[Experimenting] BQEEL M9X 4K - getting the basics to work

    Update: The question can be ignored now as I have got it booting.... YAY!!

    Update: Re-written this first post to change it from a question to the answers found in case anyone else has one of these boxes

    Does anyone have experience with a BQEEL M9X 4K box?

    Cheapo £30 from Amazon, purchased in 2016. Boots up with an MBOX animated logo. The Android on it is a phone based one and annoying on my TV as it keeps popping out wider than the TV. So time to try out LibreELEC.

    My aim is to make this into a usable KODI device.

    My initial problem was not being able to work out how to Boot From SD Card. Solved that by powering the device using the OTG port connected to a laptop, and then reboot update from a terminal prompt. That seemed to do the trick. (Normal methods didn't get me anywhere)

    When experimenting, I have just used an old 1GB card. It is Sandisk, but not sure if Class ten. (SanDisk Ultra II - 1GB ). Will upgrade this later to a 32GB Class 10.

    Following the sticky I have managed to create the Boot SD Card\USB stick using the following combos.

    LibreELEC-S905.arm-8.2-8.1.3.img.gz and gxbb_p201.dtb

    LibreELEC-S905.arm-8.2-8.1.3.img.gz and gxbb_p200_1G_100M_RealtekWiFi.dtb

    Upgraded to 8.1.3 now...

    Getting this box to initially boot to the SD card was a pain. Didn't seem to want to listen to the methods in the sticky, until I attached a laptop to the OTG Port (instead of using the power lead). Once I did that, I could go into the standard Android install, add a Terminal Emulator App, and run the command reboot update and reboot then happily swapped to the SD Card and all is now good. We have LibreELEC. YAY!

    Initial run of the install didn't show up any Wireless. At a later time when I dug into the settings found Wireless was happily functioning. The Realtek chip seems alive and well.


    Other specs as written on the Amazon page when I purchased this last year.

    Clearly some of this is garbage translation:

    BQEEL M9X

    Android 5.1 Lollipop

    Chipset : Amlogic S905 Quad-Core Cortex-A53@2.0GHz

    GPU: Penta-Core Mali-450@600MHz+

    FLASH: 8GB NAND FLASH

    SDRAM: 1GB DDR3

    Power Supply Specifications

    Power Supply: DC 5V/2A

    Power Indicator (LED)

    Power ON : blue; Standby : Red

    OS: Android 5.1

    3D: Hardward 3D graphics acceleration

    Support Decoder format: HD MPEG1/2/4,H.265,4K-HD, HD AVC/VC-1,RM/RMVB,Xvid/DivX3/4/5/6 ,RealVideo8/9/10

    Support Media format: Avi/Rm/Rmvb/Ts/Vob/Mkv/Mov/ISO/wmv/asf/flv/dat/mpg/mpeg

    Support Music format: MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV/OGG/AC3/DDP/TrueHD/DTS/DTS/HD/FLAC/APE

    Support Photo format: HD JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF

    USB host: 4 High speed USB 2.0,support U DISK and USB HDD

    Card reader: SD/SDHC/MMC cards

    HDD file system: FAT16/FAT32/NTFS

    Support Subtitle: SRT/SMI/SUB/SSA/IDX+USB

    High Definition video output: SD/HD max.1920×1080 pixel

    OSD type of languages: English/French/German/Spanish/Italian/ etc multilateral languages

    LAN Ethernet: 10/100M, standard RJ-45

    Wireless: Built in WiFi [Visual inspection shows RealTek logo]

    Mouse/ Keyboard : Support mouse and keyboard via USB;Support 2.4GHz wireless mouse and keyboard via 2.4GHz USB dongle

    HDMI: HDMI 1.4b with CEC

    AV: Support

    3G: Support

    SPDIF/IEC958: Coaxial [Actually an Optical connector on the board]

    When booted normally, after an update or two the box claims it is:

    AmLogic M9X

    Android 5.1.1

    Kernel Version : foxluo@skykirin2 #3

    Mon Jul 11 16:23:45 cst 2016

    Build: P201-userderby 5.1.1 2060711 test-keys

    AmLogic S905 Cortex


    Thanks for your suggestions and assistance. :) As well as the obvious thanks for making LibreELEC so easy to get going.

    TODO: I'll add some photos to this post at some point (when I work out the image rules)

    Realtek Audio chip: 8189ETV G3J00H2 GG13

    Circuit Board: MODLE: I68-S905-D16 VER: 1.0 DATE:160423 2516 E120339 94V-0ML1

    Other Chips:

    SK hynix H27UCG8T2ETR BC 62IA BNFBINIHY

    GL850G HH4JB05Y22 614SCT9181

    EtronTech EM6GE 16EWXC-12H S05C501430100E 11 E00000267 2

    Edited 10 times, last by BatterPudding: Re-written to make it more useful to other users.... (August 7, 2017 at 3:39 PM).

