[GUIDE][ROOT][TWEAKS] Generic Allwinner A23 Tablet

shifattk · Apr 13, 2014

I recently bought another tablet off of eBay. This time, it's a very generic one. It does have branding and such, and calls itself "Hypertab", but it is no different from the other generic tablets with the same specs.

System Specifications

Android 4.2.2 Jellybean
Allwinner A23 - Cortex A7 Dualcore CPU 1.5GHz
Mali-400 GPU
512MB DDR3 RAM
2GB Inernal Flash Memory (Actual usable amount is less) + Expandable with MicroSD up to 32GB

Disclaimer (Please Read Before Continuing.)
I am in no way, shape or form, responsible for the outcome, positive or negative, of you following the provided instructions on this thread.
It worked for me, but that does not mean it will 100% work for you. You are responsible for any side effects and damage caused to your device, your property, anyone nearby, or yourself, which includes, but not limited to: software and/or hardware destruction of the device, robbery, riots, injury, death, acts of god, epidemics/pandemics, natural disasters, government shutdowns, mutations, getting a certain limb of your body stuck in a ceiling fan, etc. Rooting WILL void your warranty (if there is any).

Root Guide

Preparing to Root

Connect your tablet to your computer, and let the drivers install automagically or using PDAnet (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1983470) or Use this utility (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2091922), which seems to work better in my opinion. If you are on Windows 8, make sure to disable Driver Signature Verification.
Download Kingo Android Root: http://www.kingoapp.com/android-root/download.htm
Install the Program and any other dependencies.
Open the program. Click the "Agree" button on the top right corner of Kingo Root, and make sure there is a check mark.
Now, move over to your tablet. Hit the settings icon from your desktop or app drawer. Go to { } Developer Options.
One you're there, make sure that the options are on with the 'switch' on the top right corner of the screen. If not, tap it and turn it on.
Once the Developer Options are set to ON, check off USB debugging. Tap OK when the "Allow USB debugging?" window pops up.

Rooting the Device

Using a USB cable, connect your tablet to your computer.
Wait until Drivers are installed and Kingo Root Detects your tablet.
Hit "Root" or "Root Again" (as it said for my tablet).
Wait until Kingo Root finishes its magic.
Once Kingo finishes, and says that root was successful, reboot your device, and you can close Kingo Root.
Go to the play store (or Google the APK if you don't have Play Store) and download SuperSU or something similar.

Congratulations! Your Generic Allwinner A23 Tablet is now (or should be) rooted! To check that you have root permissions, download Root Checker from Google Play store or any other store.

Tweaks
Now that you have rooted the tablet, let's mess around with the system so it works as you want it to work!

Overclocking/Underclocking
Just use No-frills CPU Control (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.sineo.android.noFrillsCPU&hl=en)
The tablet by default spins at 1.2 Ghz. It can be put up to it's maximum, 1.5. On mine, I also have the option of going to 2.0 GHz, but I've never tried it yet.

build.prop
Now this is an interesting one. I found some lines in the file that are interesting, and it seems editing some of them are quite helpful, especially with the battery life and performance. I've listed them below. In order to edit the file, I used JRummy's Build Prop Editor (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrummy.apps.build.prop.editor&hl=en).

chiphd.bright.max - The highest brightness for the display.
chiphd.bright.min - The lowest brightness for the display.
ro.hwa.force - Force GPU rendering. True/False
video.accelerate.hw - GPU rendering for videos. 0/1

The rest of the lines are quite common among all the devices I've seen so far, and frankly, googling "build prop battery saving tweaks" will do fine for them.

Have more tweaks? Just add them on to the thread, and I'll post them here with your name

FAQ
Is there a custom recovery for this tablet? Nope.
Is there a custom rom for this tablet? Nope.
Why? Nobody seems to know why but Allwinner is a bit hard-a'd about releasing the code so people can develop from it. They are also violating GPL in many ways so most threads about Custom Roms for these kind of tablets gets closed up on XDA.

BBQnBEER · Apr 17, 2014

Windows 8 Drivers

No drivers are being loaded on Windows 8. KingaRoot is not finding the tablet and in device manager I get a yellow ! and no drivers are loaded or can be found. Any suggestions?

Kobro · Apr 27, 2014

shifattk said:
I recently bought another tablet off of eBay. This time, it's a very generic one. It does have branding and such, and calls itself "Hypertab", but it is no different from the other generic tablets with the same specs.

