T95Z Plus S912 Running Great

[Tomas Catone]

TV Box Name: Sunvell T95Z plus Octagon shaped box (Beware – apparently a lot of variants)

CPU Amlogics S912

Armbian build file name: Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.370_Aml-s9xx-box_noble_current_6.12.23

DTB file used: meson-gxm-vega-s96.dtb (but several seem to work… none with wifi out of the box)

Kernel Version: 6.12.24

Distribution Installed (focal, buster, etc): Noble

Working Ethernet (Yes/No): Yes

Max Ethernet Speed that works (100/1000): Not sure how to determine...

Does wifi work (Yes/No): YES *** See Below

Does bluetooth work (Yes/No): Not tested

Does HDMI audio work (Yes/No): Yes
Additional Comments (provide any additional information you feel is important):

Tested many files. Ubuntu (noble) seemed much more usable than Debian (bookworm)

 

Also tested

Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_bookworm_current_6.12.21 _gnome_desktop.img.xz

Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_noble_current_6.12.21 _gnome_desktop.img.xz

Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_oracular_edge_6.14.0 _gnome_desktop.img.xz

Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.334_Aml-s9xx-box_oracular_edge_6.14.0.img.xz

Since I am trying to learn server/media center/adguard or pihole stuff – chose the server headless install eventually. Learning has started.

**** Thank you thank you to @ZuiMelanieForno and their post here:

But basically looks like the easy way is to create a soft link of the ap6330 driver file as the brcm4330 file that must be loaded by default.

sudo mv /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt.old 
sudo ln -s /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac-ap6330-sdio.txt /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt

Not sure of this solution will survive update.   (UPDATE: Confirmed - it does not survive update - but doing the commands again and a reboot seemed to work.)

 

I have installed pihole and had it running. I had jellyfin running. Rebuilt from 0 again and am trying to do inside of docker containers. Dockers seems running but still some learning to go.

 

If I write my sd to my eMMC – can reset to 0 again by booting from an sd card … and when ready burn that to eMMC? Or should I keep the writes to the eMMC as few as possible?

 

I own two of these boxes – Identical on the outside but the newer one (bought probably 1 year later) does NOT have an eMMC. It has the dreaded NAND chip(BiWIN 16GB)… Also a different wifi module I think…. (LTM8830)

 

Oh and – can I just say I love pulling this thing out of retirement and having a tiny low cost media server in the house. Thanks @balbes150 and @SteeMan and Everyone for their hard work!  This is amazing... until I blow it up again...

Edited April 24 by Tomas Catone
Confirmed the wifi procedure and question.

[datatech451]

Thanks for sharing your experience! I also own a T95Z Plus (S912) and agree that it runs great for most tasks. The S912 chip handles 4K streaming and light gaming really well, especially with optimized firmware. Have you tried any custom ROMs like ATVxperience or LibreELEC to improve performance further?

A few tips that helped me:

Cooling: Adding small heatsinks or a fan prevents throttling.

Debloating: Removing unused apps with ADB or Debloater Tool speeds it up.

Launcher: Switching to Wolf Launcher or ATV Launcher reduces lag.

Would love to hear if you’ve found other tweaks!

[Tomas Catone]

Hi @datatech451 - glad to hear I am not alone.  Yep - I fiddled with SuperCeleron, ATVx and custom launchers a few years back.  I have an old pc with LibreElec around here somewhere too.  But today I am no longer trying to keep Android going on this one.  I moved on to Firesticks since then and the remote control is a big factor on why we stay there.  But for the S912 - I am focusing on the mediaserver side and thinking of adding photo backup of my phone.  I am just in the tinkering and learning phase.  I've had Plex working and have been trialing Jellyfin lately.  It works well to stream locally to my firesticks.  Big Buck Bunny of course and it seems pretty solid.  But I am not doing 4k BBB or anything.  But still testing and troubleshooting random issues and craziness.  In fact - I put Portainer on board.  Jellyfin in a Docker.  Homarr in a Docker, Grafana in a Docker, Adguard in a Docker and Cockpit...  But lots of things not working exactly right but I think because I overload it.  Really trying to push it to the limits just to see and learn.  

 

Burning that all down today and doing a fresh build with just what I need - Jellyfin, Cockpit and Adguard.  I'm gonna skip Docker this time and I bet I get it all working well enough to learn the next level. 

 

As for cooling - I bought some extra heat sinks but never made it further.  I am a little worried about pulling the existing sink off - don't want to crack the cpu.   Feels more solid than thermal paste - more like thermal glue.  But yes - seems to get HOT in a hurry when it is busy.   This box has a heat sink plus heat tape and a piece of sheet metal.  I am betting that is no longer standard build.

 

BTW - I fiddled with my watt meter and this thing just sips...  Seems to idle around 3.6 to 4.1 watts.  Did some measurements during 2 hours of streaming, and did some math it seems it would only use about 2.9 kWh per month if on all the time.   My spinning HDD uses more than that - could justify that SSD upgrade in the future.

 

I found another box with a S905 (I think) in my recycle bin - I might look at optimizing that for retro gaming.   We will see what happens next.   Do you have a favorite gaming ROM or experience? 

 

Anyway - best of luck and keep the faith!