Fixing Android Tablet Not Booting A Personal Experience With Chinese Tablet

Introduction
I am writing this tutorial as a personal experience with my chinese-made tablet pc. In general it is a 7" MID ePad Android Tablet powered by VIA 8650 800MHz CPU and Android 2.2 Froyo operating system. I believe the built in operating system is supplied by WonderMedia Technologies (WMT) as there are many WonderMedia Technologies applications pre-installed in it and some of them come with chinese user interface which i cannot understand and decide to uninstall later.

I decided to buy this chinese tablet because it was very affordable compared to other currently famous tablet pc such as Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Dell Streak, which price may be 4-5 times higher. And this was also my first time making purchase from overseas which i supposed to be quite risky. But considering the price was cheap (under $100) and if any bad things happened (cheating seller, broken in shipment, undelivered and etc) i just lost some bucks so i finally decided that it was worth to try and i will take the risk.

First

Encounter

The parcel was delivered in about 10 days by UPS ExpressSaver which I had chosen when making the purchase. When the courier arrived at my home, I was asked to pay the import duty fee charged by customs and it cost me about $28. But later, after analyzing the import duty payment form, I found out that the handling fee charged by UPS itself cost more than the customs..!! Though I was disappointed, still I was very happy to receive this long awaited tablet pc in good condition. It was well packed in a carton box, wrapped with bubble form and put in a plastic UPS polybag.

I cant wait to open the package and turn on my tablet for the first time. It was a very happy moment like the moment when Archimedes cried out "Eureka!!". The android 2.2 froyo operating system started with an animation of android robot dancing and flying on the center of the screen then booted successfully to the home screen (in Windows we call it Desktop). The next few weeks after I received my tablet pc, I found myself playing games, typing emails, browsing sites, using facebook, playing multimedia contents and installing lots of applications with this chinese tablet pc. To add new android applications to this tablet, you cannot use the regular android app market such as found in Samsung GalaxyTab because it needs a registered google account with the android OS. I think that this chinese tablet is not supplied with legal, registered Android OS. The only way to install android applications to this chinese tablet pc is by downloading .apk extension files from internet, put them in your SD card and install them with the built-in file browser pointed to that SD card. Apk extension stands for Android Package and it is the installer file you need to add application to your chinese tablet pc, idem to msi extension in Windows OS. Running the apk files will install the application. 5 best places to download APK (android installer) files are:

http://www.freewarelovers.com/android http://www.freeandroidware.com/ http://www.androiddownloadz.com/ http://www.android-apk.info/

Nightmare: Tablet Not Booting

There was a night when my gf played angry birds in my chinese tablet pc and the next morning when I turned it on, it quitted booting and the screen froze with the android robot stood still in the center of the screen while on the left bottom corner of the screen showed:

Android TM OS 2.2 Kernel 2.6.32 Build Number V1.3.1

Trial

I:

Unsuccessful

I had tried a lot of ways to make it boot again including hard power off (pressing the power button for more than 5 seconds), reset the device (pushing a small pin to the small hole at the side of the screen, there are 2 holes: one for microphone and the other for reset button, you should try which one), leave it turned on until the battery drained off (just like pulling a bios battery off a motherboard to reset), try to press combinations of various keys I can find on the tablet pc. They all failed to fix this chinese tablet pc and made me start thinking that all chinese products are lack of quality. I searched google and read a lot of forum posts but find no solutions to my problem. I also tried to upgrade the firmware by copying new firmware to \script\ folder on the root of my SD card and put the SD card in its slot before turning on the tablet pc. It failed too because the screen did not react nor show anything, just freezing on the first boot screen with the android robot posing still in the center of the screen. Since then I always hate that robot. It was a frustrated experience and I started to read from forum posts that it could be a problem with the dead NAND drive in the tablet or the overheating/overcharging battery which may cease working.

Trial

II:

Failed

Too

I tried to contact the seller and asked for solution to my problem, hoping that I could fix it myself without sending it back the country where it came from because if I did that, I had to bear the two ways shipping costs as one of the warranty terms and frankly they were not cheap and the customs may charge me another import duty fee when the repaired package arrived at my doorway. Overall the shipping costs may cost me the same price as a new tablet pc.