System Specifications

Android 4.2.2 Jellybean

Allwinner A23 - Cortex A7 Dualcore CPU 1.5GHz

Mali-400 GPU

512MB DDR3 RAM

2GB Inernal Flash Memory (Actual usable amount is less) + Expandable with MicroSD up to 32GB

Disclaimer (Please Read Before Continuing.)
I am in no way, shape or form, responsible for the outcome, positive or negative, of you following the provided instructions on this thread.
It worked for me, but that does not mean it will 100% work for you. You are responsible for any side effects and damage caused to your device, your property, anyone nearby, or yourself, which includes, but not limited to: software and/or hardware destruction of the device, robbery, riots, injury, death, acts of god, epidemics/pandemics, natural disasters, government shutdowns, mutations, getting a certain limb of your body stuck in a ceiling fan, etc. Rooting WILL void your warranty (if there is any).

Root Guide

Preparing to Root

Download Kingo Android Root: http://www.kingoapp.com/android-root/download.htm

Install the Program and any other dependencies.

Open the program. Click the "Agree" button on the top right corner of Kingo Root, and make sure there is a check mark.

Now, move over to your tablet. Hit the settings icon from your desktop or app drawer. Go to { } Developer Options.

One you're there, make sure that the options are on with the 'switch' on the top right corner of the screen. If not, tap it and turn it on.

Once the Developer Options are set to ON, check off USB debugging. Tap OK when the "Allow USB debugging?" window pops up.

Rooting the Device

Using a USB cable, connect your tablet to your computer.

Wait until Drivers are installed and Kingo Root Detects your tablet.

Hit "Root" or "Root Again" (as it said for my tablet).

Wait until Kingo Root finishes its magic.

Once Kingo finishes, and says that root was successful, reboot your device, and you can close Kingo Root.

Congratulations! Your Generic Allwinner A23 Tablet is now (or should be) rooted! To check that you have root permissions, download Root Checker from Google Play store or any other store.

The program is not finding my tablet... just shows "no device connected" any suggestions?

shifattk · Apr 27, 2014

Try to install the ADB drivers using this tool here:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2091922

Kobro · May 3, 2014

shifattk said:
Try to install the ADB drivers using this tool here:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2091922

its showing up as samsung galaxy sii is that okay?

shifattk · May 4, 2014

Kobro said:
its showing up as samsung galaxy sii is that okay?

You could try, but I doubt that will work since it will install the drivers for SII

I've also found this which could help: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1983470

Sorry for being a bit vague. I remember installing the drivers for mine using some 'universal' tool but I can't remember which one and/or how I did it.

XDA_Lurker · Jul 18, 2014

shifattk said:
You could try, but I doubt that will work since it will install the drivers for SII

I've also found this which could help: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1983470

Sorry for being a bit vague. I remember installing the drivers for mine using some 'universal' tool but I can't remember which one and/or how I did it.

I was able to obtain root using Kingo Android Root
http://www.kingoapp.com/android-root/download.htm

Windows 7 could not find the correct driver for "Android Device".
I installed PDAnet from this thread and it installed the requisite drivers:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1983470

Kingo Android Root then detected my device after reboot and reconnecting tablet.
It went through it's gyrations without any issue.

A quick look at "Root Checker" application... It's rooted!

This is a "Q8 7" 8GB Allwinner A23 Dual Core Android 4.2 Tablet PC Wifi Camera IM" from Tmart.
Specs:
CPU Processor Allwinner A23 ARM Cortex A7 Dual Core, 1.5GHz
GPU Mali400MP2
Operating System Android 4.2
Display Size 7"
Resolution 800*480 Pixel
Touch Screen 5-points Capacitive Touch Screen
RAM 512MB
Storage Size 8GB
External Memory Support TF card up to 32GB (not included)

Hopefully others who bought this tablet from Tmart can find this thread with the additional keywords.

If anyone runs across a KitKat 4.4x rom for this tablet, PLEASE reply. Thanks.

P.S.
Tablet issues out of the box.
Battery - Labeled as 2800mAh. Not even close. I get about 10 minutes starting at 100%
I ordered a battery from eBay to replace it: http://www.ebay.com/itm/171375484987

Touchscreen - MOSTLY ok. Except in landscape mode... the "W" or "2" doesn't work. I get a "1" PLUS a "3"... the two adjacent characters.
Update to 4.4 when available should cure this, yes? Any other relatively simple fix?

Assuming I can rectify these two issues... For $39.99 it's a pretty good deal.

(Thanks for the original post shifattk)

izuall187 · Aug 24, 2014

Any possibilities of getting a custom recovery for this or locating the recovery.IMG?

syah2511 · Aug 26, 2014

:good::good::good::good::good:

Could you help how to solve this problem.

