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CSC Armbian for RK322x TV box boards

jock

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted

Hello folks!

 

I might need your help here...

 

I have a board with a RK3228A chip. I followed the instructions but could never boot from the SD card directly.

I then flashed multitools on the card and it did boot. I created a backup, saved it, and then flashed the indicated ROM (on the original topic).

 

Now, it doesn't boot anymore, even with an SD card with multitools in it.

I tried the toothpick method, and it didn't work.

I then managed to get it into Mask ROM mode:

  

$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 103: ID 2207:320b Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Company RK3228/RK3229 in Mask ROM mode

 

I downloaded the rkdeveloptool and followed the instructions for flashing directly into the eMMC - or at least try to erase the flash and boot again on Multitools.

But when I run the db command, all I get is: 

sudo ./rkdeveloptool db ./rk322x_loader_v1.10.256.bin 
Downloading bootloader...

And it never gets past that.

 

Is there something I can do about it?

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Jason Duhamell

Jason Duhamell

Posted
Posted
  On 6/16/2022 at 8:54 PM, Zoli said:

Hello!
I would like to ask for help.

I have the following TV box:
---------------------------------
MXQ-4k 5G
MXQ_RK3229
Wifi Chip: ESP8089-522014-P22G43

RK3229_MXQ_EMCP_V.4.0

Rockchip

4GB ram + 64GB storage
---------------------------------

I want an SD card running Armbian for this box, but so far I haven't found a suitable Armbian image for this box.
From here I tried Armbian images: https://armbian.systemonachip.net/archive/rk322x-box/archive/

Do not write an image to the EMCP chip because it will be brick out of the box. So it stays in the box with the original firmware.


SD boot system may work, "Boot from sdcard" may be good.

 

These images work well when written to an SD card (starting from an SD card):

- Boot from SD card and works fine: Multitool (multitool.img)
- Starts and works well from SD card: LibreElec (LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-9.2-devel-20200427213119-b7186bc-rk3228a-mxq4kpro.img)
and this is also good (LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-9.2-devel-20220112105523-3ce5dd4-rk3228a-mxq4kpro.img)

 

Is there an Armbian that can boot from an SD card and work with it to install APT GET programs?
I would need an image file that can do this and work with my TV box.

 

I want to install Octoprint on linux to control a 3D printer via USB.
I would reach the box with a Wi-Fi connection. That would be the mission of the box.

 

Maybe this TV box is not suitable for this because there is no system for it.

 

The following may help something about my system.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 


Thanks

Expand  

I think I had the same board as you, I installed Octoprint just fine on mine. 

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jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 6/24/2022 at 5:15 AM, Luís Hansen said:

Hello folks!

 

I might need your help here...

 

I have a board with a RK3228A chip. I followed the instructions but could never boot from the SD card directly.

I then flashed multitools on the card and it did boot. I created a backup, saved it, and then flashed the indicated ROM (on the original topic).

 

Now, it doesn't boot anymore, even with an SD card with multitools in it.

I tried the toothpick method, and it didn't work.

I then managed to get it into Mask ROM mode:

  

$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 103: ID 2207:320b Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Company RK3228/RK3229 in Mask ROM mode

 

I downloaded the rkdeveloptool and followed the instructions for flashing directly into the eMMC - or at least try to erase the flash and boot again on Multitools.

But when I run the db command, all I get is: 

sudo ./rkdeveloptool db ./rk322x_loader_v1.10.256.bin 
Downloading bootloader...

And it never gets past that.

 

Is there something I can do about it?

Expand  

Hello!

 

Yes, fortunately there is something you can do. Here I supposed you have eMMC and not NAND, if you have a NAND chip, things are more complicated

I may just guess what's wrong with your board, so I am not 100% certain, but probably your problem is a DDR Memory that does not support 2-cycles (2T) Command Rate.

2T Command Rate is the default for most of the DDR memories installed on rk322x boards, but there is a very small minority that just want 1-cycle Command Rate (1T)

 

First of all, try this other loader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_no2t.bin and see if it gets uploaded correctly. A serial adapter connected to the board would be very welcome to see the log messages from the very first boot process, but I guess you don't have such tool.

 

If the upload process goes well, my theory is probably right.

You can now use rkdeveloptool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_no2t.bin to upgrade the bootloader in the eMMC. This should be enough to let the multitool boot again.

