I'd like to provide this information in the event that it might be useful some day, if/when support for Rockchip boards are added to Armbian.

 

Before you flash-program anything, make a backup of your current NAND if this is at all possible for you. As a precaution, I thought I had make a backup using rkflashtool, but it turned out that my backup was only the first 192K repeated over and over; I've reported this as a bug. I may be the only one experiencing this problem, but I'd like to tell you, so you can check using hexdump -C before you start overwriting your NAND.

 

It might  be difficult for you to find information on the CS918 TV-box. It appears that there are several names for this box, which uses the same PCB.

To make things worse, each of those names might contain any PCB version, which might cause incompatibilities, so have this in mind. Always find out which PCB version you have; to do so, you will most likely need to open the box.

 

From a web-store selling the CS918 box, I found this image, which tells us that the box is sold under different names - one name in each corner (no manufacturer name or model name is printed in the manual):

 

 

 

To open the box:

1: Remove the 4 rubber feet, which hides a screw each.

2: Remove the 4 screws.

3: Start from the USB-port at the side and slide a thumb-nail under the bottom-part of the box (not the lid)

4: Continue towards the front of the board and the other side; the lid should pop off.

 

The following images were taken from my box. They're intended to show an overview of my board (general layout) and each chip of interest:

 

Model number (bottom side):

 

Top side of PCB:

 

I added the heatsink. The CPU is RK3188T.

As the PCB revision is clearly visible here (K-RK3188-V4.3), I won't add a closeup image of that.

 

Ethernet PHY and clock crystal (25 MHz means it's using RMII):

 

The Ethernet PHY is the RTL8201F, searching the net reveals that Jongsung Kim sent in a patch for this driver to kernel.org on May 8th 2013.

Looking in the datasheet for the RTL8201F, it reveals this PHY is 10/100 Mbit.

Having that in mind, I believe the maximum throughput will be 10 MB/sec, not 12.5MB/sec (due to the use of RMII, which is slightly slower than MII).

 

WiFi Module:

 

The WiFi module is using a RTL8723AS chip. I don't know anything else about this apart from it does not seem to have a 'name'. Like always with Realtek, the datasheets are not available, so you will have to either beg them to send you a datasheet or start guessing.

So far, I "guess" that the WiFi module handles both WiFi and BlueTooth (guess only).

 

 

HDMI 1.4 transmitter:

 

The HDMI transmitter used in the CS918 is ITE IT66121FN.

Somewhere on the net, people say that the CS918 has HDMI 1.3.

According to the datasheet on the IT66121FN, it is a HDMI 1.4 transmitter.

 

Apart from the above, here's the specifications for my CS918:

CPU: RK3188T (Quad-core Cortex-A9, note: it's not a 1.8GHz RK3188, but a 1.4GHz RK3188T)

Ethernet: 100Mbit

WiFi: b/g/n

HDMI: Apparantly 1.4, but some say 1.3

USB: 2xUSB Host (+1xUSB Device for firmware upgrades)

NAND: 8GB

RAM: 2GB (some models have 1GB)

 

And one thing you should really pay attention to (even if you have a different box than the CS918) is that the power supply that comes in the box does not mate correctly with the DC-socket on the TV-box.

The DC-socket is a 2.1mm while the plug on the power supply is 2.5mm.

This causes the box to reset when you by accident push it or touch the DC-plug.

Solution:

  Purchase a 2.1mm plug.

  Verify where the + and - is on the current power plug using your multimeter.

  Cut the 2.5mm plug off of the power supply.

  Solder the new plug onto the wires.

  Verify with your multimeter that the + and - are wired correctly.

  (On mine, + is the center and - is the outer ring).

 

 

Additionally, I've tried a few images on my CS918.

The dx_05_debian image from Freaktab boots, I get a prompt (can log in as root if attaching a USB keyboard), but I cannot seem to connect to Ethernet nor WiFi using this image.

 

Various Android images do not work or do not work properly.

The best working Android image is the "T-R42" image from Wasser (I tried v1.2.5); this works well, but he crippled the Play-store, so in order to install Kodi, use "Browser" to search for kodi, then click it, let Play-store handle it and you can install (a few retries might be necessary; I had to try it 3 times before I succeeded).

 

If you find an image which is uploaded on Mega and you're so lucky that none of your Web-browsers can download from Mega, search github for megadown and do the downloading in bash.

 

If Wasser built his own image from source, then I guess the drivers must be available and thus be possible to transfer to Armbian. I have not found anything at the time of writing this, though.

Hi,

 

I have cs918, T-R42 model with 2GB ram and 8GB rom.

 

I created a bootable 8GB class 10 microsd with Linuxian ubuntu image for MK809III. It works with my CS918. Ethernet works, but no wifi. Everything else is working fine.