yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
That won't show anything if he's never been able to set up WiFi. ;)

Yup, I get no output when in recovery on my device as well, but if you read back I still flashed it to Benni's modded Matricom ROM. If you've been trying to use the ClockworkMod sdcard, then please try Benni's ROM reflash sdcard. If you already tried that then I think you'll have to try and return it. :(
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
osm0sis you are right but i assumed it worked at first so the network was set up and working.
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Alright I think this is finally to a point where it's a good base to tweak from! :D

MX-g18ref-r3-osmod:

http://v.ht/osmod or http://d-h.st/users/osm0sis/osmod

ramdisk changes:

- change mounting to via fstab to allow for all the tweaked mount options I wanted

- enable adb over TCP on boot, triggered by DHCP IP address assignment on eth0 or wlan0, and/or the new service.adb.tcp.enable property

- fix up broken permissions on a number of files allowing for proper tweaking of various sysfs entires (resulting in...)

- increase the Mali-400 GPU max freq to 400 MHz where it should be (was 333)

- increase the CPU scaling max freq to the board max of 1512 MHz (was 1200)

- increase the CPU scaling min freq to 696 MHz so that things are actually fast (was 96)

- tuned conservative governor to scale up more aggressively (thanks droidphile)

- various VM and kernel tweaks (randomize_va_space, minfree, lease-break-time, entropy)

- various TCP tweaks (buffer sizes and thresholds from latest CM, "reno" TCP congestion avoidance algorithm)

- replace the crappy G-Box bootsplash with the "Android Open System" image.. ooh rainbows!

- add init.d support service

- add busybox, nandwrite, nanddump and flash_erase binaries to /sbin to make life easy (thanks stericson & _n0p_)

- add my flash_image and netadb scripts to /sbin to make it even easier

- add /sbin/osbootscript.sh to run even further/more complicated tweaks

osbootscript.sh tweaks:

- create /system/etc/init.d/ directory and set proper permissions if it doesn't already exist

- disable /system/lib/egl/libGLES_android.so to force rendering on the Mali GPU driver (thanks BenniBenassi)

- disable some unnecessary debugging (thanks franciscofranco)

- tune deadline IO scheduler for better throughput

- some tried-and-true queue tweaks from myself and some experimental queue/bdi changes (thanks BenniBenassi)

- remount sysfs+sdcard with tweaked mount options to improve responsiveness

- TCP tweaks to reduce network latency (thanks anarkia1976)

- lowmemorykiller tweaks for fewer background processes

- renice (ie. increase priority of) systemui and launcher to improve responsiveness (thanks boype)

I also attempted to enable USB adb by adding a number of entries to the .usb.rc files and default.prop but unfortunately it still doesn't work. Also, even though we can set the scaling_max_freq to 1512 MHz successfully, it still appears to cap at 1200 MHz; apparently changes to the kernel source are required to remove this weird, hardcoded limitation.

To Flash:

Use my flash_image script or do it directly with the MTD-Utils linked here:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=40409361#post40409361

After the first flash you'll always have access to both the MTD-Utils and my flash_image script from /sbin to make it easier in the future, and the netadb script will toggle adb over TCP if the adbd service ever stops or we come across some circumstances where it doesn't trigger automatically. :good:
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
Thank you osm0sis!! Great work!
[Hardware Hacking General] freejack2k:
Thanks mate, is this the image-

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=45502307&postcount=12

Also if i put the memory card in and do the reset will this flash automatically as i cannot see anything on the screen on either hdmi or av?
[Hardware Hacking General] freejack2k:
Many thanks osm0sis

Just done it and after a few seconds of holding in the reset button it kicked in to life, installed the firmware and is now alive again :D

Now got to decide what firmware i stick with, have been looking at the linux firmware as im getting a lot of stuttering on HD movies and have read that xbmc works really well on it with linux

Other option is i have heard the is a CM firmware for it but cant find it, have that on my nook hd and works really well
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Nah no CM that we've ever seen, just some vague mentions that it was being worked on. Benni's ROM is about as good as it gets right now, and if you slim down the system apps with Titanium Backup and use my kernel mod it's pretty awesome.