You can start again with multitool, install again the image and then do not shutdown the box, but use the multitool menu item "Change DDR Command Rate" to set Command Rate to 1T; then you can shutdown and see if the image now boots.

 

Of course you can even restore the original Android image you took with multitool: just unpack the backup and then write with rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 <filename>

 

edit: I will never stress enough the fact that images should be first tested via sdcard before being burnt in eMMC, as I always suggest to do in instructions.

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 6/25/2022 at 9:55 AM, jock said:

Hello!

 

Yes, fortunately there is something you can do. Here I supposed you have eMMC and not NAND, if you have a NAND chip, things are more complicated

I may just guess what's wrong with your board, so I am not 100% certain, but probably your problem is a DDR Memory that does not support 2-cycles (2T) Command Rate.

2T Command Rate is the default for most of the DDR memories installed on rk322x boards, but there is a very small minority that just want 1-cycle Command Rate (1T)

 

First of all, try this other loader: rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_no2t.bin and see if it gets uploaded correctly. A serial adapter connected to the board would be very welcome to see the log messages from the very first boot process, but I guess you don't have such tool.

 

If the upload process goes well, my theory is probably right.

You can now use rkdeveloptool ul rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_no2t.bin to upgrade the bootloader in the eMMC. This should be enough to let the multitool boot again.

You can start again with multitool, install again the image and then do not shutdown the box, but use the multitool menu item "Change DDR Command Rate" to set Command Rate to 1T; then you can shutdown and see if the image now boots.

 

Of course you can even restore the original Android image you took with multitool: just unpack the backup and then write with rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 <filename>

 

edit: I will never stress enough the fact that images should be first tested via sdcard before being burnt in eMMC, as I always suggest to do in instructions.

Expand  

 

Hi jock!

 

Unfortunately, no luck with the new loader. Since I have only one big chip (other than the processor), I'd guess I have an eMCP.

I also tried writing the backup, but it also fails. In fact, every single command fails: rfi, rci, wl, rl...

 

Before trying to flash, I tried testing with the SD Card, but it didn't work. I even tried with some different images, but none of them booted up. I read in another forum that some people could only get it to boot from the SD Card after cleaning the memory, and some only after actually flashing it.

 

The weird thing is that some people that have the exact same board as I do, with the same controller, memory, soc, revision, everything, followed your tutorial and got it to work.

They are also able to do stuff when the board is in MskROM mode. I don't know if I'm being stupid and doing something blatantly wrong, but not being able to even read the memory using the multitools is very strange. 

0
jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 6/25/2022 at 4:15 PM, Luís Hansen said:

They are also able to do stuff when the board is in MskROM mode. I don't know if I'm being stupid and doing something blatantly wrong, but not being able to even read the memory using the multitools is very strange. 

Expand  

Wait, in maskrom mode what you can do is only uploade the loader with rkdeveloptool db command; it is essential to go further with any other rkdeveloptool command.

I put here a couple of more loaders you can try and see if you get better luck.

 

Also be aware that I suggest to use the rkdeveloptool binary provided by rockchip on github repository.

rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_300_no2t.binFetching info... rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_2t.binFetching info...

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 6/25/2022 at 4:28 PM, jock said:

Wait, in maskrom mode what you can do is only uploade the loader with rkdeveloptool db command; it is essential to go further with any other rkdeveloptool command.

I put here a couple of more loaders you can try and see if you get better luck.

 

Also be aware that I suggest to use the rkdeveloptool binary provided by rockchip on github repository.

rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_300_no2t.bin 194.33 kB · 0 downloads rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_2t.bin 194.33 kB · 0 downloads

Expand  

 

Wow, the first one you suggested worked! The rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_300_no2t.bin one. Thank you! What's the difference between that one and the one you sent earlier?

 

Does that mean that my device doesn't support the 2-cycle Command Rate, and then I should follow the instructions to boot it into the multiloader and Change DDR Command Rate?

0
jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 6/25/2022 at 5:06 PM, Luís Hansen said:

 

Wow, the first one you suggested worked! The rk322x_loader_v1.10.256_300_no2t.bin one. Thank you! What's the difference between that one and the one you sent earlier?

 

Does that mean that my device doesn't support the 2-cycle Command Rate, and then I should follow the instructions to boot it into the multiloader and Change DDR Command Rate?

Expand  

It's the same as the other in the previous post, just has memory configured to start at 300 MHz instead of 660 MHz.

