Chromebox and Samsung SUHD tv not playing nice

  • Just bought a new TV, replaced my old LG with a SUHD Samsung and everything works nicely except my Asus Chromebox running LibreELEC which is probably the device that get´s the most usage in my home.

    The TV just says NO SIGNAL when I boot up the Chromebox. When I connect the box to my old TV it works fine and I even drove to work to connect to a older not SUHD Samsung TV and it worked there and on my monitor at work via HDMI.

    The TV does switch to the right input when I turn on the Chromebox but nothing comes up. I have tried every input and even 4x HDMI cables that all work on other devices. I even tried to label the input as PC but no dice.

    I know this is probably more of a Samsung thing then a LibreELEC thing but decided to check if anybody had any ideas here.

    If nothing works I will just have to replace the Chromebox with something else to run Kodi but I really dont want to :(

  • systemctl stop kodi.service
    mv /storage/.kodi /storage/.kodi-old
    systemctl start kodi.service

    ^^ that gives you a "clean" Kodi instance; i.e. it resets guisettings.xml which might contain info on the old display settings. The same process can be used to revert the change if required. No guarantee this will work, but you never know.

  • If your Chromebox was originally set up using the older Legacy Boot (SeaBIOS) firmware, the video BIOS used for graphics init can have some handshaking issues with newer/4K displays. The UEFI firmware used by the EZ Setup Script now has a different graphics init that seems to be more compatible overall. What you can do is backup your existing setup, update to the UEFI firmware, reinstall LE, and then restore your setup. If that doesn't work, I have a new test firmware that might do the trick, just shoot me an email at MrChromebox at gmail

  • of course, and my website tells you how: MrChromebox.tech

    Did some reading if I understand correctly, I will need to boot Ubuntu from a USB to run the script. Now not sure which of the 3 firmware options I need to chose, but I'm guessing full rom firmware? I have 3 Dell, 1 ASUS, and 1 HP chromeboxes, it should apply to all, correct? Will LibreELEC need to be reinstalled?


  • Did some reading if I understand correctly, I will need to boot Ubuntu from a USB to run the script. Now not sure which of the 3 firmware options I need to chose, but I'm guessing full rom firmware? I have 3 Dell, 1 ASUS, and 1 HP chromeboxes, it should apply to all, correct? Will LibreELEC need to be reinstalled?

    Full ROM firmware, UEFI, reinstall afterwards. If the Firmware Utility Script detects either the Dell or HP boxes as an Asus box (due to running older/unified firmware), you'll need to do the following to correct that:

    - use the unlock option of the script
    - restore the stock firmware, choosing the correct make/model
    - install/update the RW_LEGACY firmware
    - set the boot options/GBB Flags to Legacy + 1s
    - reboot w/Ubuntu USB
    - re-run script, install Full ROM firmware, UEFI option
    - reboot
    - reinstall LibreELEC from USB

  • MattDevo Thanks for that, it was fairly simple following your instructions. There is one thing I lost though, I lost the ability to wake up from suspend with the IR remote I use for the boxes. Is there anyway to recuperate that?

    Nevermind, changed the setting to shutdown, powered it down, rebooted it, changed it back to suspend, appears to be working fine now. Thanks again!

    Edited once, last by fmedrano1977 (March 15, 2017 at 12:48 AM).

  • MattDevo

    You are the man! Which was known already :)

    Upgraded from legacy BIOS to UEFi, installed LibreElec again and everything works like charm!

    Thank you so much.

    Whats the easyest way to upgrade the UEFI bios in the future when new features and such are put in place?


  • MattDevo

    You are the man! Which was known already :)


    thanks :)

    Quote


    Whats the easyest way to upgrade the UEFI bios in the future when new features and such are put in place?


    boot a compatible Linux USB and update using my Firmware Utility Script. I used to have a separate script for Chromeboxes to run under OE/LE, but it was too cumbersome to maintain once I started supporting more than one model (I support close to 30 now) so now I just tell people to boot an OS with a real bash shell :)