Sudden Shutdown After Exactly 29min47s — TX2 TV Box (RK3229, NAND, 2GB)

[Carlos Bezerra]

Hi everyone,

 

I’m experiencing a recurring and very specific issue with my TX2 TV Box, with the following specifications:

SoC: Rockchip RK3229

RAM: 2GB DDR3

Storage: NAND flash (not eMMC!)

Board: Generic TX2 board

🛑 Main Issue

 

The system shuts down abruptly at exactly 29 minutes and 47 seconds of uptime (i monitoring via htop). It always shuts down at this time.

It’s not a clean shutdown or reboot — it behaves as if the power was cut off. No meaningful logs appear in journalctl or dmesg, and the shutdown is instantaneous and silent.

 

🧪 What I’ve Tried:

Disabled idle and sleep functions:

Masked systemd-logind

Set IdleActionSec=0 and HandlePowerKey=ignore

Tried different kernel versions:

Legacy: Armbian 22.02.0-trunk Focal legacy 4.4.194 

Mainline: Armbian Jammy kernel 5.15 

 

Attempted to disable the watchdog:

Boot parameter nowatchdog

Kernel parameter rcu_cpu_stall_timeout=0

Created a systemd service to periodically write to /dev/watchdog

Tried to remove dw_wdt module (modprobe -r), but it either auto-loads or refuses to unload (watchdog did not stop)

Tried building a custom kernel with CONFIG_DW_WATCHDOG=n, but the process failed due to gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi toolchain issues.

Used config-rk322x to properly set RAM, NAND, and Wi-Fi chip before first boot + update/upgrade.

Tried adding  sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

 

⚠️ Additional Critical Note:

The system does not work at all when flashed to eMMC/flash — only boots properly from NAND or SD card.

Any image written to internal flash does not boot.

Therefore, booting from NAND is required, which may be related to the watchdog being active by default on NAND-based boards.

 

❓ My Question:

Has anyone with a TX2 or RK3229-based NAND board experienced this same issue?

Is this a known watchdog timer issue on NAND models?

Is there any stable image or device tree overlay known to work for this configuration?

Any tips to fully disable the watchdog either via software or kernel patch?

 

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!