That caused some incompatibilities in the past, in fact I always say myself that I need to change the loader in the first page and then always forget... :rolleyes:

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 6/25/2022 at 5:48 PM, jock said:

It's the same as the other in the previous post, just has memory configured to start at 300 MHz instead of 660 MHz.

That caused some incompatibilities in the past, in fact I always say myself that I need to change the loader in the first page and then always forget... :rolleyes:

Expand  

 

It worked! I got it to install, connected an Ethernet cable and download the armbian-config package.

My new issue (woohoo) is that I have the ESP8089 wifi module, and I read that some people had troubles with it.

Well, when I run rockchip322x-config it correctly identifies the ESP8089, but then I can't connect to the wifi - it simply doesn't show on the armbian-config.

 

Is there any driver or config I must change for it to work?

Oh, and thanks a lot for you help! 🎉

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted

Hello there!

 

@jock so I spent the past few days reading through the topic and testing around with different settings for led configuration and esp8089 settings (the crystal_26M_en setting).

According to the outdated ESP8089 manual, 0 is for 40, 1 is for 26 and 2 is for 24 MHz, so today I tried every single combination of led configuration and crystal frequency. For every test I first rebooted the computer, then shut it off (I even unplugged it out of the wall) and the restarted to be sure all the settings had been updated.

None of the combinations worked, and I captured a dmesg for every single test.

Now let me get into why I decided to run those tests.

Last night I somehow managed to make the wifi work while messing with the settings. I hadn't yet read a message in here about the firmware only updating when completely shutting it off, so I'm not sure what configuration I had at the time. It was supposed to be led config 7 and crystal 0 (40MHz), but it doesn't make sense (you'll see why). While it was working, I captured a dmesg.

I remember that when I got it to work I was testing adding the esp8089 driver to the blacklist and then activating it using modprobe. But then again, I'm not sure if I was doing the right thing after doing so. Was I supposed to reboot after doing that? Or should it work right away once modprobed?

 

Anyway, at least now I have hope that it can work, since I was it with my won eyes.

 

This is the dmesg captured when the wifi worked:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Here's one of the 21 other dmesgs I captured when testing the different combinations. They all look similar, but if we need to, I have all of them dafely stored here.

Every test had one of 2 possile outcomes: either the ESP8089 was detected and the wlan connection existed on the ifconfig but no networks were visible, or it wasn't detected at all and no wlan connection even existed.

For this one, the ESP8089 was detected and the wlan was there.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

For this one, the ESP8089 wasn't even detected:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

To finish up, here are some photos of my board (it's the exact same, as far as I can tell, as the one @Hoa Nguyen Vuhad) - alhough the marks say it's a "MXQPRO_V72". There are 2 oscilators, one close the wifi chip and one close to the RK3228A. The one close to the ESP8089 is 26 MHz and the other one 24MHz (i assume) - that's why I thought i didn't make sense for anything to work with the crystal set to 40 MHz.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ggv6xZmMhybY9J77A

 

That's all I got for today haha. Once again, thanks for the help, and I'm sure I'll get this working with your help!

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jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted

@Luís Hansen First congrats for all the diving you had into the matter!

 

About the ESP8089, there are some facts can help us giving a starting point:

  • Your board is a MXQPRO_V72, there should be a led-conf right for your board in the list; stay stick to that, there is no sense in trying all the others
  • The ESP8089 has a 26Mhz crystal (the other 24Mhz is for the SoC, all rockchip SoCs have a 24Mhz reference crystal so far), so using anything else will result in the chip to be unable to attach to an access point (will show the networks though)

If the wlan device does not appear, it is something related to sdio bus and/or powering the chip (the pwrseq you can see in the dmesg), the original device tree can be useful to see if there is something wrong with that.

 

 

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 6/28/2022 at 1:51 PM, jock said:

@Luís Hansen First congrats for all the diving you had into the matter!

 

About the ESP8089, there are some facts can help us giving a starting point:

  • Your board is a MXQPRO_V72, there should be a led-conf right for your board in the list; stay stick to that, there is no sense in trying all the others
  • The ESP8089 has a 26Mhz crystal (the other 24Mhz is for the SoC, all rockchip SoCs have a 24Mhz reference crystal so far), so using anything else will result in the chip to be unable to attach to an access point (will show the networks though)

If the wlan device does not appear, it is something related to sdio bus and/or powering the chip (the pwrseq you can see in the dmesg), the original device tree can be useful to see if there is something wrong with that.