In fact, I just cleared dalvik-cache earlier today since it still had leftovers from all the crap system apps I'd removed and now it's faster than ever. :D

I'd definitely take it over XBMC. I've got FX Explorer and MX Player to stream across my network, and Xposed Framework and Gravity Box to add all the CM features I want/like. :good:
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
Hi, i'm testing your boot.img and i don't understand why the antutu score falls down from 9000 to 6700. i can see the cpu going up to 1500. Am i missing something? Do i need to make anything else? is antutu x a crappy app?

thanks!
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Yeah benchmarks don't mean much. Might be because I disabled the other renderer on Benni's suggestion. What do the detailed scores say?

Edit: Also this is just where I got things to based on feel alone (and my previous work). Now we can start using benchmarks for things like IO to really ensure it flies.
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
i will make the test again and post a screenshot here, now i went back to my last rom :P
[Hardware Hacking General] freejack2k:
Cheers m8

Im pretty new to all this flashing firmware stuff, i dont suppose you have wrote a step by step guide about what i need to do with the firmware im on now?

Have seen the app titanium but never used it and wouldnt know which apps i should remove and which ones i should keep plus have no idea what to do with the kernel mod
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Mostly just the bundled ones should go, you can't miss 'em (hideous icons stick out). ;)

As for flashing the kernel image, I linked the instructions in my post, check them out first and try your best then PM me if you're still having trouble. :)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
hi, i've flashed again your boot and tested with antutu. here are the screenshots.
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Can you do the same for stock kernel so I can compare? Thanks! :)

Edit: It also occurs to me now that maybe AnTuTu thinks it's performing awfully poorly for a 1.5GHz device.. Which it is, because it's hardcoded to 1.2. ;)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
screenshots

ok, here's the result with stock boot.img.

Do you recommend any other benchmark tool? :D
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Hmm looks like trying to force mali to render everything gave us that whomping 0 for 3D, that's 1750 off right there.. still leaves a couple thousand lost in other areas. Don't get me wrong, AnTuTu certainly is good and has value, it's just funny how paradoxical the feel can be with the benchmarking eh?

Anyway I'll experiment and see if I can get the benches back up while keeping the feel, probably just a couple tweaks throwing the whole thing off. Thanks for the help, I haven't had the chance to start benching yet. :)

For I/O tuning this is one of the best:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andromeda.androbench2

Another nice, no-nonsense CPU benchmark:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cgollner.benchmark.free
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
Thanks for the links, i've looked at dmesg and discovered my nand is not as good as a new one, 58 lines saying there's bad blocks against 8 lines in a new box. I also noticed smbd service is defined twice in init.amlogic.rc, so probably you will check that :P

There's something that bothers me, my system partition is:

mtd6: 40c00000 00200000 "system"

when in other box is

mtd6: 40400000 00200000 "system"

what do you think about it?
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Mine's 4040 as well, not sure if it's a board difference or what. Weird about smbd, silly Matricom... Fixed for the next one whenever I get the benches sorted. :good:
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
hi osm0sis, Yesterday i was reading the slatedroid thread you linked and i'm not sure if i'm understanding it. please correct me if i'm wrong, from what i understand Christian made a patch that unlocks the cpu speed, and after compiling the kernel the cpu was. still at 1200,then they changed the values in the ramdisk, so finally it worked. I had a look at your ramdisk and saw you already changet the max freq for the cpu and mali but.. is our kernel already patched for cpu speed to be unlocked? if not, did you figure out how to patch it?

sorry if this is a noob question, i like to understand this kind of things.

thanks!
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Nah if you check my "release notes" we're still restricted to the hardcoded 1200MHz max like they were because we can't change the kernel source and recompile. Our Mali may be unlocked though, I'm not sure. All I know is that we can change the sysfs max, which it seems like they couldn't.