As you can see (picture 1), the second Internal Storage capacity is 3.50GB but the availabe space is weird (unknown number)

I've done the memory swapping (with 16GB) method by editing the vold.fstab file and the result (picture 2). As you can see now, the 2nd internal memory only detect 3.50GB (not 16GB) while the SDCARD is 720MB (is it suppose to be 3.5/4 GB).

I think I have been cheated for the 2nd internal memory suppose to be at least 4GB.

Could you help me how to get maximum memory (16GB) after swap...

lucianoscharf · Aug 26, 2014

[HELP] Firmware Tablet Allwinner A23 GA10H

Hi,

I need a stock firmware image to flash and unbrick a Tablet PC Allwinner A23 model GA10H. Description:

Model No: GA10H
Operation System: Android 4.2
Screen: 10.1 inch TFT 5 Point Touch Capacitive Screen
Resolution: 1024x600(16:9) Pixel
CPU: Allwinner A23 ARM Cortex-A7 Dual-Core 1.5GHz
GPU: Mali-400 MP2
RAM:1GB DDR3/ 512MB
Nand Flash: 8GB

The manufacturer´s website (AZhuo Digital) don´t offers the stock firmware to download.

Please help me.

Thanks a Lot

Luciano Scharf

izuall187 · Sep 15, 2014

it seems that getting the recovery.img for the tab is such a pain. Thus it is difficult to create a custom recovery using CWM or TWRP. The generic Rom is also a bit unstable and tends to freeze the device or autoreboots and some occasional auto sleeping of the LCD even when you set the sleep mode to any time.

Theory: possible that the freezing is caused by either bad ram management or high voltage per frequency. Already underclocked the device and it seemed to help it a little bit. Cannot try to test undervolting and even installing supercharger unless there is a way to create a NanDroid backup image.

fsebentley · Oct 12, 2014

izuall187 said:
it seems that getting the recovery.img for the tab is such a pain. Thus it is difficult to create a custom recovery using CWM or TWRP. The generic Rom is also a bit unstable and tends to freeze the device or autoreboots and some occasional auto sleeping of the LCD even when you set the sleep mode to any time.

Theory: possible that the freezing is caused by either bad ram management or high voltage per frequency. Already underclocked the device and it seemed to help it a little bit. Cannot try to test undervolting and even installing supercharger unless there is a way to create a NanDroid backup image.

Getting Recovery from these is not difficult at all.

With ADB properly set up on your PC and USB Debugging enabled on the Tab Browse to a location
on your PC where you have the ADB.exe (usually someplace like this D:\Android\sdk\platform-tools)
or have the folder with ADB.exe in your Path environment setting.
From that folder launch a command window (right click while holding shift) while in the folder in explorer
select open command window here.

In the command window type
adb remount
adb shell su -c "cat /dev/block/nandg > /mnt/sdcard/nandg-recovery.img"
adb pull /mnt/sdcard/nandg-recovery.img
adb shell rm /mnt/sdcard/nandg-recovery.img

The recovery image will be in the folder you executed the command window from.

Honestly though DragonFace can edit the Roms for allwinner soc's extremely well and it extracts the
seperate .img files from the Rom, My suggestion would be to First obtain your Tabs Factory Firmware
Back up all of the main Partitions on your Tab before doing Anything if you do not have your Original
Factory Firmware available. (nanda, nandc, nandd, nande, nandg - bootloader, boot, system, Data, Recovery)
Also I suggest you Pull a script.bin from the Tab as well as it contains the settings for your Hardware
initialization, and determine what Hardware is in it at least the main ones that differ on these Tabs
Touchscreen, Gsensor, Cameras and in some cases Bluetooth.

Once you have done this you can start editing your Rom in Dragonface with relative safety, or download
some other Firmwares for the A23 and attempt to mod them to work on your Hardware set.

To make a custom recovery the SDK is here : http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/SDK/A23-v1.0/
and there are a few Instructions on XDA you can follow once you have that, although you will likely
have to edit the output in some ways and/or the input.

You can feel pretty safe in Flashing Allwinner Devices as much as you like in your Testing, this SOC
family tends to be practically unbrickable, the basic fel is in the SOC and is not overwritten by a flash
so even flashing a completely wrong rom is recoverable by flashing one that more closely matches
the hardware.

