MK808 "all models" Finless 1.7

[leolas]

Hi, I am a new user for MK808B, and thinking of giving the Finless ROM 1.7 a try.
But I like to have the option to restore the original stock ROM just in case of issues...
i have already installed the CWM recovery. I can boot in the CWM mode.
if I read correctly, the Stock ROM and the FINLESS ROM are of different size in partition, hence I have to use the Finless way of Flashing using a PC via USB direct connection at OTG connection correct?

i have done a back up with CWM tool for my stock ROM. And it's saved to an external SD CARD.

how would finless ROM FLASH tool support the restoration of the Stock ROM, IF I want to restore?
or the Finless ROM flash tool can do the complete backup of the stock ROM first before flashing?
As I know that the entire stock ROM would be wipe out and the partition resized correct?

please assist me, or point me to the necessary resources. Thanks.

First is to ensure what mk808b you have, if wifi chipset is rk903(original) or mediatek (sunvelt or clone)chipset. You can do it opening the device and looking for what is your chipset. Now that you made a cwm recovery backup you will can to restore it latter if you want to return to original rom. About the new size of partitions, be sure that the new size is better, only 512Mb to install aplications is very low, in Finless roms 2Gb is a way better. But for your tranquility, if you want I can give you the original parameters file if you want.

I am uploading cwm files to install all Bob mk808 last roms, mk808 and mk808b(rk903) both in 720p and 1080p are ready and I am testing them now, soon mk808b clones will be packed and uploading.

[furlisht]

Display problem?

Hello everybody

A friend of mine bought a mk808B. On his television, with the stock rom, it worked well, booted and everything.
But now i flashed the finless 1.7, tested it on my computer monitor and everything worked well. When he plugs it into his TV, it boots to the funky MK808 splash screen, and transition into a black screen and get stuck there.
The tv he has is this one http://www.trustedreviews.com/Samsun...e-table_Page-4 . I don't see anything particular in this television, but i had a similar problem with another tv which detected the mk808 as a 3D device, but on this tv, there is no 3D.

Has anyone seen a problem similar and came with a solution?

Regards

It's resolved actually.

The problem is strange though. He had the miniusb cable with an extension usb cable, and it worked well with stock rom but not with finless 1.7. When plugging the usb cable directly to the mk808b, it worked and booted.

[ycorp]

Trying to Flash the MK808B Stock ROM to Finless ROM 1.7

First is to ensure what mk808b you have, if wifi chipset is rk903(original) or mediatek (sunvelt or clone)chipset. You can do it opening the device and looking for what is your chipset. Now that you made a cwm recovery backup you will can to restore it latter if you want to return to original rom. About the new size of partitions, be sure that the new size is better, only 512Mb to install aplications is very low, in Finless roms 2Gb is a way better. But for your tranquility, if you want I can give you the original parameters file if you want.

I am uploading cwm files to install all Bob mk808 last roms, mk808 and mk808b(rk903) both in 720p and 1080p are ready and I am testing them now, soon mk808b clones will be packed and uploading.

Thanks for your reply.
Mine is the RK903 chipset.
I have have connected the OTG to my PC USB port, but when I run the "ROM Flash Tool.exe", my MK808B device is not detected.

I have set the debug to OFF on the MK808B, while the only thing I couldn't find the setting is to switch it to USB Storage, as it instructed by the Readme file. Where to set the MK808B to storage?
it has to be storage before the the PC can detect it correct?
As the PC cannot detect the MK808B, I cannot flash it.

By the way, I noticed that in the Finless ROM Flash Tool, there is only one box unchecked, i.e. Backup.img. If I check this box, would it meant that the original Stock ROM would be backup as Backup.img file?

Regarding the custom Boot Animation, reference to this thread:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?4428-Boot-animations-on-Finless-1-7

I just have to replace the existing boot720.img in the FinlessROM folder with the one I want to use at:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9BFwCzfMWZ8a04yUmZ1T0pMUG8/edit

Correct ?

Thanks for your help

[leolas]

Thanks for your reply.
Mine is the RK903 chipset.
I have have connected the OTG to my PC USB port, but when I run the "ROM Flash Tool.exe", my MK808B device is not detected.

I have set the debug to OFF on the MK808B, while the only thing I couldn't find the setting is to switch it to USB Storage, as it instructed by the Readme file. Where to set the MK808B to storage?
it has to be storage before the the PC can detect it correct?
As the PC cannot detect the MK808B, I cannot flash it.