Not a "noob" question at all. xda can always use more people who want to read and learn. :)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
sorry, I'm a bit confused, are you talking about the "ramdisk changes" in the post where the boot image is linked?
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Of course. All I've done are ramdisk changes. ;)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
ok, now re-reading it i found the line :)

I want to fully understand a couple of (or three) things, can you explain how to do this? Thanks :)

-change mounting to via fstab to allow for all the tweaked mount options I wanted

- enable adb over TCP on boot, triggered by DHCP IP address assignment on eth0 or wlan0, and/or the new service.adb.tcp.enable property

-remount sysfs+sdcard with tweaked mount options to improve responsiveness

Another question, do you think is possible to patch the kernel for OC like in rockchip 3066/3188 ?

All the kernel stuff sounds a lot interesting to me but i have no idea how it works and where to start learning about it.

Thank you again. :)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
Thank you very much, it's too much for me at the first read, i will read it carefully again later :P
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Looks like I was right on all counts:

- Re-enabling the android graphics driver gave us a 3D score again, and right off the bat got it up to 2065 (more than stock); perhaps setting the Mali to 400 does have some effect? Score with just this shot up to 6978 from ~5177 like you reported. :D

- Even though AnTuTu still correctly reads the device as having a 1512MHz max, setting the max back to the kernel hardcoded max of 1200MHz increases the score and performance for everything across the board except for Storage I/O (which will be my next task). Score with this is at 9608, surpassing the ~9479 of stock like you reported. ;)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
that's good news.

i was thinking about the locked cpu speed... is it possible to make a binary kernel patch to unlock the cpu? what do we need? sources and a unlocked kernel? we have 3.0.50 sources (not a nice ones, i know) and probably there's a unlocked 3.0.50 kernel somewhere out there.

what do you think? will it be possible?
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
I don't think so; there's no way to know what we're doing. From the looks of those guys' patch it's more complicated than just swapping 1200 for 1512 somewhere, so closed remains closed.
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
what i mean is to develop a patch based in binary comparison.

if we can compile the 3.0.50 sources with cpu at 1200 (no need to compile drivers because we focus on cpu speed) and then compile again with 1500,we should be able to extract the binary diff and apply it to the stock kernel. could this be possible here? i know it's already done this way with rockchip kernels.

Regards
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Ah. No idea. Go for it. ;)
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
i will try, but my kernel compilation skills are near to zero.

:)
[Hardware Hacking General] BenniBenassi:
[MENTION=4544860]osm0sis[/MENTION] did you try to oc the MALI to higher value than 400?
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Not yet. What would you recommend? Searching for "overclock mali 400" shows that most devices don't even have it at 400MHz. Found one guy asking about 500MHz so I guess I could try that, but generally extra "fuses" would need to be added to the source to tell it what voltage it needs to supply to run at the higher frequency, so it's usually not as simple as plugging in a different number if it hasn't already been designed to OC.
[Hardware Hacking General] BenniBenassi:
I think it would not hurt to try.... I'd be willing to try if you can make the boot.img file...
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
I just tried underclocking to 200MHz and benchmarking to see if there was a difference. Before the benchmark I checked the /sys/class/mali_freq/max file and it had 200000 correctly, then during the benchmark I checked again and it had reverted to 400000 so I'm not sure why we were stuck at 333MHz before but we can't seem to get away from 400MHz now.

Setting it to 500000 reverted it to 333000 at boot, but then it returned to 400000 again.

---------- Post added at 05:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 AM ----------

Carrying on from my previous changelog,

Here is v2-osmod:

http://v.ht/osmod or http://d-h.st/users/osm0sis/osmod

Changes:

- stop disabling Android graphics driver on boot for further manual testing.

- set scaling_governor to performance, which scores better, until we can look at tweaking conservative.

- set scaling_max_freq back to 1200MHz since going past the hardcoded limit appears to actually hurt performance.

Figured I may as well give you guys the benefit of [MENTION=1584633]relol[/MENTION]'s benchmarking help to this point until I have time to work on the next phase which is fine-tuning CPU governor and I/O scheduler.

