TX3 Mini S905L2-B Firmware request

[Khadas]

I purchased this fake clone TV box of the classic Tanix TX3 Mini 2GB Ram 16GB Rom for around 20 dollars (including shipping). I discovered that the soc is S905L2-B and before bricking the card with attempts to install it on eMMC I wanted to know if anyone of you found a firmware for this TV box compatible with the Amlogic USB Burning tool.

 

On the internet I only found two tx boxes that mount the S905L2 soc and they are the X7 5G and ipbs9505 and I couldn't find firmware to try to load them on my tv box, it's difficult on the Chinese forums for me to be able to find the downloads.

 

Any advice is welcome because with boot from the SD and the armbian-ddbr command I get an image but which I can only restore with the same command after booting from the SD so if the TV box is bricked and I can't boot this path won't work. I can use it to restore the Android factory image

[uppi]

Hi, I got the same box. I ordered it thinking it was Tanix TX3 Mini with S905W Chip but upon countless tries with all of the s905w dtb, the one with the s905l2 succeeded booting.

Also, further looking into the box, I found a dtb files inside the /dev  folder on the android. I tried running binwalk on it and it shows it as a fdt file. I tried fdtdump -s and got some readable output. Maybe this will help others to figure out more about this box.

s905l2.dtb

[uppi]

Hi @Khadas, it seems the firmware you are looking  for is here

[Khadas]

@uppi thanks so much for the link. I'll put the firmware in my archive and keep my fingers crossed if I need to use it if the TV box is bricked.

as I already wrote in another post to be able to boot Armbian correctly you must use the dtb meson-gxl-s905l2-ipbs9505 and the u-boot u-boot-s905x-s912 bin is fine.

if you don't find that dtb in the official armbian release in the dtb directory you have to do a search online and add it to the dtb directory together with the others. I did so.

 

@SteeMan is it possible to add the dtb for the s905l2 socs in the current armbian release for s905? I mean meson-gxl-s905l2-x7-5g.dtb and meson-gxl-s905l2-ipbs9505 dtb

[uppi]

@Khadas is your box showing RAM as 800MB only, while in Linux?

[Khadas]

@uppi No, about 1.94 GB RAM and 14.19GB ROM which is correct for the 2GB/16GB version be careful because many dishonest sellers sell 1G/8G cards labeled 2GB/16GB as well as putting other pcbs and printing on the socs what they want to increase the their profits but that's another story.

[uppi]

@Khadas Interesting, so mine shows 1.8 gigs of RAM on android but on Linux, it's 800 MBs. So I am guessing they tampered with something on the android side to show fake RAM.

[Ford_Prefect]

Hi,

 

got the same box recently.  Since there is no support from Coreelec and only rudimentary support from Libreelec (broken boot screen and unstable system while using 😕 )   I thought I give armbian a try.

 

Two things I'd like to accomplish:

 

1. accellerated video playback to framebuffer with mplayer or vlc or so
2. install armbian on internal emmc

 

Do you think 1.)  is still noch feasable or has the hardware acceleration become better in the last 3 or 4 years in the plain linux kernel?

 

Thanks a lot for you  input.

 

Cheers

 

Ford

 

 

P.S.: a stable librelec or corelec would be fine, too...;-)

 

[Khadas]

I'm sorry but I don't know the answer, I use my fake Tanix TX3 mini TV box with SOC 905L2-B as a server and I don't know if it's possible to have graphics acceleration with the Linux kernel. This post is related to android factory firmware request.

 

I advise you to write a new one to ask specifically, you could ask in the general chat section of TV boxes forum.

[sapta]

Hello, I am new to this world and I want to use the TV box as an emergency PC. Can you tell me the steps on how to do it?
I come from the previous publication but I understood what the steps are and it seems that we have the same pirate TV box
Thanks in advance

[Khadas]

This is a post to search for the firmware of the Tanix TX3 Mini TX box with S905L2-B soc (yet another fake TV box).

 

I advise you to write a new post, after searching the forum for the information you are asking for. This low-end TV box will not allow you to use it as a replacement for a desktop PC. Internet browsing for example will be very slow....

 

These TV Boxes can be used as small Linux servers like for example an old Raspberry, with the difficulty that you don't have the same support as the Raspberry community and this means that you won't have updated images that work immediately.

 

You will have to waste time to understand why it doesn't start immediately or how to copy to the Linux emmc and fear bricking the board with the hope of recovering it if its firmware from the specific manufacturer exists.

 

Bye and good luck.

[Magd Almuntaser]

@Khadas

Oh, you’re still alive… I’m kidding.
Look, I have two boxes similar to yours, but like @uppi , when I use Armbian, my RAM shows as 800M.
I tried to install Armbian to eMMC, and I bricked my box.

I used the firmware you mentioned, and everything was okay. But when I tried again to install Armbian to eMMC and restore the firmware, it didn’t accept it again, only the first time.
 

Now, I have the second box that I am experimenting on. But the confusing thing is that when I use Armbian_24.8.0_amlogic_s905l2_noble_6.6.33_server_2024.06.15.img.gz or any slightly older version, I need to use X7 5G or ipbs9505 dtb. However, if I install an older system like Armbian_5.91_Aml-s905_Debian_buster_default5.1.0.img.xz, I can use any dtb included in it, such as meson-gxl-s905x-p212 or meson-gxl-s905w-tx3-mini, and it works normally as it supports s905w and s905x.

It seems to me that older versions of Armbian don't have issues with the dtb.

Currently, I am trying to modify the dts to create a specific file for these boxes because my box's WiFi doesn’t work. It uses Realtek RTL8189ES. I tried to install the drivers from https://github.com/jwrdegoede/rtl8189ES_linux.git but I couldn't find any header list in any version of Armbian that works correctly.

Is there a solution to the WiFi issue?

[SteeMan]

33 minutes ago, Magd Almuntaser said:

It seems to me that older versions of Armbian don't have issues

None of the builds you are dealing with are Armbian builds.  They are all armbian forks and are really not appropriate for discussing in the Armbian forums as it leads to confusion on what is and isn't Armbian.  So if  you do continue this discussion here, please make it clear that you are talking about non-armbian builds.

[Khadas]

@Magd Almuntaser  unfortunately this forum does not offer support for armbian forks for various technical issues.

 

what I can tell you is that ipbs9505 dtb is correct if you boot the fork image from micro sd when you do the installation on emmc you will have to use that precise dtb as if you had the Wojia-TV-IPBS9505 (s905L2) tv box.

 

I also bricked the board some time ago trying to install the official armbian on emmc. my problem was trying to overwrite an installation of a fork distro previously done on the emmc rather than starting from an emmc with the factory android image.

 

I am currently using the fork image with this kernel Distribution: Armbian 24.2.1 jammy Kernel version: Linux 5.15.145-ophub aarch64 and I must say that it is stable for my experimental server needs.

 

I have no interest in putting modern kernels because I noticed that using them on micro sd they were not very stable and I chose an older kernel.