By the way, I noticed that in the Finless ROM Flash Tool, there is only one box unchecked, i.e. Backup.img. If I check this box, would it meant that the original Stock ROM would be backup as Backup.img file?

Regarding the custom Boot Animation, reference to this thread:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?4428-Boot-animations-on-Finless-1-7

I just have to replace the existing boot720.img in the FinlessROM folder with the one I want to use at:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9BFwCzfMWZ8a04yUmZ1T0pMUG8/edit

Correct ?

Thanks for your help

Backup.img must not be checked in rkflashtool program.

Boot720.img is not bootanimation is a necessary partition in our tv sticks so don't change it. You can choose between boot720.img if you use a 720p kernel (default one) or boot1080.img if you use a 1080p kernel. Without boot.img the system will not boot

I suggest you read this:http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...contributors-) a lot of useful info there. And read with little more attention README file included in Bob ROM. he don´t include this file for fill space in the zip, inside this readme there are a lot of important info that needs to be understand before flash. If we dont make well the procces we will brick the stick, and sometimes is a lot of difficult give you instructions to unbrick them.

To boot in bootloader mode you can use this apk made by the great petrus:http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.p...ght=reboot.apk (only works if you are root), then when the stick boots your windows must make a "dong" and then you must install the drivers for your windows from the files that comes with Bob Rom. There are a lot of post, and a youtube video here in the forum, I don't remember the exact thread, but search button is our friend.

[Andromoid]

1.7 unstable?

I've installed 1.7 on my MK808B using the CWM method by downloading and updating a "template" by moving over the img files.

The stock ROM was unstable and some apps would never crash, and some apps would crash all the time. Various intense benchmarking apps like Super PI (two of them) and KFS OpenGL Benchmark and Antutu would crash all the time.

Now with 1.7, using 720 boot+kernel, Super PI no longer crashes, but various OpenGL benchmarks like KFS and Antutu are still crashing and hanging the system completely, where it freezes, needing a complete power cycle.

I'd like to try 2.0 beta (2 is it?), but from my understanding the CWM method is not going to work, because there is a change in partition size, and some undocumented thing needs to be done before flashing through CWM would become possible. So my question there is, is there a way to do something manually in CWM to "fix" the partition sizes, and then flash Finless 2 by updating a CWM ROM template zip, like I did with the 1.7 install? Or else, is there anything that can be inserted inside a CWM zip to make that change on flashing? Point is, I don't have Windows. I'm not going to install windows in a virtualbox, and go through all that trouble to get it all to work. I know, and I've found Linux sources for the Rock-something flash thingies from github, and it compiles, but I'm reluctant to go through all those convoluted steps. I really thing all this flashing ought to be able to work through the CWM method. Reboot in recovery, erase, flash zip, and you're done. But what's with the partitioning changing, and how can one go back and forth if one were to flash and try out different ROMs?

Alternatively, I can try 1.6a. I found a message here: http://vondroid.com/threads/mk808b-f...a-2-test.8240/ where mrkus21 claims that that is the only stable version available that also happens to perform the best. At this point, I don't really care about latest features and tweak, I just want to have it work stable.

Lastly, I understand that all this ROM hacking is a combination of shoving files around in img files some of which are ext4 file systems, and, this is the hard stuff, modifying binary kernel cores. I know that in GNU land, if one were to derive work from other open source libraries, then one is not allowed to distribute binaries without providing access to source. So my question there is, why does Finless Bob not get access to full source code for the actual kernel source, so that he and others can do proper development without having to hack and guess trial and error based, binary code? Can't we have some sort of source repository using GIT and then others including myself could make contributions?

ps. I'm making some assumptions in my post here. Please bear with me. This whole discovery process on how all this Android stuff hangs together is a complete tooth pulling process I find. Not anywhere can I find a concise clear and complete concentrated to the point set of documentation anywhere. There are bits here and there, but nothing with sufficient details. I'm a big Linux fan, and have been using it for software development since the 90s. I'm quite familiar with file sytems, partitioning, compiling kernels, making mods to window managers, write gui apps, server apps. Fully versed with C, C++, x86 asm, 68k asm, Java. No Arm coding, yet.

[diniscampos]

Andromoid,
See this stupid manufacturer argumentation...

http://www.apad.tv/apadforum/showthread.php?3401-Kernel-Sources

[leolas]

Andromoid,
See this stupid manufacturer argumentation...

http://www.apad.tv/apadforum/showthr...Kernel-Sources

Really sad They don't understand what is Open source, or worse they dont want to understand it.

[Andromoid]

apad.tv in violation of open source license?

