"x96 mini" S905W TV box how to boot from SD card?

[Alex Trezvy]

I have "x96 mini" TV box with seemingly broken eMMC chip (unable to write firmware by USB). S905W SoC. First I've tested if it can boot from SD-card, made with Amlogic Windows utility "Burn Card Maker". The answer is: yes (see the logs below).
 

Spoiler

GXL:BL1:9ac50e:bb16dc;FEAT:ADFC318C:0;POC:3;RCY:0;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;0.0;CHK:0;
no sdio debug board detected
TE: 197450

BL2 Built : 20:32:17, Sep  8 2017.
gxl g6296b83 - xiaobo.gu@droid12

set vcck to 1120 mv
set vddee to 1070 mv
Board ID = 2
CPU clk: 1200MHz
DQS-corr enabled
DDR scramble enabled
DDR3 chl: Rank0 16bit @ 792MHz
Rank0: 2048MB(auto)-2T-11
DataBus test pass!
AddrBus test pass!
Load fip header from SD, src: 0x0000c200, des: 0x01400000, size: 0x00004000
New fip structure!
Load bl30 from SD, src: 0x00010200, des: 0x01100000, size: 0x0000d600
Load bl31 from SD, src: 0x00020200, des: 0x05100000, size: 0x0002c600
Load bl33 from SD, src: 0x00050200, des: 0x01000000, size: 0x00065e00
NOTICE:  BL3-1: v1.0(release):a625749
NOTICE:  BL3-1: Built : 11:25:15, Aug 25 2017
[BL31]: GXL CPU setup!
NOTICE:  BL31: BL33 decompress pass
mpu_config_enable:ok
[Image: gxl_v1.1.3243-377db0f 2017-09-07 11:28:58 qiufang.dai@droid07]
OPS=0xa4
b4 6d 77 fb b7 65 f0 73 5a c7 83 46 [0.547161 Inits done]
secure task start!
high task start!
low task start!
ERROR:   Error initializing runtime service opteed_fast

U-Boot 2015.01-g2d1a155-dirty (Oct 08 2017 - 12:02:50)

DRAM:  2 GiB
Relocation Offset is: 76eb3000
register usb cfg[0][1] = 0000000077f5a960
[CANVAS]canvas init
boot_device_flag : 1
Nand PHY Ver:1.01.001.0006 (c) 2013 Amlogic Inc.
init bus_cycle=6, bus_timing=7, system=5.0ns
reset failed
get_chip_type and ret:fffffffe
get_chip_type and ret:fffffffe
chip detect failed and ret:fffffffe
nandphy_init failed and ret=0xfffffff1

Second, I've followed the manual. I've copied the file 'u-boot-s905x-s912' to 'u-boot.ext'. I also edited the file 'extlinux.conf', pointing it to 'meson-gxl-s905w-p281.dtb'. The result is in the logs.
 

Spoiler

GXL:BL1:9ac50e:bb16dc;FEAT:ADFC318C:0;POC:3;RCY:0;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;LOOP:1;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;LOOP:2;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;LOOP:3;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;LOOP:4;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;LOOP:5;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;LOOP:6;EMMC:800;NAND:81;SD:0;READ:0;CHK:A7;USB:8;

The question is: how to boot the device from the SD card? Should I use somehow the original's firmware u-boot (as it works with the the factory firmware)? The SD card was made with 'Balena etcher'. Armbian image was build from gitub repo ("Armbian-unofficial_24.11.1_Aml-s9xx-box_bookworm_current_6.6.62_minimal.img").

Edited yesterday at 04:17 AM by Alex Trezvy

[SteeMan]

10 hours ago, Alex Trezvy said:

TV box with seemingly broken eMMC chip

If your emmc isn't working you won't be able to run the aml-s9xx-tvbox Armbian builds.  Those builds use the original boxes uboot on emmc to boot from.  So you need an intact working emmc with the original android uboot working.

[Alex Trezvy]

50 minutes ago, SteeMan said:

Those builds use the original boxes uboot on emmc to boot from.

Sounds weird:
1. We have a couple of "u-boot" files in Armbian img. Including the one that must be copied into "u-boot.ext".
2. There is manual that explains how to make a bootable SD-card with original firmware manually. It should be possible to run Armbian's "u-boot.ext" from SD-card, like it is possible to run original u-boot extracted from an image. Why not?

Edited yesterday at 03:36 PM by Alex Trezvy