HELP- DQ08 RK3528 4Go RAM 64go SSD can't boot with multitool (with photos)

[Valentin C]

Hi, 

i can't boot multitool and armbian on my android TV DQ08 RK3528 4Go RAM 64go SSD.

I take pictures of my card :

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Valentin C

[jpegqs]

Can you explain how to open it without breaking the case?

[Hqnicolas]

5 hours ago, jpegqs said:

open it without breaking the case

this question is worth more than all software solutions!

[Valentin C]

hi I slipped several cutter blades as we would to remove a velo tube, little by little I unclipped. in case of breakage I will have reprinted a box;) 

[epost.deb]

I have used the knife blade (not the tip) to pry the top cover at one of the corners.

[jock]

Well, rk3528 are a new thing around; multitool is half-working so far. It is enough to grab a backup in my case.

During my tests and experimentations, I found I was unable to boot from sdcard if the eMMC was completely erased. I would like to understand what is wrong here and why this boot issue is happening, since all other rockchip socs I know do boot from sdcard when the eMMC is empty. This is quite essential for multitool, since it should be a maintenance tool and if it does not boot in maskrom mode it loses half the uses. Anyway in my case it boots fine when the original firmware is installed.

 

At the moment my experiments go really slow because I'm busy with other things, but I managed to bring up am working rk3528-box config for armbian scripts that produces a working image. It can be found in my personal github repo.

 

Since rockchip dropped their proprietary miniloader in favor of their proprietary (but open) u-boot, the armbian image should boot fine from sdcard without erasing the internal flash memory first. I don't know if I will keep this behaviour, but for now it is so.

 

edit: ah, photos are very welcome, but perhaps logs from the serial, original firmware and the original dtb are indeed very useful in this discovery phase.

 

edit 2: I'm just realizing I never published a working multitool image for rk3528, which one are you using? Did you built one yourself? By the way, here is a build for rk3528 soc, but your mileage may vary a lot: https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk3528/multitool/multitool.img.xz

[hexdump]

@jock - that not booting with a clean emmc reminds me a bit on the rk3328 box i have which has the sd card connected to the wrong mmc port and thus cannot boot from sd card - it works with a workaround to install some special u-boot in emmc which then boots from sd card via extlinux.conf or boot.scr ... can it be that those rk3528 boxes are similar?

[jock]

24 minutes ago, hexdump said:

@jock - that not booting with a clean emmc reminds me a bit on the rk3328 box i have which has the sd card connected to the wrong mmc port and thus cannot boot from sd card - it works with a workaround to install some special u-boot in emmc which then boots from sd card via extlinux.conf or boot.scr ... can it be that those rk3528 boxes are similar?

It could indeed be, looking at the rk3528 device trees, it has 4 mmc controllers as like as rk3328.

Looking in the vendor kernel 5.10, I can guess that the "right" mmc controller for the sdcard is the 4th (mmc@ffc30000), and this matches my board device tree; nonetheless the board refuses to boot from sdcard when internal flash is empty.

[Energokom]

On 11/15/2023 at 11:04 PM, jock said:

here is a build for rk3528 soc, but your mileage may vary a lot: https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk3528/multitool/multitool.img.xz

DQ08 with pcb FX-RX3528-D4.

 

HDMI - grey screen and nothing works

 

[jock]

3 hours ago, Energokom said:

grey screen and nothing works

so is life 🤷‍♂️

[jins]

@jock  Hello, I have a similar problem to your experiments. I believe I have erased the eMMC, so the box doesn't want to boot from the SD card. What do we do in this case?

[jock]

@jins what board do you have? It should be sufficient to connect an USB male-to-male cable and flash a backup (or the mere bootloader, if you have it or are able to craft it) with rkdeveloptool or rkflashtool and then it should be able to boot again from sdcard.

 

What board do you have?

