How to Upgrade Firmware in Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 Android TV Boxes

For some reasons, Rockchip is extremely fond of Windows based firmware tools, and instead of providing a simple SD card method, they’ve continued to use these awful tools to upgrade firmware for Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 devices, and other Rockchip based TV boxes. I don’t mean to say these are useless, but they should not be used by end users, unless their device is bricked. Nevertheless, Rockchip has now release version 2.3 of their Android tools for Windows, and GeekBuying has published a guide showing how to do, which I’ll summarize below. Rockchip has also released an updated version for the Linux Upgrade Tool (upgrade_tool) v1.24 that allows you to do the update in Linux.

[Update: The latest versions of DriverAssistant (Step 1) and AndroidTool (Step 2) can be found in Rockchip-Linux account in Github]

The first thing to do is to make sure you’ve got the latest Rockchip USB drivers (via DriverAssistant) installed, the same as for RK3288 root method.
Download and extract AndroidTool.rar (Version 2.38) which contains both AndroidTool and DriverAssistant 4.5, as well as tools like AFTTool
Enter AndroidTool_Release_v2.38 directory, and click on AndroidTool.exe to start the program.
Connect the USB OTG port of your Rockchip device to your Windows computer, making USB debug is enabled in Android
AndroidTool now merges the functionalities of RkBatchTool (single file firmware) and RkAndroidTool (flash the NAND flash with an image corresponding to a particular partition such as kernel, system,. boot, etc..), and hence supports the two methods:
- Single file (firmware.img) – Select Upgrade Firmware, load your device firmware, and click on Upgrade
  
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- If you’ve got several images for the kernel, recovery, boot, parameter, etc.., you need to click on Download Image, and load the images for the partitions would want to flash, before clicking on Run to complete the firmware upgrade.
  
  Click to Enlarge
Be patient, and the firmware update should be done after a while.

I haven’t tried it myself since I don’t currently own any products powered by Rockchip RK3288. There’s also an Advanced Function menu, that will extract kernel.img, recovery.img, boot.img, system.img, etc.. from a single “firmware.img” firmware file, read the Flash ID, get Flash info, read the IDB, and so on.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.