 

 

Expand  

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

How do I find out what's the correct led config for my device? I'm assuming it's the MXQ_PRO.

 

How do I get the original device tree? I printed the DTB file that was on the /boot folder, does it help?

 

I also have a backup of the original emmc content, maybe it can give us a hint about something.

 

I also noticed that when I run modinfo esp8089, on the last parm line it says:

 

config:Firmware init config string (format: key=value;) (charp)

 

But it doesn't seem to have the crystal config. I'm not sure if it should appear there.

 

I read through the armbian_first_run.txt.template and it had FR_net_wifi_enabled=0. It says that if both are enabled, eth will be automatically disabled. As I'm able to connect via Ethernet and the wifi enabled was 0 (I assume), I wonder if it has something to do with it.

 

The thing is: I can't understand why the network is created but no wifi networks are visible. Why would it work exactly once, randomly, and then never work again?

 

Thanks @jock!

0
jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 6/28/2022 at 3:24 PM, Luís Hansen said:

How do I find out what's the correct led config for my device? I'm assuming it's the MXQ_PRO.

Expand  

That should be right. Of course I can't be sure, but probably it is so.

 

  On 6/28/2022 at 3:24 PM, Luís Hansen said:

I also have a backup of the original emmc content, maybe it can give us a hint about something.

Expand  

This is the right place to find the original device tree. Usually it is contained somewhere in the first 32 megabytes of the image.

You can post it somewhere, I will try to extract it by myself, otherwiser binwalk utility should be able to extract it, or there is a tool @fabiobassa may hint you (I don't have the link)

 

  On 6/28/2022 at 3:24 PM, Luís Hansen said:

The thing is: I can't understand why the network is created but no wifi networks are visible. Why would it work exactly once, randomly, and then never work again?

Expand  

If the network device is there (wlan0) but it is not able to see the networks or not able to connect, the issue is probably related to the crystal frequency or the firmware (but this last one is unlikely)

If the wlan0 device does not appear at all, then it is a matter of wrong bits in device tree.

This is the general behaviour, but indeed something from device tree may also prevent the device from work.

 

  On 6/28/2022 at 3:24 PM, Luís Hansen said:

I read through the armbian_first_run.txt.template and it had FR_net_wifi_enabled=0. It says that if both are enabled, eth will be automatically disabled. As I'm able to connect via Ethernet and the wifi enabled was 0 (I assume), I wonder if it has something to do with it.

Expand  

No, absolutely; that file is not in use during normal runtime.

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted (edited)
  On 6/28/2022 at 3:56 PM, jock said:

That should be right. Of course I can't be sure, but probably it is so.

 

This is the right place to find the original device tree. Usually it is contained somewhere in the first 32 megabytes of the image.

You can post it somewhere, I will try to extract it by myself, otherwiser binwalk utility should be able to extract it, or there is a tool @fabiobassa may hint you (I don't have the link)

 

If the network device is there (wlan0) but it is not able to see the networks or not able to connect, the issue is probably related to the crystal frequency or the firmware (but this last one is unlikely)

If the wlan0 device does not appear at all, then it is a matter of wrong bits in device tree.

This is the general behaviour, but indeed something from device tree may also prevent the device from work.

 

No, absolutely; that file is not in use during normal runtime.

Expand  

 

I think I managed to get the original device tree!

Here it is: extracted_dtb.txt

Also, here's the device tree currently running on the device (I extracted using this method) : current_dtb.txt

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited by Luís Hansen
Added current DTB
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jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted

@Luís Hansen Maybe I spotted something wrong in led-conf6 device tree overlay.

 

Please overwrite the existing /boot/dtb/overlay/rk322x-led-conf6.dtbo file with this one: rk322x-led-conf6.dtbo

Then run rk322x-config, select led-conf6 and reboot.

 

BTW dmesg log is helpful, armbianmonitor -u link is even better

0
Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted (edited)
  On 6/29/2022 at 7:29 PM, jock said:

@Luís Hansen Maybe I spotted something wrong in led-conf6 device tree overlay.

 

Please overwrite the existing /boot/dtb/overlay/rk322x-led-conf6.dtbo file with this one: rk322x-led-conf6.dtbo

Then run rk322x-config, select led-conf6 and reboot.

 

BTW dmesg log is helpful, armbianmonitor -u link is even better

Expand  

 

Hello there!

