Q+ TV Box Scam? - or Unreasonably Suspicious!

[riclin]

I have previously posted regarding an issue where a Turewell (OTT) Q+ TV Box specced at 4/32GB reports 2/16GB after a firmware reflash. I have been unable to get a response from either the seller or from Turewell. At the expense of being unreasonably cynical, but is it possible - or even likely - that the box was always fitted with 2/16GB but the firmware had been modded by the manufacturer or seller to report double that amount? - and that as a result I've been scammed? (I do recall that I both RAM and Storage looked kinda "wrong" before the flash, but I didn't pay it too much heed at the time).

Or am I just being Unreasonable Suspicious?

[freddy]

Hmmmmmmmm

What Firmware did you flash?
Original Factory Firmware ?



There are apps/apks like Ram truth,CPUZ....
Install them and see
Also latest version of Kodi sometimes in settings can get a read.

If you dont mind VOIDING THE WARRANTY....
You could take it apart and have a look at board.
4gig of RAM may look like 4 sets of 512 on top side
4 sets/chip of 512 on underside.
Or any combo

[riclin]

Thanks Freddy. I did check h/w - the RAM markings initially were inconclusive. However the FBGA code of D9PSC printed on the RAM chips cross-references to a MT41K512M4DA-125:K - which so far as I can determine is a 2G chip. There are 8 of these chips (4 top & 4 bottom) so 8 * 2G = 16GB when I went to school. Not 32GB! Unless I'm missing something, it seems that these Q+ boxes are either a scam from the factory, or more probably somebody is buying the 2G/16G boxes and burning on bogus firmware so that they appear to have more RAM & Storage than they actually have. Only when the genuine factory firmware is reinstalled does the device then report its actual capacity.

So it seems that I wasn't being Unreasonably Suspicious at all!! Caveat Emptor colleagues!

[riclin]

Taking this a step further - notwithstanding that www.turewell,com (turewell ostensibly being the manufacturer of this device) bears the appearance of being the manufacturers' web page, it shares a DNS address with myshopify.com. Myshopify (to quote from Wikipedia)"is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It is also the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services "including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools to simplify the process of running an online store for small merchants."

So there is no manufacturers web page - only a link via myshopify.com that is designed to resemble a manufacturers page. Goes part way to explaining the absence of responses to [email protected] - as well as the deafening silence associated with its chat facility. Who the manufacturer really is is anyone's guess and the likelihood of support should it be required is doubtful.

Again - caveat emptor!

[freddy]

Allthough iam not a Allwinner Fan or turewell....etc

Don,t be so fast to throw them under the serial Bus....
Ha Ha Ha

Those chips range from 1 to 8 G

You could have 4 1G on top for RAM
And 4 8G on bottom for internal

Or any combo

In big G search mt41 512 chip

Does Factory Firmware indicate/read as 4/32?

Happy Testing

[riclin]

Hi Freddy - not being fast here - have spent over a week on this off-and-on. The original firmware was 2.1.18 and reported 4/32G. When first reflashed I used the 2.1.16 from the Turewell "site" and upgraded OTA back to 2.1.18 - subsequently I obtained 2.1.17 and repeated that process. All flashes worked perfectly as did the OTA upgrades back to 2.1.18. However all firmware versions with the exception of the original vendor firmware have reported 2/16G - as do any number of other downloaded diagnostic apps or using "free" and "df" under terminal emulator.

Further to this, the RAM manufacturer's (Micron) own FBGA and Component Marking Decoder maps the D9PSC FBGA Code to the MT41K512M4DA-125:K which it describes as "SDRAM - DDR3L Memory IC 2Gb (512M x 4) Parallel 800MHz 13.75ns". There are 8 of these - all identically marked - so 2GB * 8 equals the 16G reported by everything except the vendor firmware.

