H96 Pro+ 3/16 DDR4 - quite an interesting specimen - HELP!
Hello Good People of Freaktab!
Today I'll be amusing you with a story of my failure to revive H96 Pro+ box I recently aquired.
Story is not fast paced, it doesn't have plot twists, and is actually pretty boring - unless you like to seek soultions to problems you wouldn't normally have if not for your misjudged abilities in android tv box's modification.
So, without further ado - main characters of the drama:
H96 Pro+ 3/16 9377 green board, CZ-s32-V3 (DDR4) 2016-12-15(A15), QL 1710
one cocky bastard feeling really confident (at first) having unbricked a few various H96 Pro+ boxes in the past
First, please take a look at the pictures - I'll try to be as specific in details as I can later on.
I purchased this box knowing it does not boot, that is all.
I did not know what has been done to it, only that red and blue lights come up after power on.
The idea was to unbrick it, and replace my parent's old MXQ with it.
I have no idea what kind of firmware was being flashed on it.
Maybe the previous owner tried to flash the wrong rom, maybe it was some kind of risky port, or maybe nostalgia driven Nokia 3310 OS.
The outcome is what follows, and I'll try to be as detailed and specific as I can:
?
Therefore I'm in quite a pickle here...
In short:
Bootloader is unresponsive, no rom is proper, no method works, there is no recovery, no HDMI signal - unless in constant loop upgrade mode.
I tried countless roms - Shonk, no Shonk, custom, port, stock, Android 6 and 7 - virtually anything that I found mentioned working on Freaktab or elsewere - still nothing.
No flashing procedure has any effect - be it USB Burning Tool, or Card Maker.
I cannot pin point the cause of all of the above.
I can't even find original vendor, as I cannot find board QL 1710 signature anywhere on the net.
I am in fact so lost, that for the first time in my life I decided to ask for help instead of doing all by myself by trial and error.
My worst fear is that the answer is quite simple - someone damaged one, or more components, NAND most probably- and there is nothing I can do, as neither I own BGA nor I know anything more about electronics than basics.
And don't get me wrong, this is not a matter of life and death, reviving this box - but it got me obsessed.
I could easily throw it in the bin and forget about it, as I already managed to replace my parents' old box with newer one and me myself have perfectly working box (softbricked and unbricked more than a few times) bought two years ago - but knowing what's wrong is driving me now.
I simply want to get to the root cause - and even if it means that the box is unrepairable - at least I will gain knowledge and experience.
I have a feeling I covered a lot of common (and uncommon) steps to revive the box, but if anyone has ANY ideas, you're more than welcome to reply to this thread.
I am thankful and appreciate all the help in advance.
footnotes:
I am familiar with flashing procedures and all nuances of ticking/unticking 'Erase Bootloader' and other options.
Unbricking H98 Pro+ (and other Amlogic boxes) has never been more difficult for me - till now the longest was two-day adventure with Wisdom unit - and that long only due to the fact I did not have knowledge then and tried to flash anything BUT Wisdom roms.
I used a vast number of roms from well known collection on MEGA drive, forums, firmware sites...
I changed HDMI cables, power supplies, sd card classes and usb cables during the process.
Flashing software versions used were of different releases, just to check what could possibly work.
One thing I haven't tried (mostly because I know nothing about using and profiting from it - at least yet) is UART.
Thank you for your attention and have a great day,
m.
Today I'll be amusing you with a story of my failure to revive H96 Pro+ box I recently aquired.
Story is not fast paced, it doesn't have plot twists, and is actually pretty boring - unless you like to seek soultions to problems you wouldn't normally have if not for your misjudged abilities in android tv box's modification.
So, without further ado - main characters of the drama:
H96 Pro+ 3/16 9377 green board, CZ-s32-V3 (DDR4) 2016-12-15(A15), QL 1710
one cocky bastard feeling really confident (at first) having unbricked a few various H96 Pro+ boxes in the past
First, please take a look at the pictures - I'll try to be as specific in details as I can later on.
I purchased this box knowing it does not boot, that is all.
I did not know what has been done to it, only that red and blue lights come up after power on.
The idea was to unbrick it, and replace my parent's old MXQ with it.
I have no idea what kind of firmware was being flashed on it.
Maybe the previous owner tried to flash the wrong rom, maybe it was some kind of risky port, or maybe nostalgia driven Nokia 3310 OS.
The outcome is what follows, and I'll try to be as detailed and specific as I can:
?
- USB Burning Tool produces various errors, but most common are from infamous 7% during 'formatting' stage - "UBOOT/Disk initialise/Send command/Error result" on old versions (e.g. 2.0.8, 2.0.68) and "UBOOT/Get result/Disk initial error" on newer USB Burning Tool versions (e.g. 2.7.3 - see below) - flashing never went further than 7%
- Burn Card Maker - sd card method always fails, no matter the rom - stock, or custom. It is always one of three options:
- ? Green screen for a second, Android robot upgrade screen for a second with initial green progress bar, restart, logo, Android robot upgrade screen with initial green on progress bar and freeze.
- ? Green screen for a second, Android robot upgrade screen with initial green on progress bar, but this time moving a little further to the right, but then again restart, and constant loop - restarting after a tiny progress, and again, and again, and again...
- ? (only with rom ports from other devices that supposedly should work) Green screen all the way and nothing else.
- - Boot card maker does not provide any effect - sd card insterted does literally nothing - at least nothing visible, as there is no HDMI output on TV - I've tried varous u-boot.bin files found, but with no effect whatsoever - mind you, I was able to boot my system on a different H96 using this method after flashing went wrong, but not with THIS little bugger.
- - there is no recovery available, and by saying that I mean that box does not boot by itself in any way, does not boot to recovery while holding reset button for god knows how long (I tried 5/15/45 seconds etc.), or shows any sign of life on tv screen - I was not able to start recovery from system, nor sd card, regardless the type: twrp or stock
- - short pin method does not work every time - although I did try it twice, three times at most, it does nothing more than restart the box - even though I do not particularly hang on idea of making it work, as the box is recognizeble on my laptop
- - I changed power supply from original to Panasonic (can't remember the output, but definitely stronger than original) after quite a few opinions read on 4pda.ru forum - nothing changed.
- - I tried various methods of flashing procedure order - connecting power after I hit start on Burning tool, before, connecting usb cable last, first, middle, up, down, left, squatting, standing on my hands etc. The only thing worth mentioning was the fact, that unlike some of my previous boxes this one really struggled when the power was not connected - 2% of flashing and that's it, error.
- - given the nature of USB Burning Tool and being unable to boot the system, I started to suspect, that someone might have misprepared and misconducted dual boot on the box - as I read somewhere that having successfully activated dual boot from the drive would disable the ability to flash new android firmware without reversing the process in the first place - so I prepared linux bootable sd card - as one might guess - that did nothing.
- - also, to my surprise, I was not able to run CoreELEC from sd - imagine, not even that!
- - not a thing from repacking roms and switching bootloaders using AMLogic Tools
- - no use trying Bootlader Flashtool as the box refuses to appear in LAN (obviously difficult without boot)
Therefore I'm in quite a pickle here...
In short:
Bootloader is unresponsive, no rom is proper, no method works, there is no recovery, no HDMI signal - unless in constant loop upgrade mode.
I tried countless roms - Shonk, no Shonk, custom, port, stock, Android 6 and 7 - virtually anything that I found mentioned working on Freaktab or elsewere - still nothing.
No flashing procedure has any effect - be it USB Burning Tool, or Card Maker.
I cannot pin point the cause of all of the above.
I can't even find original vendor, as I cannot find board QL 1710 signature anywhere on the net.
I am in fact so lost, that for the first time in my life I decided to ask for help instead of doing all by myself by trial and error.
My worst fear is that the answer is quite simple - someone damaged one, or more components, NAND most probably- and there is nothing I can do, as neither I own BGA nor I know anything more about electronics than basics.
And don't get me wrong, this is not a matter of life and death, reviving this box - but it got me obsessed.
I could easily throw it in the bin and forget about it, as I already managed to replace my parents' old box with newer one and me myself have perfectly working box (softbricked and unbricked more than a few times) bought two years ago - but knowing what's wrong is driving me now.
I simply want to get to the root cause - and even if it means that the box is unrepairable - at least I will gain knowledge and experience.
I have a feeling I covered a lot of common (and uncommon) steps to revive the box, but if anyone has ANY ideas, you're more than welcome to reply to this thread.
I am thankful and appreciate all the help in advance.
footnotes:
I am familiar with flashing procedures and all nuances of ticking/unticking 'Erase Bootloader' and other options.
Unbricking H98 Pro+ (and other Amlogic boxes) has never been more difficult for me - till now the longest was two-day adventure with Wisdom unit - and that long only due to the fact I did not have knowledge then and tried to flash anything BUT Wisdom roms.
I used a vast number of roms from well known collection on MEGA drive, forums, firmware sites...
I changed HDMI cables, power supplies, sd card classes and usb cables during the process.
Flashing software versions used were of different releases, just to check what could possibly work.
One thing I haven't tried (mostly because I know nothing about using and profiting from it - at least yet) is UART.
Thank you for your attention and have a great day,
m.
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