The seller is good and very cooperative, one of their sales team, a woman, told me to try to upgrade the firmware and provided me with 3 links of the firmware archive files. The 3 files were part of a RAR file which were splitted. The links were hosted in a chinese file sharing site :

EP07-V2.2.part1.rar EP07-V2.2.part2.rar EP07-V2.2.part3.rar

As instructed, I downloaded all the files and used WinRAR to extract all the firmware files to \script\ folder in my micro SD card (some people call it TransFlash). So if my micro SD was loaded to drive F:\ then all the firmware files were stored in F:\script folder. Then I removed my micro SD card from the card reader and put it in the tablet micro SD slot while the tablet is off. With the power adapter kept charging to ensure that no power failure during firmware upgrade process, I turned the tablet on, hoping to get a message or warning of the firmware upgrade process like the one described in one forum about the firmware upgrade process. The first frame I saw on screen was the standing still android robot again, but after a minute, the screen did not shift to other frame about warning nor message. Curious, I waited longer (20 minutes - 30 minutes) and there was still nothing on the screen. For me, it meant there was no hope for my tablet, it had totally died. I was very upset and threw it to a corner of my house. "Rubbish" I mumbled. Due to my busy activities at that time, I had almost forgotten it and did not even try to contact the seller again to tell her about the failure.

Trial

III:

SUCCESS

Two weeks later, I had been through the busy times and that time I tried to make another contact to the seller again. Another sales team (not the one who handled my case before) replied my message. She asked me about the type of tablet I purchased and offered to upgrade the firmware again, but this time with a different firmware, not the previous two files. She said that was a new firmware suitable for my chinese tablet. I did not believe her anymore and said that I had tried upgrading the firmware given by her coworkers before and it failed. I also told her that there might be a problem with the internal NAND drive or overheating battery or processor as all tablets are sealed with no air circulation for its internal electronic components.

She told me not to worry (but I actually DID..!!), and asked me if I wanted to try her suggestion first or sent the tablet back to them immediately. Considering the high two-way shipping costs plus another customs import fee, I finally made myself try her suggestion with the latest firmware. I downloaded it from a link she provided:

New 7inch VIA8650 M009S 06.11.rar

Firmware:

She 7inch Root

also

provided 8650

me

with latest

old

firmware firmware part

in

case part 2

i 1

need

it

: 2.zip 2.zip

patch

I never used this old firmware, i used the new one.

After I successfully downloaded the new firmware (the filename was "7inch VIA8650 M009S 06.11.rar") and viewed the archive with WinRAR, I saw a different file structure compared to previous firmware:

\M009S_06.11 \M009S_06.11\FirmwareInstall\*.* \M009S_06.11\wmt_scriptcmd

The first and second lines were folders, the last one was a file. I tried to view the content of "wmt_scriptcmd" in Notepad and found out that the content had a lot of line pointed to FirmwareInstall\*.* files. I made a summary that this "wmt_scriptcmd" was probably like "autorun.inf" file in Windows OS which directed execution to certain files in FirmwareInstall folder. There was no "script" folder anywhere in the archive, contrary to what I knew about the firmware upgrade process which involving "script" folder.

Next, I copied all the contents of M009S_06.11 folder to the root folder of my micro SD so they became:

F:\wmt_scriptmd F:\FirmwareInstall\*.*
Then I removed the micro SD from card reader and inserted it in the tablet micro SD slot. For safety and to make sure there was no battery failure during the firmware upgrade process, I plugged in the power adapter. After that I turned on the device and as usual, the android robot showed up. I did not expect this, but maybe the robot knew I hated it, this time it was just awhile and the screen shifted to next message showing the upgrade process. "Eureka..!!" I finally can upgrade the firmware, but still I did not know what would happen next, would the firmware upgrade process fail in the middle? and if the upgrade was successful, would it fix my tablet ? