[S905W] T95S1 / p282 / 2Gb: has anyone been successful with one of these boxes?

    Hi, has anyone successfully run LibreElec (any version) on one of these boxes?
    I've spent many hours over the last 6 weekends trying to get this working, to no avail.

    All boot behaviors are the same whether I use the toothpick method or isue a "reboot update" from a terminal application. I've even let the screen sit for an hour, hoping it was just a slow boot process.
    I've tried the current generic Amlogic release LibreELEC-AMLGX.aarch64-12.2.1-box.img.gz. Screen just sits on the T95S1 logo.
    I've tried LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.6-box.img.gz. Screen goes black and just sits there.
    I've tried the Legacy LibreELEC-Generic_S905.arm-9.2.8.19.img.gz found in this forum. Screen goes from black to very dark blue and T95S1 logo shows in greenish yellow instead of white.

    I extracted and used the dtb from the T95S1_TS1AB_W2_p282_190928.img found at Android TV Box Firmware Upgrade – Turewell. I know this firmware image works because I was able to reflash the box from this with the Amlogic USB burning tool V2.2.4. None of the other dtb's I found either with the LibreElec downloads or elsewhere address a 2Gb p282 board.

    Extracting the dtb from an Android image is guaranteed to result in boot failure. Even if you rename dtb.img and configure uEnv.ini to use it correctly, the Android vendor kernel you pulled the dtb from has no code in-common with the mainline kernels that LE uses in the AMLGX image and kernel and dtb need to be version aligned.

    If the box has an S905W chip the only device-tree files that might work are meson-gxl-s905w-p281.dtb or the similar Tanix TX3 mini device. It's a cost-engineered box with a CPU that runs/clocks slower than other GXL designs so p212 or similar may attempt to run the CPU faster than it can boot or reliably operate at. I would only use LE12.2 or perhaps an LE13 nightly image to attempt boot. LE9 images predate the existance of S905W (so don't support the chipset) and we no longer support those images.

    If the device isn't booting to the LE splash screen or Kodi the only way for us to provide any support is to see the early boot log. This is obtained by connecting a USB serial UART cable to TX/RX/GND pins on the board; assuming they exist, and if not they need to be soldered in-place. The log will show what Amlogic u-boot attempts (or not). In the absence of the log we are blind to the issue and it's not worth the time/effort to guess at things.

    NB: read https://wiki.libreelec.tv/hardware/amlogic to understand a little more about LE differences

    Hello chewitt.
    Thanks for the reply and suggestions. Box will boot to LE12.2.1 with either of the two dtb files you suggested.
    First message after GUI shows on screen is about connecting to Display-CEC device and then it tells me TV is connected.

    Wired network works, but WiFi does not.

    SSH works. SMB works.

    There are no pins on the p282 board to connect a serial UART (Boy, does that take me back decades!) and my soldering skills were never great.

    USB keyboard and mouse work. Only the power button works on the remote. Remote re-mapping is something I did years ago with an X96 box, so I'm not afraid of that.

    Most S905W boxes have SDIO WiFi chips like SSV6501P that aren't supported in the mainline kernel. Drivers can be found for the 3.14 and 4.9 Amlogic (Android) vendor kernel, but they don't compile against the mainline kernel due to major crypto differences that were made in mainline several years ago. One of the Armbian devs did manage to evolve/fixup the SSV6501P driver enough to work on Rockchip boards, but he nuked Amlogic support in the driver in the process, and it doesn't work that great on Rockchip so AFAIK nobody has bothered to reinstate Amlogic support. Even if it was done I'd refuse to include that driver in LE images as the driver code looks like it was authored by a first-year computer science student (and that's being rude to students); it's garbage.

    Look at https://wiki.libreelec.tv/configuration/…ration-advanced for IR remote things.

    :D
    Good to know. We can close this thread.
    I had quit using android boxes some years ago when we bought the first Roku TV and family prefers Emby on Roku. Only reason I had toyed with going back to Android box and Kodi is playback speed control. Found this box for $20. Emby / Jellyfin clients on Roku can't provide playback speed acceleration and I didn't want to screencast from laptop (at laptop resolution) or hook up the 12 ft HDMI cable every time I wanted to speed up my watching experience.
    I will now go to other forums to see how i could upgrade the bastardized Kodi that came with the T95S1 box.

    Quote from Da Flex

    Try an Ethernet-to-WiFi adapter. I think that's the easiest solution:

    Thanks. WiFi is not essential, just a nice to have. Would make it easier to move from one TV to another. I have wired ethernet within a few feet of the two TV's where I might use the box. If I am unsuccessful in getting the remote to work, I'd rather buy an air-mouse / mini-keyboard that comes with a USB RF dongle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGJ9YFH9