S905X2-SDMC Tech DV8549 Getting Armbian Running

[Parth]

Hi, 
First of all thank you very much for all the support and efforts you have taken to provide with the extensive documentation and images to flash on the android tv boxes. 
I am here in hope of some help and guidance, since ive not been able to solve this particular issue since past 2 months and with bare minimum sleep and enough efforts. 

I have a SDMC Tech STB which is DV8549 
- Processor: Amlogic S905X2 
- RAM: 2GB 
- EMMC: 8 / 32Gb (not sure but will share part number) 
- WiFi chip? Unsure since the part is rubbed off, and its not even necessary to run the wifi.

It does not have the SD card slot unlike the normal TV Boxes. 
it seems to be locked? or rather would not go into any mode. 

it has a debug port, but it would not show any data apart from some wifi related things. in which if we keep pressing CTRL + C it will stop displaying that. 

There is some button given, unlike the TB Boxes, but that button upon pressing only takes into the recovery mode which leads to nothing but only would ask to Wipe Data and factory Reset, that is all. 

Just behind the EMMC Chip, there seems to be a Placment for a small Pushbutton which is not populated, but when we do short it, while plugging in the Power Supply, it would take the device in the WorldCup Mode. 

**What have i tried?** 
1. Did put the device in worldcup mode and followed with a alot of files from Ricky Divjakovski, to try and flash some android images which were provided by other people online, but it would not do anything or would not lead to any flashing to the board.

2. Tried the Amlogic USB Burning tool, but even that would not lead to any of the flashing, did follow a lot of videos online but all the steps were made for the generic TV Boxes and none for my specific, but considering my electronics and embedded knowledge i tried my level best to do all the combinations to check if the usb burning tool would help to flash any rom it did not. 

So, both the standard ways which are meant to be used for the Generic TV Boxes are not available for me. 
The last step which im planning to do is, pull out the EMMC from the board, install it on the external EMMC Reader like the allSocket bga153/163 and copy all the files from the EMMC and erase it. but i have no idea after erasing, re-soldering the EMMC, where do i start and how do i install the armbian or any OS onto the board again? 

what do i expect from you or other users over here from the community? 
what should i do next? is there any way i can get this up and running? are there any steps i might be missing? 

Back of the board.
Highlighted in RED is the button i would short and it would take me into the worldcup mode 
Highlighted in Blue is the button i would press, and it would take me to recovery. 



Front Of the Board

from over here i was not able to attach any more photos to the post, so a humble request to follow up over here 
https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian/issues/3214
for all the pictures. 

any help in regards to this shall be very very much amazing. thanks in advance. 

[SteeMan]

Note that ophub is a fork of Armbian.  They do not contribute to Armbian development nor do they participate in these forums or in anyway do they support Armbian.

[Parth]

Hi @SteeMan,
Thanks for the response. 
Yes i do know that, perhaps, im trying to get help from anyone and everyone to get this up and running, i had even tried to buy the MXq5 TV boxes before, and it failed, rather including you and some other mods had asked me not to continue with it since it has a processor which would not do much of the great deal for my Touch screen solution. hence now that ive got hands on this board which im even able to get for cheap honestly, i would like to get into it. 

thats all. so anything which can help to get this up and running would be helpful. apart from that, since i could not post more than 1 image i added the link to the github. 

Thanks in advance. 

[SteeMan]

I am going to just point you first to the installation instructions on this site.  What dtbs have you tried? What build are you using?  What uboot are you using?

This is important: have you ever booted anything other than the native android on this box? (Is so read the instructions about that).

You really need to hook up a USB uart to get the boot output to understand what is happening.

And if the button you labeled blue gets you to recovery that should be the button you want

[Parth]

well @SteeMan i tried all the possible instructions and everything i could possibly try. 

1.  Usb does not power the board, which most of the generic chinese TV Boxes do, we plug the usb, power it , it can detect the things and we put the sd card and we are good to go, that does not happen on this board since, the SDCard slot is not there, and apart from that you have to power it externally it will not detect the USB power. 
2. Upon trying to short the pins which are shown, would only take me into the WorldCup mode, but even after going into that, and following with all the possible files, which are meant to update it, like in some videos, it would not take up the file honestly, rather it would get stuck to the point where it is mainly trying to read the emmc block. would not go any further ahead of that.  
3. The other option is to use the amlogic usb burning tool, now again, that tool like so many videos online would not show me any details whatsoever, it will not show up my box for me to be able to flash it. 
4. there are uart pins, it only shows the following things. 

no matter what key strokes i give it will never stop nor do anything fancy for me, it will straight boot into its OS. 

so all the provided instructions already online are not at all of any help for this. 

Instead im wiling to go multiple steps further, like i had mentioned initially and those would be the following. 

1. Try and pull out the EMMC from the board and use a reader to read it? But i am lost even after i read the data, and if i wish to put back anything lets say armbian, what should i do next? flash it from the emmc reader? or put it back on the board and try to see then what all burning method works? 
    
2. apart from the EMMC pull out, i am unsure what else might as well work here, i am least interested now to even run android back on it since i would require multiple files which only the factory can provide maybe? (heard this from my linux developer friends who make roms) which i do not have. 
    
3. my final call would be to simply design my own custom PCB and pull out the Processor, RAM and EMMC and build our own DTB and use it, but again, i am not sure and unaware of the fact that if there are things flashed on the S905X itself or everything that is stopping me is on the EMMC? and if making my own board which is the last option, would even be worth it? 

Edited 37 minutes ago by Parth