There are currently many Roms available for this device Family the latest ones being android v 4.4

deafasheck · Oct 17, 2014

post ROOT Allwinner Polaris 1

High, I'm new to all of this. I have root and installed CPU tweak and am. Lost on the prop editing II am wanting to increase keyboard react loading and any tweaks.. I'm not sure what to do. Also I would like to get my allwinner upgraded hope to be able t
Thanks

maxslug · Oct 21, 2014

A23 Manual Backup

Thanks fsebentley, that was extremely helpful!

fsebentley said:
My suggestion would be to First obtain your Tabs Factory Firmware
Back up all of the main Partitions on your Tab before doing Anything if you do not have your Original
Factory Firmware available. (nanda, nandc, nandd, nande, nandg - bootloader, boot, system, Data, Recovery)
Also I suggest you Pull a script.bin from the Tab as well as it contains the settings for your Hardware
initialization, and determine what Hardware is in it at least the main ones that differ on these Tabs
Touchscreen, Gsensor, Cameras and in some cases Bluetooth.

I do not have a factory firmware image. I see the block devices for the different nand partitions, and was able to back those up, great!

But I'm not sure how you go about backing up the other things you mentioned w/out having something like clockwork recovery installed. Could you elaborate on the backup steps for bootloader, boot, system, etc. Also on how to pull the hardware settings (script.bin) ? I've never done this manually outside of another program.

EDIT: after sleep I understood what you meant up there :
nanda == bootloader, etc.
EDIT2: Here's the full list from my Ubislate 7ci

Code:

root@polaris-p1:/dev/block/by-name # ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 UDISK -> /dev/block/nandj
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 boot -> /dev/block/nandc
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 boot-resource -> /dev/block/nanda
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 cache -> /dev/block/nandh
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 data -> /dev/block/nande
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 databk -> /dev/block/nandi
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 env -> /dev/block/nandb
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 misc -> /dev/block/nandf
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 recovery -> /dev/block/nandg
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2014-10-20 23:24 system -> /dev/block/nandd

Can all of those be backed up "live" or do you need to get into recovery to do it so that the filesystems are closed?

-m

asim.sidz · Nov 2, 2014

fsebentley said:
Getting Recovery from these is not difficult at all.

With ADB properly set up on your PC and USB Debugging enabled on the Tab Browse to a location
on your PC where you have the ADB.exe (usually someplace like this D:\Android\sdk\platform-tools)
or have the folder with ADB.exe in your Path environment setting.
From that folder launch a command window (right click while holding shift) while in the folder in explorer
select open command window here.

In the command window type
adb remount
adb shell su -c "cat /dev/block/nandg > /mnt/sdcard/nandg-recovery.img"
adb pull /mnt/sdcard/nandg-recovery.img
adb shell rm /mnt/sdcard/nandg-recovery.img

The recovery image will be in the folder you executed the command window from.

Honestly though DragonFace can edit the Roms for allwinner soc's extremely well and it extracts the
seperate .img files from the Rom, My suggestion would be to First obtain your Tabs Factory Firmware
Back up all of the main Partitions on your Tab before doing Anything if you do not have your Original
Factory Firmware available. (nanda, nandc, nandd, nande, nandg - bootloader, boot, system, Data, Recovery)
Also I suggest you Pull a script.bin from the Tab as well as it contains the settings for your Hardware
initialization, and determine what Hardware is in it at least the main ones that differ on these Tabs
Touchscreen, Gsensor, Cameras and in some cases Bluetooth.

Once you have done this you can start editing your Rom in Dragonface with relative safety, or download
some other Firmwares for the A23 and attempt to mod them to work on your Hardware set.

To make a custom recovery the SDK is here : http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/SDK/A23-v1.0/
and there are a few Instructions on XDA you can follow once you have that, although you will likely
have to edit the output in some ways and/or the input.

You can feel pretty safe in Flashing Allwinner Devices as much as you like in your Testing, this SOC
family tends to be practically unbrickable, the basic fel is in the SOC and is not overwritten by a flash
so even flashing a completely wrong rom is recoverable by flashing one that more closely matches
the hardware.

There are currently many Roms available for this device Family the latest ones being android v 4.4

Wait a minute.. aren't you the same "fsebentley" person from "Techknow"?

ChiefWilNel · Nov 3, 2014

I have a tablet running 4.2.2 I want a good way to move apps to the external SD I have tried multiple tricks and none seem to work. i even use adb to force installing items to the SD. I have tried gl to sd, but it will just move items to portions of the internal memory labeled as ext sd but not the real external one. any other ideas?

fsebentley · Nov 13, 2014

asim.sidz said:
Wait a minute.. aren't you the same "fsebentley" person from "Techknow"?

Yes that is me

---------- Post added at 04:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 AM ----------

ChiefWilNel said:
I have a tablet running 4.2.2 I want a good way to move apps to the external SD I have tried multiple tricks and none seem to work. i even use adb to force installing items to the SD. I have tried gl to sd, but it will just move items to portions of the internal memory labeled as ext sd but not the real external one. any other ideas?

In large part this will depend on the Tablet as well as the OS. I would suggest one of the many Apps2sd programs
available both from Play store as well as on this forum, most include pretty decent instructions on use.

Personally for installing apps onto my sd card I use Link2sd, it does however require extra partitioning of your external SD card and a working implementation of init.d that kicks off before full boot so if you are not
very android savvy it may not be for you.

---------- Post added at 04:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 AM ----------

maxslug said:
Thanks fsebentley, that was extremely helpful!

I do not have a factory firmware image. I see the block devices for the different nand partitions, and was able to back those up, great!

But I'm not sure how you go about backing up the other things you mentioned w/out having something like clockwork recovery installed. Could you elaborate on the backup steps for bootloader, boot, system, etc. Also on how to pull the hardware settings (script.bin) ? I've never done this manually outside of another program.

EDIT: after sleep I understood what you meant up there :
nanda == bootloader, etc.
EDIT2: Here's the full list from my Ubislate 7ci

Code:

root@polaris-p1:/dev/block/by-name # ls -l lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 UDISK -> /dev/block/nandj lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 boot -> /dev/block/nandc lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 boot-resource -> /dev/block/nanda lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 cache -> /dev/block/nandh lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 data -> /dev/block/nande lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 databk -> /dev/block/nandi lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 env -> /dev/block/nandb lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 misc -> /dev/block/nandf lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 recovery -> /dev/block/nandg lrwxrwxrwx root root 2014-10-20 23:24 system -> /dev/block/nandd

Can all of those be backed up "live" or do you need to get into recovery to do it so that the filesystems are closed?

-m

Yes all can be backed up live, you will likely need to have the output of the command be placed on your
external sd due to size limitations unless you have around 4gig internal sd available. I did write a small
script to do it automatically, it is posted on Techknow in the open forum.

I am going to be actively looking into making a TWRP/CWM for these A23's now since I am beginning dev
work on the platform for making a custom Rom, I have not decided yet whether to pattern Hardware
support after my A13 CookedRom or not, im not sure I will have time for making patches for all the different
hardware sets as I am also planning Roms for the A20 and the A31. The similarities in the Allwinner SOC's
will make the work a bit easier on multi-SOC's but it is still more than I have time for to manage hardware
Patches for them as well as to keep up support on all of them.

asim.sidz · Nov 13, 2014

fsebentley said:
Yes that is me

---------- Post added at 04:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 AM ----------

In large part this will depend on the Tablet as well as the OS. I would suggest one of the many Apps2sd programs
available both from Play store as well as on this forum, most include pretty decent instructions on use.

Personally for installing apps onto my sd card I use Link2sd, it does however require extra partitioning of your external SD card and a working implementation of init.d that kicks off before full boot so if you are not
very android savvy it may not be for you.

---------- Post added at 04:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 AM ----------

Yes all can be backed up live, you will likely need to have the output of the command be placed on your
external sd due to size limitations unless you have around 4gig internal sd available. I did write a small
script to do it automatically, it is posted on Techknow in the open forum.

I am going to be actively looking into making a TWRP/CWM for these A23's now since I am beginning dev
work on the platform for making a custom Rom, I have not decided yet whether to pattern Hardware
support after my A13 CookedRom or not, im not sure I will have time for making patches for all the different
hardware sets as I am also planning Roms for the A20 and the A31. The similarities in the Allwinner SOC's
will make the work a bit easier on multi-SOC's but it is still more than I have time for to manage hardware
Patches for them as well as to keep up support on all of them.

Good to see you here. Get ready because i'm going to bombard you with my intricate queries here as well!

ChiefWilNel · Nov 26, 2014

fsebentley said:
There are currently many Roms available for this device Family the latest ones being android v 4.4

where are these 4.4 roms

fsebentley · Nov 26, 2014

ChiefWilNel said:
where are these 4.4 roms

They can generally be found by searching for A23 firmware via google.

Offhand the Irulu site and a few others have Roms available, whether they will work for your specific
model is another question entirely and in general you will simply have to check based on the internals
of your tab vs those supported by the Rom. Irulu Has several different 4.4 Roms for different models
using the A23 SOC, I also suggest that if you want more leads on Roms you might look on TechKnow
there are several source links there that will help get you started on a search.

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