[S912] No Ethernet at Tanix T95Z Max

If the wiki is wrong, anyone can submit a correction.

Quote from chewitt

If the wiki is wrong, anyone can submit a correction.

Fix "installtointernal" typos by dtechsrv · Pull Request #59 · LibreELEC/documentation

If this can help us forget this stupid typo forever, then here we go...

Quote from extremeaudio

Thanks for this, but my original query was pertaining to the non working lan on the box.

Sorry, I didn't mean to off-topic. As far as I remember, the T95Z Plus has the same ZTE chip instead of Realtek GbE.

Regarding this, I sent a DTB patch to chewitt a few years ago (including LED GPIOs and VFD display), and it was included, sometime around the LE11 test versions. However, since then this DTB has completely disappeared from the current AMLGX images.

The Ethernet patch was based on this:

T95Z Plus (ethernet working for kernel 5.3.0)

I tried to install Armbian_19.11.3_Aml-g12_buster_legacy_5.3.0_20191126.img.xz to my T95Z Plus box (S912 with 3GB RAM) but got only wifi running. Any ethernet…

forum.armbian.com

I've since checked, and the Ethernet chip of T95Z Plus is exactly the same as yours:

I got rather distracted with some recent discoveries on the hardware decoders. I need to circle back and cherry-pick the older device tree and then do some fixups for changes; some of the kernel bindings have evolved since LE11 days.

Quote from chewitt

I got rather distracted with some recent discoveries on the hardware decoders. I need to circle back and cherry-pick the older device tree and then do some fixups for changes; some of the kernel bindings have evolved since LE11 days.

If I have some free time, I will try to collect my fixes from that time slot, because the network stack fixes of the S905Ds (similar to the GXMs) were never included in the official images, but they were implemented incorrectly. This affected most internal tuner boxes and the Vero4+ as well. In addition, OSMC's support for the latter has ended recently, so it is possible that the number of LE users may start to increase on these boxes.

Quote from extremeaudio

Any chance I can get that dtb?

Please try the appropriate dtb for your system from the attachments.
Unzip and copy the following line to the amlogic folder on the SD card, then edit the first line in uEnv.ini:

dtb_name=/amlogic/meson-gxm-q200-zte-gbe.dtb

This DTB only includes the Ethernet PHY modification, but nothing else specific to the box.

EDIT: iperf3 results with the modified DTB on Sunwell T95Z Plus (2GB/16GB) @ LibreELEC v12.0.2:

LibreELEC:~ # iperf3 -c 10.60.0.30
Connecting to host 10.60.0.30, port 5201
[  5] local 10.60.0.82 port 36232 connected to 10.60.0.30 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   107 MBytes   899 Mbits/sec    0    408 KBytes
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    426 KBytes
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   111 MBytes   933 Mbits/sec    0    426 KBytes
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   111 MBytes   929 Mbits/sec    0    426 KBytes
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    451 KBytes
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  98.0 MBytes   822 Mbits/sec    0    569 KBytes
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   101 MBytes   849 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   111 MBytes   932 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   104 MBytes   870 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.06 GBytes   914 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec  1.06 GBytes   911 Mbits/sec                  receiver
iperf Done.

Logs:
LE v12.0.2: https://paste.libreelec.tv/united-eft.log
LE v13-nightly (20250226-23a3c47): https://paste.libreelec.tv/real-escargot.log

Quote from dtech

Please try the appropriate dtb for your system from the attachments.
Unzip and copy the following line to the amlogic folder on the SD card, then edit the first line in uEnv.ini:

Code

dtb_name=/amlogic/meson-gxm-q200-zte-gbe.dtb

This DTB only includes the Ethernet PHY modification, but nothing else specific to the box.

EDIT: iperf3 results with the modified DTB on Sunwell T95Z Plus (2GB/16GB) @ LibreELEC v12.0.2:

Code

LibreELEC:~ # iperf3 -c 10.60.0.30
Connecting to host 10.60.0.30, port 5201
[  5] local 10.60.0.82 port 36232 connected to 10.60.0.30 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   107 MBytes   899 Mbits/sec    0    408 KBytes
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    426 KBytes
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   111 MBytes   933 Mbits/sec    0    426 KBytes
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   111 MBytes   929 Mbits/sec    0    426 KBytes
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    451 KBytes
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  98.0 MBytes   822 Mbits/sec    0    569 KBytes
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   101 MBytes   849 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   111 MBytes   932 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   104 MBytes   870 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes   941 Mbits/sec    0    757 KBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.06 GBytes   914 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec  1.06 GBytes   911 Mbits/sec                  receiver
iperf Done.

Display More

Logs:
LE v12.0.2: https://paste.libreelec.tv/united-eft.log
LE v13-nightly (20250226-23a3c47): https://paste.libreelec.tv/real-escargot.log

Hi, I own a T95z plus aswell and I had some issues whith LE12 like bad network connection, not working remote hardware, etc. And I would like ti try this dtb you have uploaded. Can it be applied on an already deployed box with LE12 or must by applied on a new installation from scratch?

Thanks a lot for your hard work.

Quote from dtech

Sure, it will work, you can apply the above procedure to an existing system as well. It will help with Ethernet, but it doesn't include the VFD display pins, and unfortunately we haven't been able to figure out the mystery of the remote control yet, even though I measured it before.

Thanks a lot