(ROM) Minixfreak_OS S912 May25/2019 ""NEW""

[thewoza]

Ya, if Windows is actually crashing, I wouldn't chance it. I'm not sure it's possible to actually fully brick an AML device to where shorting the NAND pins wouldn't work, but still probably not worth the risk.

I know when I use USB Burn Tool, I don't supply power to mine (T95Z plus), but when I connect the USB, it does actually start to boot up. I think all boxes are likely different (even between versions/revisions and even depending on what exactly is flashed on it at the time), but for mine, I had to start the flash, it would start to boot up, then it would automatically disconnect from PC. I wouldn't touch Burn Tool (it's still trying to flash at that point) and I had to unplug the USB and plug it back in and it would then properly flash (it actually disconnects/reconnects a couple of times as well during this process).

I then found that if I clicked flash before plugging it in initially, I wouldn't have to manually unplug/plug back in. But it would still disconnect/reconnect a couple of times during the process. This actually works flawlessly for me now that I know what works for my box and I've done it a ton of times now. But again, it's likely different for you.

One thing that is worth mentioning if you haven't tried it, is trying different USB ports or even a different PC. If it's a tower, the back ports are often better. Also, it might be worth trying a different USB cable if you have one.

Good luck!

Thanks for the inspiration - I played with different timings of plugging the cable in, clicking start, releasing the power button, releasing the toothpick etc and eventually the screen TV stayed blank and the burning tool connected and did it's thing! Back on superceleron Minix Neo U9-H SCV1 ATV - Android 6.0.1 for now

[thewoza]

I am working on that TWRP? To see if I can get it fixed remember I'm not a extra I'm learning

That would be great if you could!

[kontrabandee]

Thanks kontrabandee

Update - can get the box recognised in burning tool by holding the power button for 6 seconds - only issue is that the ROM boots up as normal and windows crashes once the ROM has fully loaded. I don't want to risk hitting the flash button as soon as possible in case of a crash mid flash

Ya, if Windows is actually crashing, I wouldn't chance it. I'm not sure it's possible to actually fully brick an AML device to where shorting the NAND pins wouldn't work, but still probably not worth the risk.

I know when I use USB Burn Tool, I don't supply power to mine (T95Z plus), but when I connect the USB, it does actually start to boot up. I think all boxes are likely different (even between versions/revisions and even depending on what exactly is flashed on it at the time), but for mine, I had to start the flash, it would start to boot up, then it would automatically disconnect from PC. I wouldn't touch Burn Tool (it's still trying to flash at that point) and I had to unplug the USB and plug it back in and it would then properly flash (it actually disconnects/reconnects a couple of times as well during this process).

I then found that if I clicked flash before plugging it in initially, I wouldn't have to manually unplug/plug back in. But it would still disconnect/reconnect a couple of times during the process. This actually works flawlessly for me now that I know what works for my box and I've done it a ton of times now. But again, it's likely different for you.

One thing that is worth mentioning if you haven't tried it, is trying different USB ports or even a different PC. If it's a tower, the back ports are often better. Also, it might be worth trying a different USB cable if you have one.

Good luck!

[antonio6o6]

So, I'm assuming I'm being an idiot here but...

I've a Minix Neo u9-h and I've installed this S912 ROM. The ROM works fine and I can get into TWRP with the toothpick method. As I've found out the USB ports don't work (using the OTG trick for remote for now) so I'm trying to flash antonio6o6 modified ROM with working USB.

Only problem is I can't get the Amlogic Burning tool to recognise the device now - it worked just fine until I flashed this ROM. Now, holding power for 6 seconds just boots the box up normally, using TV Boot to boot into bootloader mode just sits with Poison logo (and no detection) and toothpick trick boots into TWRP - again, no detection from Burning Tool.

Am I doing something wrong?! How else can I update? Can it be done from TWRP? I don't currently have access to an SD card to try the Amlogic Card Maker method.

Thanks in advance...

I am working on that TWRP? To see if I can get it fixed remember I'm not a extra I'm learning

[thewoza]

So, I'm assuming I'm being an idiot here but...

I've a Minix Neo u9-h and I've installed this S912 ROM. The ROM works fine and I can get into TWRP with the toothpick method. As I've found out the USB ports don't work (using the OTG trick for remote for now) so I'm trying to flash antonio6o6 modified ROM with working USB.

Only problem is I can't get the Amlogic Burning tool to recognise the device now - it worked just fine until I flashed this ROM. Now, holding power for 6 seconds just boots the box up normally, using TV Boot to boot into bootloader mode just sits with Poison logo (and no detection) and toothpick trick boots into TWRP - again, no detection from Burning Tool.

Am I doing something wrong?! How else can I update? Can it be done from TWRP? I don't currently have access to an SD card to try the Amlogic Card Maker method.

Thanks in advance...