 

When I did that, I noticed there were no led-conf6.dtbo nor led-conf7.dtbo files on that folder!

20220629_170607.thumb.jpg.e0aaf81b914578e2b267987bc40e231f.jpg

 

I'm not sure how that's possible, but maybe that's why it worked for one boot and then never again.

 

Anyway, when I tried that, the ESP8089 was not detected.

Here are the dmesg and armbianmonitor outputs: not_found_new_led6_en1.txt armbianmonitor_new_led6_en1.txt

 

Thanks!

 

 

[EDIT]

I mounted a couple images locally, and none of them had the led-conf6 or 7 files:

 

image.png

Edited by Luís Hansen
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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 6/30/2022 at 8:07 AM, jock said:

@Luís Hansen Of course you have no such overlays, you took an archived/obsolete image from August 2021

Expand  

 

You're right. Those were the versions that had the wlan-esp8089 ovlerlay. I'm not sure why the new versions don't have them, maybe it's not needed anymore?
Anyway, I booted into the newest version, tried out with the default config_led6 and your new version. On both, the network card was not detected. When I run rk322x-config it always says there's no wifi chip.

 

Here's the dmesg output: conf6_new_version_dmesg.txt

And here's the armbian monitor output: conf6_new_version_armbianmonitor.txt

I also tried running modinfo esp8089 and modprobe esp8089 and if failed, esp8089 module wasn't found.

 

 

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted (edited)

So, I've been testing with other images. The ones in here https://users.armbian.com/jock/rk322x/armbian/stable with the legacy kernel also don't have the led6 or 7 configs.

I tried both versions (legacy and current kernels) with the old and new led6 overlays - no luck.

I even tried comparing my device's original device tree with the rk322x default one. I "decompiled" to DTS, copied the wlan part, recompiled to DTB but still did not get it to work.

 

Also found out that my box won't boot from the card - except if it has the multitool in it - if the original android is on the eMMC.

I restored it but then had to erase the flash for it to boot again into armbian - no big deal, I still have the backup if I need.

 

@jock, do you see any obvious reasons why the esp8089 wouldn't even be seen/detected by the device? Is there a way for me to debug which devices linux sees as connected?

Edited by Luís Hansen
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jock

jock

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  • Author
Posted

@Luís Hansen sorry but I don't see an obvious reason. As far as I remember, even in the previous case the esp8089 was not detected on MXQPRO board. Indeed there is something wrong with the dtb, but even looking throughly at it I could not find the real cause. Having such a board in my lab could make it much easier to understand at which level the problem is.

 

The fact that rk322x-config says "no wifi chip detected" means that the chip is not even exposed on the sdio bus; there could be multiple reason: the chip is turned off, there is a misconfiguration with the bus, etc...

For example, these commands:

 

cat /sys/bus/sdio/devices/mmc1:0001:1/vendor

cat /sys/bus/sdio/devices/mmc1:0001:1/device

 

should not fail and show you valid hexadecimal values to identify the esp8089 even if the driver is not loaded or not working, because they work as long as the hardware is detected by the kernel. So this the first problem that must be solved and honestly, since you say that doing trial and error with the variosu led-conf* overlays, you could try each overlay and report in which case the led-conf works.

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 7/1/2022 at 7:36 AM, jock said:

@Luís Hansen sorry but I don't see an obvious reason. As far as I remember, even in the previous case the esp8089 was not detected on MXQPRO board. Indeed there is something wrong with the dtb, but even looking throughly at it I could not find the real cause. Having such a board in my lab could make it much easier to understand at which level the problem is.

 

The fact that rk322x-config says "no wifi chip detected" means that the chip is not even exposed on the sdio bus; there could be multiple reason: the chip is turned off, there is a misconfiguration with the bus, etc...

For example, these commands:

 

cat /sys/bus/sdio/devices/mmc1:0001:1/vendor

cat /sys/bus/sdio/devices/mmc1:0001:1/device

 

should not fail and show you valid hexadecimal values to identify the esp8089 even if the driver is not loaded or not working, because they work as long as the hardware is detected by the kernel. So this the first problem that must be solved and honestly, since you say that doing trial and error with the variosu led-conf* overlays, you could try each overlay and report in which case the led-conf works.

Expand  

 

Hi @jock! So after a few days of testing, I can say with 100% certainty: it's random.

