Help to unbrick a TVbox x96 S905x

    Quote from bumerc

    It looks like a fake s905w SoC (S905W) revision 21:b (a2:2). Since the BL30 complains about "Wrong chip a0."

    I suspect the FIP files for p212 were generated before the existence of S905W boards; hence the 'wrong' (unknown) chip error. The VIM1 files are newer and thus accomodate the chip, even if the wrong RAM size is being detected.

    Sniperassault For the sake of a simple test, create an SD card for VIM1 but configure meson-gxl-s905w-p281.dtb as the dtb to use and see if that gets further through boot?

    Well i tried multiples images with the meson-gxl-s905w-p281.dtb as the dtb to use and the results seems to be the same as the other .dtb

    with the VIM1 image always have different outputs but there is always a kernel error. Same with LePotato. These 2 images are the only ones that do not have a code loop on the uart console.

    Quote from chewitt

    See if https://chewitt.libreelec.tv/testing/LibreE…0.1-p212.img.gz works any better?

    with this i have the exactily the same output loop with either of those two .dtb

    I just realized that now, without the eMMC, the USB Burning Tool now detects the box on the PC. Is this useful for anything?

    Edited once, last by Sniperassault: new discover xD (October 17, 2025 at 3:48 AM).

    Quote from chewitt

    I suspect the FIP files for p212 were generated before the existence of S905W boards; hence the 'wrong' (unknown) chip error. The VIM1 files are newer and thus accomodate the chip, even if the wrong RAM size is being detected.

    Hi. Oh yeah, that seems to be it. But the problem is currently with the DDR timing, as two chips are stuck at rank0 (frontside), and the other two at rank1 (backside). Rank1 isn't initialized yet, which is causing the kernel to panic.

    Does mainline u-boot work with LE? I made a test build with acs.bin for p281.

    Quote from bumerc

    Does mainline u-boot work with LE? I made a test build with acs.bin for p281.

    LE official images use 2025.07 while the ones in my test share should be using 2025.10. If you fork the amlogic-boot-fip repo on GitHub and push a branch with a 'p281' fileset containing that acs.bin and share a link, I can build an image using it.

    You guys are amazing! Thank you so much for involving in this thread. I was all night long trying with multiples board images and .dtb files and still no luck.I know that my efforts seems to be futile but I dont want to give up.
    LePotato and VIM1 seems to be the most promising. If you need additional info or photos to check if that box are fake or not let me know. I read the cpu chip and clearly say S905x, but i know that even that might be a fake one.
    Thank you againg for your help.