To actually re-enable the Android graphics driver you need to mv /system/lib/egl/libGLES_android.so.osbak /system/lib/egl/libGLES_android.so

Edit: Reuploaded v2.. Actually it turns out I hadn't re-enabled the Android graphics driver myself yet, so I'm not sure why relol wasn't getting a 3D score before. Enabling it does in fact seem to lower scores slightly, though I'd like someone ([MENTION=4671084]BenniBenassi[/MENTION]?) to verify that and will leave the disabling script commented out for the time being so you can manually do that. I also found conservative currently results in lower scores than performance governor, so I've switched to performance until I have time to see about making conservative better. AnTuTu is a bit unreliable in terms of score fluctuation but I got 9915 on this one. :D:good:
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
Well, here are the results with the new bootmod :)

I did it three times.

First time scored 9200

Second time scored 6600 ????!!!

Third time scored 8544

It's so strange that the scores are way different.
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Exactly, so unreliable. I might try Quadrant out instead of AnTuTu to see if it gives more consistent scores.
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
quadrant gives me a blank screen when I try to run full benchmark. so quadrant is not an option. :(
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Not sure if you guys have thought of this yet too, but the Xposed mod called App Settings lets you change the perceived DPI on a per app basis, so for things that are hard to read on the TV you can increase the size. :D
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
i tried to run an app that changes the general dpi resulting in a bootloop. :S
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Yeah this is way better and smarter. :D

Try the Gravity Box Xposed mod too, a lot of CM-like options brought to AOSP-ish ROMs.
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
No Name Box Bricked HD18 V2.21

Hi all.

I have a google/android box.. Like the noob i am i have bricked it.

I have followed all the instructions on many many websites and here's hoping someone can help on here.

I cannot for the life of me get an av signal. I only have HDMI.

The box was working, i attempted to update the firmware with the incorrect firmware, i clicked on reboot when it showed the dead android man and that was the last time i got any output from the box.

I have tried many times to recover my box with various recovery files using the "toothpick" method and still not even a flicker or anything.

On the board it has " HD18 V2.21 "

The closest i got was to use the HDDraw, with certain files, that did not work. So it said to replace some files with other ones if it is a v2. but the link was dead..

If you can help please realise I am a noob and all that code stuff confuses me to death..
[Hardware Hacking General] freejack2k:
Hi m8

I had exactly the same problem, if you read back a few pages i used the firmware that you needed to create a boot sd card, put the sd card in the box and power on with the reset button pushed in. I didnt think this would work as i couldnt get a signal on the tv but after a few seconds it flashed in to life again. As it stands now are you getting a blue light when you switch your box on?

Firmware i used is here - http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=45502307&postcount=12
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
Hi, thanks for response, yes i have tried that firmware and followed the instructions step by step probably 4 or 5 times..

I have the blue light and no signal at all, i kept reading it and it was saying it was "idiot proof"

I just cant get a signal out of the box at all????
[Hardware Hacking General] freejack2k:
Not sure then im afraid, i did have exactly the same problem though

The reset button can be tricky, are you feeling it click when you press it in? I know i had to try quite a few times before i finally got it.
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
Yes i feel it click when i press it in, it just will not boot, its like i have not plugged the HDMI lead in, just nothing there, if your out of ideas thanks very much anyways
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Yes, "nothing there" is what happens when you've bricked it, BUT if you've got the inserted sdcard correctly formatted with Benni's Matricom factory image then you just need to leave the device alone for about an hour and it should headlessly install in the background, likely with no video output whatsoever. That's how it worked for both myself and freejack. After an hour, reboot the device and it will (hopefully) work. Again, it did so for us. :good:
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Good news fellas, even if you can't get CWM to work (like myself), the following commands work over TCP for booted backups:

adb backup -f backup.ab -apk -shared -all

adb restore backup.ab

So once you wipe and reset back with Benni's sdcard you could use adb restore. Restoring a backup made with -shared also restores the sdcard; pretty cool.

Alternately, you can use Titanium Backup to backup all data and apps, then use my ADBsync sdcard Backup batch script to pull it down:

http://v.ht/osm0

That way if you ever do need to do a wipe and reset, you can restore all your app data from your Titanium Backup files by pushing them back to the sdcard.