 

I tested with every led config on some versions with the new kernel (5), including the latest one on your original post. With none of them the ESP8089 was even powered on.

cat /sys/bus/sdio/devices/mmc1:0001:1/vendor always failed.

 

So I went back to the old kernel (4), and the chip was detected with most configs, but with none it detected any wifi networks. Then I realized something - what if I only overlaid the wlan part, not the led config.

Well, turns out I got the wifi to work quite a few times like that. It was absolutely random: without changing any config, sometimes it would just work, and then stop working once I rebooted. Sometimes, on those reboots, it wouldn't even recognize the chip was plugged in the next time. Only for it to work again in the next boot. Sometimes it booted up working, and then, without rebooting, stopped all of a sudden and wouldn't even detect the chip anymore - without me changing anything.

 

I captured quite a few data: from device trees of when wifi was working to armbianmonitor outputs and even commands histories.

But, from what I can tell, there are no differences between working vs non-working DTBs. So I'm not sure those are useful.

 

Anyway, what I'm doing now, as a last effort, is to change the iwlwifi module configs - maybe it's putting the device to sleep and it's not recovering? I think that may be one cause because one of the things I noticed when comparing the wlan device trees of the original firmware (running Android) and the armbian ones, is that there are some pins missing from the later.

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Felipe Triana

Felipe Triana

Posted
Posted (edited)
  On 5/29/2022 at 8:36 AM, jock said:

@Felipe Triana DDR memory detection is made by a rockchip proprietary code that is called ddrbin as the very first binary code.

It's a closed source binary, so whatever it does and how it does is not known. It produces some debug messages that may be useful to you (memory arrangement, density, bus width) when the serial adapter is connected to the board.

 

There is a tool, ddrbin_tool, that can be used to alter ddr speed, ddr command rate timing and uart debug speed, but nothing more.

 

If you totally erased the NAND, then the ddrbin in use is the one from the sdcard, if you installed "jump start" with multitool, then the ddrbin in use is from NAND.

 

Multitool can't completely erase the NAND because the kernel driver has some limitations and cannot access the first sectors of the NAND, thus multitool can't neither write or read the installed ddrbin  in NAND.

Expand  

 

Tried another box, it features a HYN-H9TKNNNBPDAR-ARNGH memory chip and a eMMC, working with RK3229. I didn't found many informations about this memory chip, but l was really using 2GB on Android, and I found something on Ali, it also says 2GB, but I dont know, ARMBIAN found 1GB only. Is there anything I could do? 

 

EDIT: aparrently this memory chip was used on MOTO X 2013, and also is 2GB. See page 15 from this Ifixit guide.

 

 

 

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Edited by Felipe Triana
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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 7/5/2022 at 2:06 AM, Felipe Triana said:

 

Tried another box, it features a HYN-H9TKNNNBPDAR-ARNGH memory chip and a eMMC, working with RK3229. I didn't found many informations about this memory chip, but l was really using 2GB on Android, and I found something on Ali, it also says 2GB, but I dont know, ARMBIAN found 1GB only. Is there anything I could do? 

 

EDIT: aparrently this memory chip was used on MOTO X 2013, and also is 2GB. See page 15 from this Ifixit guide.

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

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Hi Felipe! Where did you buy this one?

I'm assuming you're from Brazil, and I'm about to give up on mine, restore the original emmc contents and send it back. So I'd love to get one that actually works - even if it has only 1 gig of memory hehehe.

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Felipe Triana

Felipe Triana

Posted
Posted
  On 7/5/2022 at 2:42 AM, Luís Hansen said:

 

Hi Felipe! Where did you buy this one?

I'm assuming you're from Brazil, and I'm about to give up on mine, restore the original emmc contents and send it back. So I'd love to get one that actually works - even if it has only 1 gig of memory hehehe.

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I buyed on Mercado Livre, but its a surprise box, almost literraly, I've been lucky that all three that I buyed worked, even if all they uses different hardware. What problem you are facing? Maybe I can help.

 

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 7/5/2022 at 3:22 AM, Felipe Triana said:

 

I buyed on Mercado Livre, but its a surprise box, almost literraly, I've been lucky that all three that I buyed worked, even if all they uses different hardware. What problem you are facing? Maybe I can help.

 

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My wifi is not consistent. It randomly works or not.