Re: http://www.apad.tv/apadforum/showthread.php?3401-Kernel-Sources

Last message was:

"
A third-party developer makes the firmware for the manufacturer. They are not authorised to release the source code. I only have contact details for the third party developer, and the developer contact does not wish his details to be divulged to the public.

aPadTVadmin
"

(Closed Thread)

That third party developer is not the one publishing the kernels. The manufacturer is. That manufacturer owes us all IMO! What am I missing?

[Andromoid]

1.6a unstable

Flashed 1.6a. First thing I tried was KFS Benchmark. Shows bamboo for a bit, then froze. I think that probably my MK808B has a hardware bug in it. It's some sort of issue when some intense operations happens. When I do things like browse the web, or play back video, it doesn't crash.
I think I'll give this one to the inlaws to show video of the kids on their tv or something.

So, should I buy another MK808B? Or is this all old now... Any other ideas? Other ROMs to try? I don't have Windows so I can't install Finless 2 beta 2, because of that darn repartitioning thing.

Another thing. I've seen various offerings of MK808 and MK808B and MK809 and MK802iii etc. Mine was sold as an MK808 but turned out to be a B one. 8GB + bluetooth. Opened it up, corresponds to the screenshots showing the original one.
But what's strange is that some listings claim 1.2GHz, while others claim 1.6 and then again others claiming 1.5GHz. Which is it?
Is it possible that these things are rated according to stability, kind of like how CPUs are (were) sold at one point, where a batch is tested, and where they found that only some were good for a higher frequency. Is it possible that perhaps mine ought to have been locked down to 1.2GHz, and that whenever something intense happens, that every time it wants to jump to 1.6GHz that then it right away hangs because it can't handle it? Is that what could be going on perhaps?

Update: installed "no frills cpu" control thingy of sorts. Made it so that the highest frequency available is the lowest one. Still crashses KFS. It's also crashing another Super PI app I downloaded. My MK808B is highly unstable using stock, 1.7 and 1.6a ROMs. So frustrating. My other Android in my living room which is a Minix Neo X5 which I haven't played with much yet, is not showing any of these types of crashes... So now what?

[dgp]

Looking for the kernel source

Hi,I'm working on a project that needs a few extra modules added to the kernel.. would it be possible to get or be pointed to the source for the kernel in the 1.7c ROM and the kernel config?Cheers

[dgp]

That third party developer is not the one publishing the kernels. The manufacturer is. That manufacturer owes us all IMO! What am I missing?

That isn't how the GPL works. If someone gives you a binary from GPL code you are entitled to the source code from the person that gave you the binary. If you buy a device with GPL code in it you should be able to get the code from the people that sold it to you (who in turn should be able to get if from their supplier). If you download a custom rom based on GPL code you have a right to that code.

[Craxx]

AW: NEW - MK808 "all models" Finless 1.7

Yes but the Chinese didn't recognise that until now ;-)

best regards
Craxx :-)

Send from my Nexus 4 with Tapatalk 2 :-D

[yuiseto]

thank you BoB! your ROM works great! you're doing amazing work! thanks so much!

[Andromoid]

I think I've found out why my MK808B is so unstable. I didn't initially take Leolas suggesting that the power supply has issues serious enough. I think saw his article about the subject, which led me to take a closer look. I hooked up a different weaker power supply which made it even more unstable. I then tried the original power supply with other USB cables. One cable I have made it LESS unstable. This one app that used to crash no longer crashes, but another app still crashes, but later in the process (KFS Open Benchmark).

Clearly, Leolas and others totally nailed it. The power supply with these things are pathetic. I opened it up and what's inside is just embarrassing. A major failing grade F in any electrical engineering class I'd think. Super thin wires directly connected to the 110V incoming power source for one. Is that even legal?

Anyway, I'm getting one of those PS Vita power supply, knock out the plastic thingies with some pliers and file, and this puppy will the power supply it deserves....

[BreakfastBuddy]

New user with 2 questions

Hey guys, I'm a bit new to all of this. I got my MK808 yesterday and I was apperently smart enough to get the finless 1.7 ROM working. I do have 2 questions though.

First, I think I am still running in stretched 720p. Netflix looks significantly lower quality than my WII U stream. Also, I did not change any settings while installing finless. Did I need to choose a different kernel to get high cpu speeds and 1080p?

second question, don't know if anyone knows, but I can't seem to get 2 gamepads working at once. 2 xbox controllers seem to both get recognized as just 1. Any apps or methods to fix this? Would like some 2 player gaming!

Thanks for your help in advance, this stuff is cool.