 

 

[jins]

@jock I have dq08 4go. I tried with the usb to usb, with the software for reset (a software that the aliexpress salesmen said to use). And it's not even recognized by the windows device manager

[jins]

@jock I tried again with lsusb and the curdent. I thought it might be the cable. I tried the same technique with my other dq08 box (exactly the same one which is not brick), it recognized it. So the cable's fine, my tricks are good. The box doesn't even want to be recognized.

[Energokom]

6 minutes ago, jins said:

The box doesn't even want to be recognized.

Using the Rockchip Create Upgrade Disk Tool Version 1.7, write the vontar r3 RGB firmware to  SD card, insert the card into the TV box and connect USB to USB to the PC and then the TV box will determine the system.

[jins]

@Energokom https://chinagadgetsreviews.com/download-android-13-stock-firmware-for-vontar-r3-rgb-tv-box-2.html this is the image ? Can you give me a link to dl r3 RGB firmware thanks

[Energokom]

4 hours ago, jins said:

Can you give me a link to dl r3 RGB firmware

Vontar R3 RGB (multi)

Edited December 2, 2023 by Energokom

[jins]

I used the software to flash a sd card. It succeeded the second time. I put the sd in the box, and pressed the av button until I connected the usb cable. I waited 2 seconds, then released it, and no sign of life. Not recognized by lsusb or factorytool software. @Energokom

[Hqnicolas]

1 hour ago, jins said:

connected the usb cable. I waited 2 seconds, then released it, and no sign of life.

You describe my everyday 

so, did you try to flash the original Android image with RkDevTools?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14HWcHYHDrgUBFWholrDCKUWDPHw1r4F1/view

[jins]

13 hours ago, hotnikq said:

so, did you try to flash the original Android image with RkDevTools?

The card is not even recognised by rkdevtools

[Hqnicolas]

The card is not even recognised by rkdevtools

You need to short the clk and gnd from MMC to connect the device before flash the loader on Linux rkdeveloptool

Sent from my 22021211RC using Tapatalk

[jins]

42 minutes ago, hotnikq said:

You need to short the clk and gnd from MMC

I still haven't found the place where there is clk, the gnd I can use from the uart. But I don't know where the clk is.

[Energokom]

5 hours ago, jins said:

But I don't know where the clk is.

Shorting SARADC_IN0_BOOT (PIN AA10) to ground can put the device into Maskrom state. There is no need to short circuit EMMC_CLK/DATA to log into Maskrom;

Edited December 4, 2023 by Energokom

[Energokom]

On 12/3/2023 at 8:15 PM, jins said:

I used the software to flash a sd card

Try  USB flash

[337043613]

救回来了吗？试试通过这个进入刷机模式试试。这个是我问电视盒店家给我的强制刷机点，我没试过。

Edited December 5, 2023 by 337043613
说明下资料来源

[jins]

16 hours ago, Energokom said:

SARADC_IN0_BOOT (PIN AA10)

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't find that pin. You could circle it on the motherboard.

[Drawn]

1. write the firmware to an SD memory card with the sdboot parameter, using Rockchip Create Upgrade Disk Tool version 1.7

2. insert the SD card into the console

3. hold down the reset button and connect USB cable

4. flash via USB male-male cable

5. hold the reset button until boot recording starts

Edited December 5, 2023 by Drawn

[jins]

I tried to remove the radiator from the processor because whoever glued it had put it on the clk pins, so I tried to remove the processor. The only thing left to do is not to install armbian on the emmc for the time being.

[jins]

3 hours ago, Drawn said:

1. write the firmware to an SD memory card with the sdboot parameter, using Rockchip Create Upgrade Disk Tool version 1.7

2. insert the SD card into the console

3. hold down the reset button and connect power

4. flash via USB male-male cable

5. hold the reset button until boot recording st

arts

I had already tried

[Hqnicolas]

On 12/5/2023 at 1:31 PM, jins said:

I had already tried

send the device to armbian, they will use it to something.