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Felipe Triana

Felipe Triana

Posted
Posted

Dont use wireless, it never works Haha Of my 3 boards, 2 detect the wifi chip, it connects, but if I reboot or sometimes out of nothing, even if connected, stops responding, and you need to send ping google.com to work again. Wi-fi always is shit anyway, just use ethernet cable or a external Wi-Fi adapter from TP Link.

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 7/6/2022 at 3:04 PM, Felipe Triana said:

Dont use wireless, it never works Haha Of my 3 boards, 2 detect the wifi chip, it connects, but if I reboot or sometimes out of nothing, even if connected, stops responding, and you need to send ping google.com to work again. Wi-fi always is shit anyway, just use ethernet cable or a external Wi-Fi adapter from TP Link.

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Ooh, that really sucks. Is that the general experience using armbian on those boxes? Is this your experience @jock?

I feel like it shouldn't be an issue when those boxes are meant to be always connected to the internet to stream content, and I haven't heard a lot of users complaining about disconnections on the stock Android.

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jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 7/7/2022 at 6:36 PM, Luís Hansen said:

 

Ooh, that really sucks. Is that the general experience using armbian on those boxes? Is this your experience @jock?

I feel like it shouldn't be an issue when those boxes are meant to be always connected to the internet to stream content, and I haven't heard a lot of users complaining about disconnections on the stock Android.

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Well no, in my experience some wifi works very well and some others don't.

Also take in consideration that the tv boxes have no public specs and no schematics. These are the cheapest general purpose hardware you can find on the chinese market and manufacturers put the cheapest hardware on the market on them, so supporting the huge variety of peripherals requires lot of  reverse engineering.

 

Tuning for "perfect" stability requires time, patience, knowledge and obviously the hardware at disposal to do tests and tests...

Consider that I've never seen your board - never ever had any board with eMCP or esp8089 chips: it is quite an accomplishment letting it boot without major manual operations and/or special hardware.

 

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Luís Hansen

Luís Hansen

Posted
Posted
  On 7/8/2022 at 12:47 PM, jock said:

Well no, in my experience some wifi works very well and some others don't.

Also take in consideration that the tv boxes have no public specs and no schematics. These are the cheapest general purpose hardware you can find on the chinese market and manufacturers put the cheapest hardware on the market on them, so supporting the huge variety of peripherals requires lot of  reverse engineering.

 

Tuning for "perfect" stability requires time, patience, knowledge and obviously the hardware at disposal to do tests and tests...

Consider that I've never seen your board - never ever had any board with eMCP or esp8089 chips: it is quite an accomplishment letting it boot without major manual operations and/or special hardware.

 

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Yup, totally agreed.

The thing is that I'm returning my non-reliable version and trying to get a realizable version.

What board versions should I look after if I'm looking for reliability?

Or would you say my best option would be to actually use a wifi range extender and plug in an Ethernet cable?

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Felipe Triana

Felipe Triana

Posted
Posted
  On 7/8/2022 at 1:04 PM, Luís Hansen said:

 

Yup, totally agreed.

The thing is that I'm returning my non-reliable version and trying to get a realizable version.

What board versions should I look after if I'm looking for reliability?

Or would you say my best option would be to actually use a wifi range extender and plug in an Ethernet cable?

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I use Ubiquiti on my house, I really tried the best stability on wireless - don't get me wrong, wireless protocol is something incredible, but if you look for something reliable, ethernet cable is your best friend. Even stock box, sometimes lose packges, and for streaming this is a pain in the **s... As a TI professional, I recoment you never use wiifi range extender also.

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jock

jock

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 7/8/2022 at 1:04 PM, Luís Hansen said:

 

Yup, totally agreed.

The thing is that I'm returning my non-reliable version and trying to get a realizable version.

What board versions should I look after if I'm looking for reliability?

Or would you say my best option would be to actually use a wifi range extender and plug in an Ethernet cable?

Expand  

Reliability about what? You still didn't mention what you want to do with such hardware.

 

Tv boxes are not reliable almost by definition, especially if you look into the basket of the cheapest ones.

They are made with cheapest components available on the market, sometimes with scrap components that did not pass the conformance tests for "proper" products, sometimes with fake components too.

If you need something reliable, it is much better to go and find a serious SBC officially supported by armbian; tv boxes can't be officially supported by armbian by statement because, as you can see, it is a hardware mess and sometimes poor board designs.

 

What we do here is having fun reverse engineering things, but serious projects require serious hardware.

 

About the last question, wireless is totally out of question if you need any kind of network stability

 

 

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