Mini M8S II 4K Amlogic S905X 2/8GB WiFi 10/100 LAN BT

[o-I-c]

Mini M8S II Amlogic 905X

New Amlogic 905X Media Player bit of a tear down of what we have under the Hood
Thanks to Gearbest and DHL super fast to AU

So what we have is

Amlogic S905X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz
2GB DDR3, 8GB eMMC flash, micro SD card slot (up to 32GB)
HDMI 2.0b up to 4K @ 60 fps, S/PDIF
VP9 4K @ 60 fps, 10-bit H.265 4K @ 60 fps, H.264 4K @ 30 fps
10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0
2x USB 2.0 host ports
DC 5V/2A

Now for the meaty stuff inside this box.

Couple Bucks Coupon for those interested
GBM8SII coupon

 

[o-I-c]

First Impressions

My first impressions out of the box and up and running very, smooth, clean.
No weird or unusual lockups, Speed Ok, No Major heat issues as even tho there is no ventilation.
Running thru some bench tests performance appears Ok

What we have is the 2/8Gb version, 2.4ghz Wifi, 10/100 lan and BT, basic remote control does the job, power pack usa style 110~240v 5vdc/2Amps
HDMI Cable and a basic instruction for setting up as in what to plug in where, Running Android 6.01. No Root not to much Bloat.

 

[o-I-c]

More Testing and Benchmarks as we go along

 

[robinkooli]

Nice!
Bought one for myself.

 

[Yonofuimecae]

Problem with wireless connection

I got my Mini M8s II on 14th July, the WiFi is not working at all, youtube videos pausee, stop or freeze a few seconds later, with kodi, watching movies or TV shows (exodus, salts, Phoenix) is the same problem, get stopped suddenly. I tried changing settings modem Wpa2, wpa+wpa2, wep and the only setup that working is set in Open (no protection) but that is not cool.

 

[chazman14]

I got my Mini M8s II on 14th July, the WiFi is not working at all, youtube videos pausee, stop or freeze a few seconds later, with kodi, watching movies or TV shows (exodus, salts, Phoenix) is the same problem, get stopped suddenly. I tried changing settings modem Wpa2, wpa+wpa2, wep and the only setup that working is set in Open (no protection) but that is not cool.

Thanks for your experience. Have you tried it with a wired connection? Hope you get it fixed.

 

[Yonofuimecae]

Wired it work fine, but the TV Box is far away from my TV.

 

[dabangsta]

Again, for the price, this seems to be the better one for me. I hope that the bad wifi can be worked around with an external antenna like the M8S (but I also had to apply a patched fw that someone created).
I need 2G of RAM (even without playing games doesn't take long before it slows down with 1G).
I need BT (headphones, mouse, keyboard)

missing is dual band wifi (would love to offload most of the wifi usage off of 2.4g)
one more USB port would be nice
longer power cord would be nice
external antenna would be nice

 

[pratikp16]

Does this box having Android 6 fix the problem where the audio drops every few seconds when passthrough is enabled?

 

[newmodel15]

got mine last week, but im having an issue with the language setting, it always changes back to chinese or something like that by itself even without restarting the device, despite that it has been working fine. is anyone having this issue too?

 

[stanley_opt]

I'm a Chinese, I bought one in China, I do like the spec, exactly what I want,
but I got wifi connection problem too. I try to play movies shared from my PC, and the speed is very unstable, peak could be 3m/s, but 1 or 2 seconds later, it drops to 0, most of the time, speed is under 100k/s
I am asking the seller if there is any ROM update that could fix this problem, he/she said(about half an hour before) that he/she will ask the engineer
I am thinking whether to wait or to return it

 

[Bingo Bronson]

I got wifi connection problem too [...] the speed is very unstable, peak could be 3m/s, but 1 or 2 seconds later, it drops to 0, most of the time, speed is under 100k/s

They provided an update (rel. 2016-07-19) that fixes the WiFi issues: I get around 40 Mbit downstream easily over WiFi now...
They don't offer the update via OTA right now, it was online for short period but caused problems when downloaded, so they released it and people can copy it to the SD card.

Link:
http://pan.baidu.com/s/1bpDQFhX (Password: nd93)
or
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B5VjVTtm8AqmX3gxa0pOcU5kNjg&export=download

whatever download source works best for you.

 

[stanley_opt]

They provided an update (rel. 2016-07-19) that fixes the WiFi issues: I get around 40 Mbit downstream easily over WiFi now...
They don't offer the update via OTA right now, it was online for short period but caused problems when downloaded, so they released it and people can copy it to the SD card.

Link:
http://pan.baidu.com/s/1bpDQFhX (Password: nd93)
or
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B5VjVTtm8AqmX3gxa0pOcU5kNjg&export=download

whatever download source works best for you.

Thank you so much, but I don't know how to flash it

 

[Bingo Bronson]

how to flash it...

To update:

• Extract the 3 files (update.zip, factory_update_param.aml & recovery.img) to the SD Card (root of the SD card, no subfolder please ^^)
• start the "update / backup" app on your box
• select the update.zip and confirm
• box will restart and install the new firmware

 

[capeguyma]

Language issue

I am also having the language reset issue.

Whenever I shut the box down after watching tv, the next time that I start the box, it starts with English and then reverts to Chinese after about 45 seconds.

This is a royal pain when you have to change the language back to English every time that you power on the box.

The other thing I've noticed is a long lag in Kodi when moving an external Logitech mouse or entering data with either the built-in or external keyboard.

It definitely stutters.

Otherwise, this would be a great box.

Any fixes for the above issues?

 

[SurgeArrest]

About 10 minutes after the box powered up for the first time, it has found july 4th firmware upgrade (small file about 14mb), then rebooted and almost immediately prompted for July 19th upgrade (430Mb if I remember correctly).
In the old days there was a "project" that had a ISO image of various video samples in all imaginable codecs on AVForums, but I can't find it anymore. Does anyone know if there is something similar with H265 and VP9 files as well? I would want to run through all of the codecs and verify what works and what doesn't.

 

[stanley_opt]

thanks a lot!
I got OTA and updated my box, the stability feels better, but signal strenth is still not good enough. I tesed it beside router, and it's fast as expected, then put it back to my TV side, where there is a wall between, the speed is poor again. as reference, my phone, oneplus one, can have full wifi speed at the same position. I think Ihave to move my router to a better place

 

[beta.0]

Has anyone found a working root for these S905X boxes yet? If anyone can make it happen I will gladly pay for it.

 

[FantasticNG]

Does anybody know how to activate ADB via USB with this device? I tried connecting the box to my PC using a special USB cable (offering two Typ-A plugs) but the PC did not find any USB device. So no connection via USB. Without USB connection I cannot activate ADB support. Without ADB support it seems there is no way to have remote access (VNC, RDP etc.) to the box.

 

[Bingo Bronson]

Without USB connection I cannot activate ADB support. Without ADB support it seems there is no way to have remote access (VNC, RDP etc.) to the box.

Why can't you activate ADB support? Or do you mean a specific support besides ADB debug in the developer options?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=67915384&postcount=4
I used ADB over WiFi, I didn't even try to use USB because those boxes without an OTG port can usually just be reached via burning tool, for example...

- Unplug power and male USB from the box.
- Load burning tool on the PC
- Press the reset button, keep it pressed and plug in the male USB
- Keep the power lead out at the moment when you see it says on your PC "connected successful" in the burning tool
- Release the button and plug power in

Btw. burning & customization tool hopefully can be used again in the future when they manage to release an IMG of the firmware and not only ZIP files. -.-
Those noname device engineers are still struggling with Marhsmallow, it seems... :laugh: