Stuck in maskrom mode

[Pihkal]

Hi all,

I've tried flashing another rom on my Q8 box, sadly I've used a bad USB cable that lost connection during flashing.
Obviously this resulted in a brick.
Since loader mode wasn't working, prepare IDB failed, I decided to go into mask rom mode.
Here however I still get the exact same error.
To make things worse it's now stuck in maskrom mode, meaning if I plug power in it, it automatically goes into maskrom mode.
This likely indicates that I've damaged the nand flash whilst trying to figure out how to enter maskrom mode.
Which is bad, very bad!

I can still enter loader mode but as said before, this doesn't work.
When I insert a sdcard that's supposed to boot to Android or Linux it won't go into maskrom mode but it also won't boot.
I've updated the bootloader to one that's supposed to boot sdcards, this flashed successfully but it still won't boot.

So at the moment I have a heavily modified Q8 box (modded case, soldered wires to the board) that's 28 days old and doesn't do anything except emitting red light.

Any suggestions to get it to boot sdcard or in an ideal world, nand flash would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[mo123]

Hi all,

I've tried flashing another rom on my Q8 box, sadly I've used a bad USB cable that lost connection during flashing.
Obviously this resulted in a brick.
Since loader mode wasn't working, prepare IDB failed, I decided to go into mask rom mode.
Here however I still get the exact same error.
To make things worse it's now stuck in maskrom mode, meaning if I plug power in it, it automatically goes into maskrom mode.
This likely indicates that I've damaged the nand flash whilst trying to figure out how to enter maskrom mode.
Which is bad, very bad!

I can still enter loader mode but as said before, this doesn't work.
When I insert a sdcard that's supposed to boot to Android or Linux it won't go into maskrom mode but it also won't boot.
I've updated the bootloader to one that's supposed to boot sdcards, this flashed successfully but it still won't boot.

So at the moment I have a heavily modified Q8 box (modded case, soldered wires to the board) that's 28 days old and doesn't do anything except emitting red light.

Any suggestions to get it to boot sdcard or in an ideal world, nand flash would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Hi
If this doesn't work for you, then it's time to throw your device away.

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rk3288-devices/eny-3288-devices/21763-howto-enable-maskrom-mode-perhaps-unbrick-your-device

Eny, the same manufacturer of Q8 have very low quality boards and several people abandoned their EKB328 or Q8 devices for others.

[Pihkal]

Hi Mo123,

That's the guide I've followed to get into maskrom mode. :-)
It's whilst doing this that the "Prepare IDB failed" error occurs indicating damaged nand most likely.
I'm pretty sure I've messed up the nand flash chips whilst poking around with my DMM probe to get into masked rom mode.
As a last resort I decided to reflow the nand chips pins hoping one of them got loose by using excessive force on my probe, sadly I failed to notice I'm out of flux so I can't complete it today, getting new flux tomorrow but I don't have high hopes.

Anyway, as I'm still able to flash the bootloader succesfully I was hoping to be able to boot from sd card as Linixium described in another thread in this forum but that's not working either.
It looks like it's trying but failing for some reason, the reason why will also be figured out tomorrow when I solder some wires to the serial console testpoints on the board , hook them up to my 3.3V serial TTL -> USB converter and hopefully get some output from the bootloader.

You're right about the quality, the damn thing uses DDR2 RAM, in 2016 for crying out loud!
If it's dead, so be it, at least I had some fun with overclocking and hardware modding the thing.
Pitty that what finally killed it was a dodgy USB cable but what are you gonna do about it, right?

Regards

[mo123]

Hi Mo123,

That's the guide I've followed to get into maskrom mode. :-)
It's whilst doing this that the "Prepare IDB failed" error occurs indicating damaged nand most likely.
I'm pretty sure I've messed up the nand flash chips whilst poking around with my DMM probe to get into masked rom mode.
As a last resort I decided to reflow the nand chips pins hoping one of them got loose by using excessive force on my probe, sadly I failed to notice I'm out of flux so I can't complete it today, getting new flux tomorrow but I don't have high hopes.

Anyway, as I'm still able to flash the bootloader succesfully I was hoping to be able to boot from sd card as Linixium described in another thread in this forum but that's not working either.
It looks like it's trying but failing for some reason, the reason why will also be figured out tomorrow when I solder some wires to the serial console testpoints on the board , hook them up to my 3.3V serial TTL -> USB converter and hopefully get some output from the bootloader.

You're right about the quality, the damn thing uses DDR2 RAM, in 2016 for crying out loud!
If it's dead, so be it, at least I had some fun with overclocking and hardware modding the thing.
Pitty that what finally killed it was a dodgy USB cable but what are you gonna do about it, right?

Regards

Hope you can still fix your device.
But it looks like there is an 80% it won't work anymore.
Lots of people in the Eny/ACEMAX RK3288 forum gave up on those boxes.
Buying cheap is not always the best solution.

[Pihkal]

Hi Mo123,

so here's my final update, messing around with the nand flash or to be more precise, a failed attempt to reflow the pins, resulted in a hard brick.
I'm feeding the serial console port into my 3.3V TTL USB converter and there's nothing. (yes, I've swapped txd and rxd already)

Time of death 20h31, 4/1/2015, may he rest in peace. (rather in pieces as it still contains some useful connectors worth scavenging. :-) )

Regards

[grant2258]

Make sure you remove any sdcard or usb drives this will cause a failure to flash as well

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