Thanks kontrabandee

Update - can get the box recognised in burning tool by holding the power button for 6 seconds - only issue is that the ROM boots up as normal and windows crashes once the ROM has fully loaded. I don't want to risk hitting the flash button as soon as possible in case of a crash mid flash

[kontrabandee]

So, I'm assuming I'm being an idiot here but...

I've a Minix Neo u9-h and I've installed this S912 ROM. The ROM works fine and I can get into TWRP with the toothpick method. As I've found out the USB ports don't work (using the OTG trick for remote for now) so I'm trying to flash antonio6o6 modified ROM with working USB.

Only problem is I can't get the Amlogic Burning tool to recognise the device now - it worked just fine until I flashed this ROM. Now, holding power for 6 seconds just boots the box up normally, using TV Boot to boot into bootloader mode just sits with Poison logo (and no detection) and toothpick trick boots into TWRP - again, no detection from Burning Tool.

Am I doing something wrong?! How else can I update? Can it be done from TWRP? I don't currently have access to an SD card to try the Amlogic Card Maker method.

Thanks in advance...

I'm no expert on this, but my understanding is that if you don't have a TWRP backup of your original firmware and can't find one online exactly matching your hardware, then you have 2 options: SD card (as you mentioned), or shorting the NAND pins and then plugging in the USB->USB adapter to try to get it detected properly in USB Burn Tool.

The location of the NAND pins that have to be shorted is dependent on the hardware and I don't see any info anywhere on the location of these pins for your specific box (or any Minix Neo).

Your best bet is probably to try to buy or borrow an SD card and go that route (unless someone else has info on the NAND pin location and you are comfortable opening the box and doing that).

Good luck.

[thewoza]

So, I'm assuming I'm being an idiot here but...

I've a Minix Neo u9-h and I've installed this S912 ROM. The ROM works fine and I can get into TWRP with the toothpick method. As I've found out the USB ports don't work (using the OTG trick for remote for now) so I'm trying to flash antonio6o6 modified ROM with working USB.

Only problem is I can't get the Amlogic Burning tool to recognise the device now - it worked just fine until I flashed this ROM. Now, holding power for 6 seconds just boots the box up normally, using TV Boot to boot into bootloader mode just sits with Poison logo (and no detection) and toothpick trick boots into TWRP - again, no detection from Burning Tool.

Am I doing something wrong?! How else can I update? Can it be done from TWRP? I don't currently have access to an SD card to try the Amlogic Card Maker method.

Thanks in advance...

[papla83]

I see a lot of tweaks related to that, but the particular property that is causing the Stress CPU app to not use the 4 1.5GHz cores is: sys.use_fifo_ui=1.

I don't believe this has anything to do with processing on the GPU vs CPU unless I'm missing something. That particular property is supposedly just related to which scheduler the UI and RenderThreads use. It changes those to run on SCHED_FIFO instead of SCHED_OTHER.

Supposedly this property can make the UI more smooth (removes jitter), but Google says to only use this property if the RT scheduler is capacity-aware:



I have a feeling that the RT scheduler being used is not capacity aware, or there is some other issue with it, and this is causing the scheduler to delegate/force the Stress CPU threads (which would likely be background tasks -- and therefore considered lower-priority) to the lower frequency cores.

The end result may be that the UI is a bit smoother (microseconds vs milliseconds), but that anything not running in the foreground may be unable to use the 1.5GHz cores in this big.LITTLE AML architecture on my T95z plus and may take much longer to complete. I suspect this issue would be limited specifically to systems that have cores running at different speeds such as the 4 1.5GHz cores and the 4 1GHz cores.

Thoughts?

your expertise in code analysis seems far beyond my small skills. in my mind it is logical that the background tasks are managed by the cpus slower and applications requiring performance such as games, emulators, streaming video application are powered by the most powerful processors.

[kontrabandee]

Revised version I put more processing on gpu for better video quality

I see a lot of tweaks related to that, but the particular property that is causing the Stress CPU app to not use the 4 1.5GHz cores is: sys.use_fifo_ui=1.

I don't believe this has anything to do with processing on the GPU vs CPU unless I'm missing something. That particular property is supposedly just related to which scheduler the UI and RenderThreads use. It changes those to run on SCHED_FIFO instead of SCHED_OTHER.

Supposedly this property can make the UI more smooth (removes jitter), but Google says to only use this property if the RT scheduler is capacity-aware:

When sys.use_fifo_ui is enabled, ActivityManager tracks the UI thread and RenderThread (the two most UI-critical threads) of the top application and makes those threads SCHED_FIFO instead of SCHED_OTHER. This effectively eliminates jitter from UI and RenderThreads; the traces we've gathered with this option enabled show runnable times on the order of microseconds instead of milliseconds.