Edit: ;)

backup.bat:

@echo off
cd "%~p0"
echo.
echo Quick-N-Dirty adb backup for MX MediaBox
echo by osm0sis @ xda-developers.com
echo.

echo Connecting to adb over TCP . . .
adb kill-server > nul 2>&1
adb connect 192.168.1.124
echo.

for /f "delims=" %%a in ('adb shell "date +%%Y-%%m-%%d.%%H.%%M.%%S"') do @set "timestamp=%%a"
echo Backing up to 'backup-%timestamp%.ab' . . .
adb backup -f "backup-%timestamp%.ab" -apk -shared -all
echo.

echo Done!
echo.
pause

Just change the IP address to that of your device and the above automates the process; downloading to a filename like "backup-2013-12-16.18.13.00.ab" :good:
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
cwm works fine for me, what is the problem with yours?
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
It doesn't provide any AV output and I don't have an HDMI TV (so I'm not sure if that would work instead or not).

Troubleshot the hell out of it with Benni on the first few pages of this thread, it appears my unit might have a defect in that department.
[Hardware Hacking General] relol:
ok, i will have a look deeper at this.
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
Hiya osm0is, thanks for that, i left the box overnight and tried the recovery method again to no evail, however, after what you said i tried again "without" the HDMI cable in, left it a few mins, plugged the HDMI back in again and BOOM it was doing its thing and i had OUTPUT!!!!!!

Rebooted again after many errors and just a blank screen, but the tv knows theres somthing there so waiting for it to install.. fingers crossed.. Thanks again!!
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
Quick update.. Box is now working fine. What i presume was happening was that in its bricked state it wouldnt give out a signal to my tele whilst attempting recovery. It was trying to recover, i just couldnt see it. The recovery process wasn't clear either, it never updated automatically. In the dead android figure menu i chose to update from the sd card and pointed it to the UWS102912pusa_121122gbox_ext.zip from the Matricom recovery image. That sorted it! (Probably the wrong way to do it buy it worked)

Now that its working could anyone give me any pointers/link of how to upgrade my 4.0.4 to 4.2, is it worth upgrading it or shall i just leave it on 4.0.4?
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
If you're using Benni's factory image correctly you should already have 4.2.2 JZO54K I believe?

How did you even get 4.0.4 on there?
[Hardware Hacking General] BenniBenassi:
I was sure my instructions were almost idiot proof. Not completely.

Yes, you did it the wrong way. You are not supposed to install this file UWS102912pusa_121122gbox_ext.zip

There are instructions for using the recovery. You just did not care about them. If your box acts strangely, hangs or worse, I recommend you read the INSTRUCTIONS. (Not read them again, since you never obviously read them, but read them for the FIRST TIME.)

There are no instructions how to upgrade 4.0.4 to 4.2.2 since this box is factory shipped with the version 4.2.2.

If you want to have your box with 4.2.2 then FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
WTF!!!!!! Why so barbaric????

I followed your instuctions probably getting on a dozen times to the letter! Even after its started working again i have attempted to upgrade but no joy.

Without your efforts benni i would be stuck with a bricked box, i thank you for that, but that does not give you the right to speak to me like im some sort of **** head!
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
The box mite be a clone or something bud? It has the same board as pictured earlier on page 4 (HD18 V2.21) but one of the numbers are slightly different next to the heat sink. Mine is (A12 V1.1) rather than the (A13 V1.**) pictured.

4.0.4 was the origanal sw on my box but all i can think that happened is that the zip image i told it to look at from the matricom image kicked my existing software into life.. i honestly dont know.

Its not stopped me trying to do the full install tho probably 3 or 4 more times, three different cards i have used too, All using that hddraw no joy.
[Hardware Hacking General] osm0sis:
Odd, even my clone came with 4.2.2 and all the other MX clones over at FreakTab do too.. Oh well, my best guess for why the sdcard didn't work is because you don't have the correct recovery installed. If you're feeling brave we could provide a dump of the one from our boxes and you could write it. THEN Benni's sdcard might work and upgrade everything the rest of the way.
[Hardware Hacking General] SteveBurney:
That sounds good, its deffo miss-behaving now and this recovery just will not kick in for me. Could we do that then and how? Is that like me attempting to put your firmware on my box as such?