Another partially unrelated peculiarity is that prior to the memory issue becoming evident, I did a factory reset to clear some downloaded barf and start clean. After doing so, a number of the distributed apps disappeared and did not return. Although I subsequently found the missing apks in /system/preinstall and could manually install them, it did leave me with the suspicion that there was something Not Quite Right (tm) with the firmware and I now wonder whether that was associated with it having been tampered with. Interestingly, the downloaded manufacturer's firmware and the OTA upgrades installed all apps perfectly.

Unfortunately the evidence is beginning to stack up!

Rogues and scoundrels!!

BTW - thanks for your input - appreciated!

[RiCkLaR_atvX]

Further to this, the RAM manufacturer's (Micron) own FBGA and Component Marking Decoder maps the D9PSC FBGA Code to the MT41K512M4DA-125:K which it describes as "SDRAM - DDR3L Memory IC 2Gb (512M x 4) Parallel 800MHz 13.75ns". There are 8 of these - all identically marked - so 2GB * 8 equals the 16G reported by everything except the vendor firmware.

The data sheet says "2GB x4" for your Ram, so that is 4 x 512mb chips per Bank = 2gb,
so having 4 chips on the top side of the board = Bank 1,
and 4 chips on the botton side of the board = Bank 2,
then Bank-1 + Bank-2 together = 4gb RAM on your board.

The real problem seems to be a Bootloader/Uboot issue, error in the coding most likely, can try installing a different device firmware like the T95 Max (is know to work/install in the Q+, only the rom for the H6 CPU device) -- install as a firmware.img not a Zip update file, because Zip update files don't always change the bootloader or uboot, but an .IMG file installation will change it.

[riclin]

I tried the T95 Max firmware previously Rick - same result - 2G/16G instead of 4G/32G. Hmm ....

[riclin]

In fact - so as to double check - I just installed v9.0-2.1.16 by v9.0-2.1.19 - both as files and both report as per above.

Any suggestions gratefully received!

Thanks!

[RiCkLaR_atvX]

Where did you get these version 2.1.16 and 2.1.19 ?

I read above how you were curious as to the original manufacturer, I believe it is WeChip, and on there website they are not currently hosting the current or even old update firmware.

[riclin]

Is it WeChip? I thought Turewell: https://www.turewell.com/pages/tvbox-document

These boxes seem to be claimed by multiple "manufacturers".

[riclin]

Hi Rick - FWIW - installed firmware from the WeChip page as well - "http://www.wechipbox.com/-ezp-24.html" - 2.1.9 - flashed OK and booted fine - but no cigar. 2GB/16GB

[freddy]

The data sheet says "2GB x4" for your Ram, so that is 4 x 512mb chips per Bank = 2gb,
so having 4 chips on the top side of the board = Bank 1,
and 4 chips on the botton side of the board = Bank 2,
then Bank-1 + Bank-2 together = 4gb RAM on your board.

The real problem seems to be a Bootloader/Uboot issue, error in the coding most likely, can try installing a different device firmware like the T95 Max (is know to work/install in the Q+, only the rom for the H6 CPU device) -- install as a firmware.img not a Zip update file, because Zip update files don't always change the bootloader or uboot, but an .IMG file installation will change it.

That was my first thought Post # 2

However THe 512 on chip may be just part of the serial/catalog #
THe letter K after at end of 125-K indicates 2G
Other letters A F indicate other G.

Maybe Post some pics of board riclin

Or specs on box
Is emmc 32 G?

AS to the bootloader/U-BOOT issue..
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Unfortuneatly
Not the first time allwinn has been questioned about linux/kernel source/U-BOOT source

Happy Testing

[riclin]

OK - having cracked the box and looked up the specs for the chips, it seems that the hardware is indeed correct and that is is 4G/32G as advertised (apols for the unreasonable suspicion ). The problem seems to be caused by u-boot passing incorrect parameters to the kernel at boot as suggested above. I sense that I'm running out of knowledge here - is anyone in a position to steer me to a solution on this?

Cheers,

[freddy]

Flash original Firmware and Rock On !!!!!

Use the Box and watch YOu tube or something.

Put in Kids Room and get another

Sell it to a friend Cheap
Get a new one.

Just some thoughts