However, because the RT load balancer was not capacity-aware, there was a 30% reduction in application startup performance because the UI thread responsible for starting up the app would be moved from a 2.1Ghz gold Kryo core to a 1.5GHz silver Kryo core. With a capacity-aware RT load balancer, we see equivalent performance in bulk operations and a 10-15% reduction in 95th and 99th percentile frame times in many of our UI benchmarks.

I have a feeling that the RT scheduler being used is not capacity aware, or there is some other issue with it, and this is causing the scheduler to delegate/force the Stress CPU threads (which would likely be background tasks -- and therefore considered lower-priority) to the lower frequency cores.

The end result may be that the UI is a bit smoother (microseconds vs milliseconds), but that anything not running in the foreground may be unable to use the 1.5GHz cores in this big.LITTLE AML architecture on my T95z plus and may take much longer to complete. I suspect this issue would be limited specifically to systems that have cores running at different speeds such as the 4 1.5GHz cores and the 4 1GHz cores.

Thoughts?

[minixfreak]

First, I gotta say, I'm really loving these ROMs. Thanks, Minixfreak!


I'm noticing some strange behavior with my T95Z plus 3/32 between the first Minixfreak_OS ROM and the revised one.

With the original S912_LPDDR image flashed, when I use the Stress CPU app, I can see it is utilizing 8 cores. I see the 4 cores maxed at 1.5Ghz and the other 4 maxed at 1Ghz (as expected). I've verified this in other apps, such as CPU Monitor while it is running as well.

With S912_LPDDR_REVISED installed, when I use the Stress CPU app, only the 4 1Ghz cores are utilized. The overall CPU % stays at ~50%. Again, I also verified this in CPU Monitor as well. Connecting via SSH and running top, I can see it Stress CPU stays at ~43.3% CPU.



Both of these were tested from a clean full flash using USB Burn Tool. Only additional apps that were installed were ES File Explorer, CPU Monitor and Stress CPU. Nothing else was changed.

When the stress test is running on the REVISED img, I do see the other 4 1.5Ghz cores being used somewhat by other system apps, etc., but the Stress CPU app doesn't seem to touch them.

Anyone else seeing the same behavior?

Revised version I put more processing on gpu for better video quality

[kontrabandee]

First, I gotta say, I'm really loving these ROMs. Thanks, Minixfreak!


I'm noticing some strange behavior with my T95Z plus 3/32 between the first Minixfreak_OS ROM and the revised one.

With the original S912_LPDDR image flashed, when I use the Stress CPU app, I can see it is utilizing 8 cores. I see the 4 cores maxed at 1.5Ghz and the other 4 maxed at 1Ghz (as expected). I've verified this in other apps, such as CPU Monitor while it is running as well.

With S912_LPDDR_REVISED installed, when I use the Stress CPU app, only the 4 1Ghz cores are utilized. The overall CPU % stays at ~50%. Again, I also verified this in CPU Monitor as well. Connecting via SSH and running top, I can see it Stress CPU stays at ~43.3% CPU.



Both of these were tested from a clean full flash using USB Burn Tool. Only additional apps that were installed were ES File Explorer, CPU Monitor and Stress CPU. Nothing else was changed.

When the stress test is running on the REVISED img, I do see the other 4 1.5Ghz cores being used somewhat by other system apps, etc., but the Stress CPU app doesn't seem to touch them.

Anyone else seeing the same behavior?

[antonio6o6]

Thanks again, I managed to pick ip a dongle and now it's working very nicely. A really great rom, very quick and smooth as well. Is there a remote configuration file for the small remote that comes with the minix u9h?
Cheers

https://forum.freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/amlogic-based-tv-players/s912/others-aml-s912/firmware-roms-tools-by/777426-atvx-v2h-u9h-minix-usb-port-working-vpn-beta-2

[roleo55]

https://mega.nz/#F!UNISUQBB!fuNXvxxL1zI3Pt28arvBbg I did make a video this link see the video it will help you

Thanks again, I managed to pick ip a dongle and now it's working very nicely. A really great rom, very quick and smooth as well. Is there a remote configuration file for the small remote that comes with the minix u9h?
Cheers

[antonio6o6]

You did a fine job Antonio! Thanks for helping with my new favorite firmware. And hats off to minixfreak for creating not one, but two S912 versions. Way to go man!
Have a good weekend gentlemen!

atvX-v2h-u9h Minix -usb working vpn beta 2

https://yadi.sk/d/FziBNM_ZgLgSTg

[Scotdog]

I'm sorry, but I'ma new here.....I can't find the download link. What you mean with "in the thread on the main page"?

Hi colettig , Welcome to Freaktab! The thread are all the pages (currently 9 pages) under the topic: (ROM) Minixfreak_OS S912 May25/2019 ""NEW""

Its always a good idea to read all the pages in a thread before loading a custom rom. That way you can see the success stories (and fails) as well as bug reports, workarounds and important links to make things as easy and seamless as possible. The search tool is also your friend. Have fun! Lots of good info and cool people here.