Rockchip Backup Firmware

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Fernando Capelle

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:39:24 PM8/3/24

to anlearrere

So far, I have managed to put it into maskrom mode by conneting the two contact pads in the red circles and pluging in a USB A to A cable in the USB 2.0 port of the tv box and my computer.
I took a backup of the firmware with the multitool from here: -csc-armbian-for-rk3318rk3328-tv-box-boards/page/1 but I could not find a way to restore it.
I tried Android tool reports, which says "Found One MASKROM Device", but threw an error when I tried to load my backup.
So I searched for the origional firmware, but could not find a source that was working.
Can someone help me unbricking my TV box?

However once in maskrom mode the board will boot from sdcard. As far as I remember, yours has the sdcard allocated to a "secondary" controller and for this reason probably is unable to boot multitool from sdcard when in maskrom mode.

@Elbie Kittens AFAIR the X88 has the sdcard connected to sdmmc_ext bus, that's the reason why it won't boot from sdcard when firmware is erased. You should have install the armbian image right after erasing the emmc.

Now you are probably in maskrom mode, the board should show when connected to PC via USB male-to-male cable, but you have to use the board USB OTG port. Then you can use rkdeveloptool to upload an armbian image.

f it is in maskrom mode, the serial will be totally silent. Beware that there are other possible serial pins on the front side of the board, nearby the IR receiver. I don't remember which ones where in use for debug.

Also you should also try with and without the power plug connected, but try to power the box only via USB cable: when the USB cable is inserted in the USB OTG port, the box should be automatically powered on.

Last but not least: when you plug the cable, you should use lsusb tool to see if there is a rockchip device in maskrom mode, and not wait for something to automatically show up like a storage device.

@Elbie Kittens Thanks a lot! I'm sorry I told you that you already should have been in maskrom mode, but it really had to work that way if you erased the eMMC. I really don't what was wrong in first instance. Surely the serial log would have been helpful.

About the tools, I don't know what tools are you using, but the armbian images are provided as xzipped raw images, not the proprietary format expected by AndroidTool for Windows, for example. Multitool is capable of burning them decompressing them on the fly, otherwise rkdeveloptool is able too but you have to decompress them first.

We have been asked the questions by many individual users as well as some commercial users that "i have setup my own server on rock pro and running well, now i want to backup in case i lose data in the future" or "we have developed our own application and setup the environment now we want to install the same environment to 100 rock pro, how to do that". So we write this. This how-to tells you how to backup and restore the same firmware to your boards step by step. This how-to works for rock/rock pro/rock2 square. This how-to works under Linux. What you should know before read this:

If you have 100 devices and want to restore, you can repeat above for 100 times but we have another way - pack the partitions to a rockchip format firmware and use RKbatchtool to flash each board automatically.

Basically so I have a backup saved on my computer and when I use rufus to put the multitool on an sd card it makes the size of the card 2gb even though its a 8gb one. Then when I try to put the backup in the backup folder I cant because the backup file is too big.

I had a problem with this wireless chip. Is this familiar to anyone? In one of the system messages I saw this as BCM 4334B1 / 6334. It can scan networks with the minimal image but cannot connect. Is there an overlay?

I've read in your first post about improve multimedia performance (videos, youtube, browser, desktop performance). With lima the window performance is slow. Do you have the same image for tv boxes with the legacy kernel and other stuff?

No, there are rockchip64 edge and legacy kernel available in the armbian repositories too, they are set "on hold" as much as current (mainline) kernel because if you install them the kernel won't boot anymore.

In my experience, no I2C bus is freely routed, such as soldering point. However, if your box has an LCD display, there is a workaround. In 90% of such boxes, the display drive IC is I2C bus, so you can connect it to its corresponding pins (SCK, SDA) with another device.

@MBB I read that you also had a problem with the Wireless chip last month, specifically the drive you used. Can you describe to me exactly how I need to add a symlink so I can try another driver on my box? I have a Wi-fi chip like this: Broadcom brcm4334B1 to which I know @jock hasn't matched the current image yet.
Thenks.

@paradigman Sorry to take a few days to reply - was buried in another project and had put the rockchip boards away. For me, one issue was Bluetooth, so not sure it is the same issue you see. Bluetooth appears to be a BCM43342. And even though the BCM43342.hcd file existed, Bluetooth couldn't find any devices in a scan. My fix was to symlink the default BCM.hdc to this BCM43342.hcd file, a less-than-clean solution. But I wasn't able to find anything else that worked. I believe @awawa ran into the same issue.

thank again to @jockfor this great software, I've now got a HK1 max and a H96max+ working and I want to set up a couple of servers with some USB sticks to backup and dump data to....just using NFS shares cos I'm a linux user

You have 2 pads on the upper side hear the unpopulated ram / MMC pads that very likely is forcing mask rom mode but cant being 100% sure if not tested with high impedance resistor shutting them or oscilloscope.

I think its one RL3318 box that is super stripped like my and many other RK3228A boxes and the HDMI is not working with armbian then have doing no standard layout of the PCB and need patching the RK chip for getting it working that we dont knowing for the moment. If its so you shall getting the Ethernet requesting one IP-address if waiting some minute with multi too and can connecting with SSH to it but then is normally the LED looking OK.

Some PB is using the SD-card pins for UART if no SD-card is inserted but i think its not supported for all PCBs (its using 2 pin serial = UART if not card is in and 4 pin serial then card is inserted and loading the MMC module for the SD-card).

Hello, I am going to try again with my RK3328 MX10 box with the SV6051P wifi and see if I can get it working this time around. I was trying to compile @jockArmbian fork and I encountered this compile error.

This is the H96MAX display driver ( more precise LED driver) I couldn't find yet the PDFspecs. I'm asumming this is a sort of TM1637 Led Driver which is by the way I2C or The Two-Wire Interface (TWI) is similar to the I2C interface with a few differences.

The chip in the photo looks like a fd6551, which I have on a rk3318 box here and uses the two-wire interface that has to be "emulated" via software using bit-banging (= triggering up & down the GPIOs) by the kernel driver.

Ez a H96MAX kijelző illesztőprogramja ( pontosabban LED meghajt ) A PDF specifikcit mg nem talltam meg. Felttelezem, hogy ez egyfajta TM1637 Led Driver, amely egybknt I2C vagy a The Two-Wire Interface (TWI) hasonl az I2C interfszhez, nhny klnbsggel.

I have attached the data sheet for the chip. The thing I wrote above really works is that you can connect another I2C device to the two appropriate pins on the chip. However, this is not enough, you need to use the OpenVFD driver (in place compile) and modify it in small dips to be able to send commands to the other device.

As before, I have created a new CFW for the new AtGames Atari Flashback 50th Anniversary Edition. With an OTG cable and USB storage device this allows you to dump the /rom partition to USB and customize it with new roms and boxart as you like or possibly run a package like Nexus.

It works the same was as before. The presence of "mount_sd.ini" file in the root of your USB storage device will trigger the dump and remapping of /rom to USB. The /emulator has been modified to use all-games.ini file located in /rom as before.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This CFW is for the GOLD 50th Anniversary Edition. I do not have a non-Gold unit to dump firmware or test with. If you have a non-Gold unit then this CFW will probably just turn it into a Gold edition without the included paddles. However, as always, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I tested this briefly on my own AFB50 Gold, flashing the firmware and adding Pac-Man to the UI, and everything worked fine. But I have not tested any more than that as I still prefer my AFB9.