    LOL!! I'll call it the Lucky Jinx of the forum. I have got it to work now... Maybe due to the OTG cable. Or just swearing at it a bit less than I did last week. Or just the extra power of the LibreELEC community. HEHE!

    Now I just gotta work out what I did.

    You lovely people creating such a nice OS version. Looks like you are rescuing these silly boxes for me.

    I'll update this thread later when I got it nailed down more.

    Not quite sure what kicked this into working compared with last week's attempt. My assumption is the following:

    Prepare the SDCard with LibreELEC-S905.arm-8.2-8.1.2.img.gz and gxbb_p200_1G_100M_RealtekWiFi.dtb

    Attached HDMI lead, attached Ethernet lead.

    Did not use the power lead.

    Insert the SD Card

    Attach laptop to the OTG port using USB cable.

    Booted up the box with my laptop attached to the OTG cable.

    This booted to original internal version as supplied on the box.

    Used Terminal App to issue the reboot update command.

    NOW the box happily rebooted to the SD Card. YAY!! LibreElec logo on screen. All is good.

    Happily boots to the SD Card every time. Even when I remove OTG cable and use onboard power again.


    Noticed the WiFi was not picked up. Will now try the non-realtek image. Though I don't really care about the lack of WiFi as I'll be using Ethernet.

    One problem I am seeing is the image being generated for the TV screen is too wide and overlapping the edges. Need to work out how to deal with that one.

    Also not heard any audio yet.

    In libreelec, go to settings, system, display, calibration, video calibration

    or, play a movie, press ok, go along to video, then adjust pixel size

    For audio, go to settings, system, audio

    Thanks bubblegum57. That's helping whip this box into shape. Getting it to fit the corner of the screen is a good start.

    Next game is playing with the various audio options. I've got GUI clicks but the test file I tried was AC3. Problems there are more likely how I have it lashed up to the TV via HDMI. My KODI Win10 PC uses a separate SPDIF connection but run out of room on the amp for that.

    Laughed at how easy it was to get the SMB working. Certainly an area I had a little concern with before hand.

    Now I have it working, I'll kick it around a bit more until I get it humming like my KODI PC. Already ordered a proper 32GB Class 10 SD card for it.

    Is there a way to backup the Android on NAND in case I ever want it back?

    There are a few uses that the Android on it may have, so it is being left multi-bootable for now. The SD Card is handy to expand the onboard 8GB at a later time. Depends on what happens to this little box after my experiments. I need to kick it around a bit and see what does and doesn't work in the hardware. Ideally want to make this a "non-geek, family friendly" box. Without any of those annoying resolution changes that kept happening on the Android side.

    The "best" way I know to flash back Android is to have a firmware on your computer to be able to flash it back. If you don't have one, you may have some success with booting TWRP and creating a backup. You should find some guides on FreakTab.

    Thanks kszaq. BQEEL is the name on the box as the maker, but I can't locate 'em online. I did get it to update once, but that was from the internal Android. So no firmware on hand.

    I'll go and investigate this TWRP on FreakTab.

    I also have a bit more messing around to do today to see if the WiFi wants to wake up in any form. Once I find the best combo for this box I'll leave notes up in this thread. There may be other people with this M9X trying to make sense of it.

    Just experimented with the different images available.

    The default dtb.img refuses to go past the M9X logo.

    Swapping to gxbb_p200_1G_100M.dtb stalls at the same point.

    Working choice is gxbb_p200_1G_100M_RealtekWiFi.dtb as this one not only boots up fully, but it does also give Wireless network choices.

    Interestingly when I very first booted up this SD Card I also had the RealtekWifi image on the SD Card. When it went through the initial setup wizard it did not offer me any wireless networks, so I went with Ethernet. Now I am swapping images around I have found that the RealtekWifi is giving me wireless support. So don't know what was being fussy yesterday.

    If you install an android app like cpu-z it will show the chipset, you then might have luck finding the correct firmware.

    Freaktab is a good place to ask about firmware

    CPU-Z was interesting, but awkward to get the data from the device. Can't believe there is no "save" option in CPU-Z.

    The "online validator" only seems to store a small part of the info.

