc.html#maskrom-mode

Edited October 14, 2023 by hotnikq

[kerta1n]

Will give it a shot. Just got a W2 android box to try and at least get one working ATV box > Armbian.

[Godziller]

Ive a similar bricked board, but there are no test pads under the emmc, so im not sure which pins to short to clean the emmc. Its still an H20 but a newer version, and it bricked after flashing with multitool

Edited October 19, 2023 by Godziller

[NiTr0]

Godziller, I have similar board and had bricked it. I just shorted some pins on resistor pack (51R x4, they are on D0..D7 lines) and it falls to mask ROM.

 

Main trouble in similar boards is 1.5GB RAM eMCP pack which requires special bootloader (DDR init 1.10 doesn't support 1.5G, it detects 2G and hangs).

 

I extracted and re-assembled loader from firmware, it has DDR init code v1.11 and usbplug v2.53 (v2.56 halts system boot).

 

DDR Version V1.11 20200910_dbg
In
ID:0xFFF
300MHz
LPDDR3
Bus Width=32 Col=10 Bank=8 Row=15 CS=2 Die Bus-Width=32 Size=1536MB
mach:14
OUT
DDR Version V1.11 20200910_dbg
In
ID:0xFFF
300MHz
LPDDR3
Bus Width=32 Col=10 Bank=8 Row=15 CS=2 Die Bus-Width=32 Size=1536MB
mach:14
OUT
Boot1 Release Time: Sep 29 2018 16:02:54, version: 2.53
...FlashInit enter...
...NandcInit enter...
0:600 0 7f7f05 22 200
gNandcVer = 8 56383030
mmc Ext_csd, ret=0 ,
 Ext[226]=20, bootSize=2000, 
                        Ext[215]=0, Ext[214]=e9, Ext[213]=0, Ext[212]=0,cap =e90000 REL=1f
mmc2:cmd19,100
SdmmcInit=2 0
BootCapSize=2000
UserCapSize=7456MB
FwPartOffset=2000 , 2000
UsbHook 572151
powerOn 572202

 

 

Still trying to install compiled armbian on EMMC...

rk322x_loader_v1.11.253.bin

Edited November 4, 2023 by NiTr0

[Godziller]

 

4 hours ago, NiTr0 said:

Godziller, I have similar board and had bricked it. I just shorted some pins on resistor pack (51R x4, they are on D0..D7 lines) and it falls to mask ROM.

 

Main trouble in similar boards is 1.5GB RAM eMCP pack which requires special bootloader (DDR init 1.10 doesn't support 1.5G, it detects 2G and hangs).

 

I extracted and re-assembled loader from firmware, it has DDR init code v1.11 and usbplug v2.53 (v2.56 halts system boot).

Thanks ive been able to enter maskrom mode with your help, and ive flashed the loader, but now the device always enter maskrom mode automatically, and doesnt boot from SD, not sure if ive done something wrong or not.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Godziller

[NiTr0]

3 часа назад, Godziller сказал:

ive flashed the loader, but now the device always enter maskrom mode automatically, and doesnt boot from SD

you don't need loader on EMMC to boot from SD. and it seems like you have booted loader, not maskrom mode

[Godziller]

16 hours ago, NiTr0 said:

you don't need loader on EMMC to boot from SD. and it seems like you have booted loader, not maskrom mode

Well im not exactly sure what is happening then, im not able to boot from SD with multitool, nothing appears on screen, but also im not able to flash or erase flash anymore, it stop on download boot error.

[NiTr0]

try to erase flash w/o boot downloading.

 

also if you have box with KMQN10006B-B318 -  it'll fail to boot with current multitool/armbian (their loader hangs on this board with this RAM/ROM eMCP chip). I reported this in rk322x thread 

I think updated images will be available soon.

[Godziller]

On 11/5/2023 at 12:48 PM, NiTr0 said:

also if you have box with KMQN10006B-B318 -  it'll fail to boot with current multitool/armbian (their loader hangs on this board with this RAM/ROM eMCP chip). I reported this in rk322x thread

Yes, i have the same chip, i'll wait for the the new loader then, even if i was able to boot multitool the first time...

[NiTr0]

if multitool boots OK - you may try to install armbian. strange that it hangs on my board with same chip...

[Godziller]

31 minutes ago, NiTr0 said:

if multitool boots OK - you may try to install armbian. strange that it hangs on my board with same chip...

It only booted the first time, when android was still installed, it doesnt boot anymore now after i tried to install armbian. Mine is KMQN10006M-B318.

[NiTr0]

it seems like I've extracted/repacked partially broken loader from firmware - it works on USB but doesn't boot from flash.

 

I've unpacked firmware update image (real Android V10 from 4pda.to https://mega.nz/file/yxVkQRAZ#NOoiNsUtfGOxlsF9VKSB8HbB_kr3IFITrqK7Liih9nc), and it boots OK from eMMC and tries to load OS from 0x2000 sector (1MB)

MiniLoaderAll.bin

[NiTr0]

here's multiboot with updated loader (DDR init part):

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13X2-9DVrrnDyDg1zd_mkGOs3SCZV84Wl/view?usp=sharing

[Godziller]

5 minutes ago, NiTr0 said:

here's multiboot with updated loader (DDR init part):

Thanks, should i simply put it on SD and it should start?

[NiTr0]

yes

[Godziller]

45 minutes ago, NiTr0 said:

yes

Sadly im not able to make it work, ive erased flash, and then i installed multitool on sd with rufus on windows, but nothing happens when i power it on

[NiTr0]

try to write it with https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

 

I write flash with dd.

[NiTr0]

hm, multiboot boots only if there's loader written on eMMC. if no loader on eMMC - multiboot hangs...

 

armbian fails to boot too.