Zidoo Z9X 8K Testing General Info and Notes

Development Development & Testing
1

Decided to go ahead and start a thread for this one as I’m slowly testing on it for CE use.

Basically just leaving notes here. If there’s anything to add from the community by all means.

  • General specs page Zidoo Z9X 8K Specification – McBluna.net
  • Identified chips
    • Asmedia USB3.2 SATA - ASM235CM
    • Genesys USB3.1 Controller - GL3510
    • Samsung 64GB EMMC - KLMCG2UCTB
    • MNC 1000 Base T Ethernet Transformer - G2401CG
    • 3Peak RS232 Transceiver - TPT3232E
    • MXIC (CMOS MXSMIO) Flash Memory Module 25V4035F
    • FN-Link WiFi, BT - 6252B-PR (RTL8852BE-VR-CG)
  • Vendor device trees dumped from device
    • s5_s928x_ax201
    • s5_s928x_ax201-4g
    • s5_s928x_ax201-6g
    • s5_s928x_ax201-8g
    • s5_s928x_ax201-v2
  • Closest device tree match provided by CE is s5_s928x_tencent_aurora_5x_ax201

USB Port on the rear next to the Ethernet port is the port to use for USB booting.
ADB developer tools have been removed from this device so a local terminal emulator app will be needed.
Issuing “reboot update” works to boot to USB drive.
If you open the device there is a reset button (labeled usb_device) near the Wifi antenna connectors, when held during boot you can get UART.
There is a UART connector above the CPU, this connector is a PH2.0 4Pin.
UART baud rate is 921600

I’ve tried to boot using the tencent dtb but it sits at a Zidoo boot screen.
Modification to one of the on device dtb files adding bl303 manager and coreelec-dt-id results in an attempt to boot but ends in a kernel panic.

  • Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

The last time I had CE booted on this was December 2024, the backup image I have from then no longer boots.
That version is/was CoreELEC (official): 22.0-Piers_nightly_20241220, kernel: Linux ARM 64-bit version 5.4.210

Clarification on the reset button inside the case, it’s not required to get uart messages, I believe this is amlogic burn mode.

This is all my notes so far in they help anyone else looking at this device.
Even if not immediately helpful I thought it would be good to document.

2

How many RAM? amlogic-dt-id?

3 
      Found 5 DTBS.
      dtb 0 soc: s5   plat: s928x	vari: ax201
      dtb 1 soc: s5   plat: s928x	vari: ax201-4g
      dtb 2 soc: s5   plat: s928x	vari: ax201-6g
      dtb 3 soc: s5   plat: s928x	vari: ax201-8g
      dtb 4 soc: s5   plat: s928x	vari: ax201-v2
      Matched DTB for "s5_s928x_ax201-6g"
[    0.000000@0]  Machine model: s5_s928x_ax201-6g

It’s 6gb, using the -6g when booting the Android side.

amlogic-dt-id = "s5_s928x_ax201-6g";

When using CE-NO nightly it just freezes, the kernel panic comes from the old image backup I found.

edit:

CoreELEC-Amlogic-no.aarch64-22.0-Piers_nightly_20260416-Generic.img

hacked together dts using stock dtb and changes from coreelec_common.dtsi

resulting uart output from the moment reboot update was issued so includes some android log messages on top

With that done, that is the end of what I know how to do.