H96 MAX W2 2Gb S905W2 with Coreelec NE

Help & Support Hardware
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Hi, I wanted to report my experience with this very cheap TV box with S905W2 which can be found for around €20 on aliexpress.

15.32€ 73% di SCONTO|Smart TV Box Android 11 S905W2 4GB 32GB 64GB AV1 Quad Core WIFI6 4K H96 Max W2 Set Top Box lettore multimediale TV Box| | - AliExpress d52-ac5e-92c8bc35e343-0&pdp_npi=3 %40dis%21EUR%2159.92%2120.38%21%21%2164.29%21%21%4021038ed816907522788726674e2231%2112000033895450363%21sea%21IT%21174591327&curPageLogUid =1XIVbFwP0wY2

Booting from microsd doesn’t work well for now, there are random errors and freezes during boot and it is rarely possible to get to the desktop.

I partially solved it using the microSD with a USB reader
into a USB port. This model:

4.26€ 30% di SCONTO|Nuovo lettore di schede Micro SD lettore di schede USB 3.0 2.0 per adattatore Micro SD USB Flash Drive lettore di schede di memoria intelligente lettore di schede SD| | - AliExpress e4-480a-866d-15b26f146513-19&pdp_npi=3 %40dis%21EUR%215.79%214.05%21%21%216.21%21%21%4021038ed816907527266052121e221a%2112000029055599308%21sea%21IT%21174591327&curPageLogUid=hf ku8xbvsnS7

But it might work for others as well.
While with common USB pens I’ve always had random problems

Once started WIFI and Bluetoth don’t work, but cable lan works and everything else seems to work fine with no major problems.

The remote that came with the correct remote.conf from the library works fine.

I believe that for this price anyone who wants to try Coreelec New Era H96 MAX W2 is a real must have.

1 Like
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If you want to try the slimBOXtv ATV firmware adapted for the H96 Max W2 you can download it.

Download

Only tested on the 4/64 GB version, might not work with other versions.

3

see Mecool KI Pro - problem with booting from SD card - #5 by satanik
Maybe same issue…

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There is one “tiny” problem with slimboxtv: slimboxtv bootloader does not allow to boot from microSD card anymore! Thus, slimboxtv is NOT compatible with CoreElec (assuming that CoreElec is booting/running from microSD)…

5

I noticed that recent cheap chinese android TV boxes (based on S905W2, S905Y4, etc.) require faster and faster microSD cards.
I have 3+ years old TV-box based on S912 (the last CoreElec version which supports it is 9.2.8) is running from Samsung EVO 64GB card. Never had a problem with freezing, crashes, backing up or restoring libraries.

when I try to use similar card on one of new boxes (I tried M98 Max and H96 Max, they use S905Y4 and S905w2, respectively). I can boot and do initial config of CoreElec. But when I try to copy my kodi library backup (it’s a huge 7GB archive) on this SD card, TV-box spontaneously reboots. I was never been able to copy this 7GB file to mounted SD-card (neither via ethernet, or from mounted USB flash drive).
And then I pin-pointed this to the speed of SD card. When I use brand new PNY Elite-X 64GB (this is 2023 version, available at about $5 from Amazon), I can finally boot normally, and copy/import my libraries on a new installation. The fact that PNY Elite-X is about twice faster SD-card than Samsung EVO (PNY shows 95MB/s read and 50MB/s write speeds, measured with Crystal DiskMark) probably shows that device tree inside CoreElec is not properly tuned for “relatively slow” SD-cards.

Looks like new kernel trees (CoreElec 20.2 and above) don’t know that slow SD-cards do exist. Kernel crashes when it has a lot of SD-card transactions, especially writes (when copying big file to SD-card).

In contrast, when you boot to built-in Android firmware, then mount the same Samsung EVO card, you can copy that 7GB file to SD-card without problem. Which means, built in Android does know how to handle “slow” SD-cards.

Error you are reporting may (or may not) be related to my observations.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to tune cpu tree-image to allow “slow writes” to SD-card.

PS: CoreElec 9.2.8 on my old box does have hardware settings (some not very obvious line in the menu) which allows to switch between two speed ratings for SD-cards. I did not see similar settings in CoreElec 20.2

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Actualy I tryed
Kingston Canvas Select Plus SDCS2/64GB Scheda microSD Class 10

and dont work in microsd slot
but works in usb adapter

7

Just a heads up.

CoreELEC New Era is working on my H96 Max W2 (4/64 GB) with slimBOXtv in the internal memory. Internal WiFi isn’t working and New Order doesn’t work either.

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in the internal memory you mean emcc or micro SD ?
if is micro SD let me know brand and model type.

me too no wifi no BT

Grat news, latest nightly NO generic now work

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I flashed slimBOXtv to the internal memory (eMMC) with USB Burning Tool. The CoreELEC was in a microSD.

If we get the WiFi/BT working on CoreELEC it’ll be super. The best combo is slimBOXtv and CoreELEC.

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