    CPU-Z VALIDATOR

    Cores: 4

    Architecture: 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 2.02GHz

    Revision: r0p4

    Clock speed: 100 MHz - 2.02 GHz

    CPU0: 100Mhz

    CPU1: Stopped

    CPU2: Stopped

    CPU3: Stopped

    CPU Load: 16%

    GPU Vendor: ARM

    GPU Renderer: Mali-450 MP

    GPU Load: 0%

    Scaling Governor: hotplug

    Android Version: 5.1.1

    API Level: 22

    Bootloader: unknown

    Build ID: p201-userdebug 5.1.1 LMY47V 20160711 test-keys

    Java VM: ART 2.1.0

    OpenGL ES: 2.0

    Kernel Architecture: aarch64

    Kernel Version: 3.14.29 (20160711)

    Root Access: Yes

    Model: M9X (p201)
    Manufacturer: amlogic

    Brand: Android

    Board: p201

    Haerdware: amlogic

    Screen Size: 13.77 inch [errr.... it's actually on a 50" TV screen]

    aScreen Density: 160 dpi

    Total RAM: 775MB

    Available RAM: 240MB (30%)

    Internal Storage: 4.40GB

    Available Storage: 2.66 GB (60%)

    Temp: 43 C


    Okay... so why is the word "i n c h e s" a censored word on this forum?

    I'll see if I can get CPU Identifier installed at some point for more info.

    I had done some random googling on the Build ID of "p201-userdebug 5.1.1 LMY47V 20160711 test-keys" which was popping up some FreakTab conversations about the MXQ Pro. And something on "CNX Software" website where they were discussing releases a little earlier than mine, with the exact same file name, but a June date.

    Trying to get my head around TWRP has hit a lot of dead links so far... I am more than happy running LibreELEC from an SD Card as it makes it so much easier to experiment that way.


    mmpp: Thanks for that point. So I should be using the gxbb_p201.dtb and not the gxbb_p200_1G_100M_RealtekWiFi.dtb ? Interesting.... I'll give that a go this evening. Yesterday I got distracted with SPDIF confusions... trying to get some noise out of it. So far - silence

    It would be interesting to know why my posts are needing a moderator to check before they go live. Is it due to adding website links? But I remove it from this post and yet still needs moderation. If there is a rule I'm breaking let me know :)

    mmpp : Excellent pointer there. I've just slung the gcbb_p201.dtb device tree on the SD Card and it has happily booted up, seems to work, wireless also picked up. I assume there is plenty in common with the p200 hardware, but logically some advantage to matching things correctly.

    I'm still lost a bit on the audio side. Don't see the SPDIF being mentioned. Even when a cable has been attached.

    In KODI the list is:

    ALSA: AML-M8AUDIO, HDMI

    ALSA: AML-M8AUDIO Analog, PCM

    PULSE: Bluetooth Audio (PULSEAUDIO)

    Now that is a slightly odd list to see.

    1\ No Bluetooth in this device.

    2\ No Analogue jack. No old fashioned Headphone socket on the box at all so no where for analogue to go.

    3\ Only SPDIF and HDMI options soldered on for audio.

    4\ Can't see SPDIF listed even when a cable is attached.

    The SPDIF is a little puzzle. I can see it lit up, but attach a cable and nothing seems to happen. When booting into the onboard Android it lists it under the audio choices, but also not had a response there yet. Need to see if one of these info tools can identify it correctly. (Or maybe I forgot a setting in my AV Amp... need to dig out that manual)

    I guess I need to add this to FAQ:

    There is no way to automatically detect audio ports on Amlogic hardware, you will se Analog + HDMI for every box you run LE on, regardless of physical outputs available. Audio is always played over all capable outputs simultaneously (i.e. HDMI, SPDIF and analog if available), this means that SPDIF should be active, you don't need to enable it in Kodi settings.

    Thanks kszaq. I'll go RTFM and kick my amp. Now I know there isn't anything in LE I need to enable, the issue is clearly at my end.

    Am very impressed as to how automated the setup is of LE.

    Update: Have found the log files via SMB. And can see the SPDIF mentioned. Some more reading to do :)

    **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

    card 0: AMLM8AUDIO [AML-M8AUDIO], device 0: I2S.37 dummy-0 []

    Subdevices: 1/1

    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

    card 0: AMLM8AUDIO [AML-M8AUDIO], device 1: SPDIF.38 dit-hifi-1 []

    Subdevices: 1/1

    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

    card 0: AMLM8AUDIO [AML-M8AUDIO], device 2: PCM.39 pcm2bt-pcm-2 []

    Subdevices: 1/1

    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

    Edited 2 times, last by BatterPudding (August 7, 2017 at 2:11 PM).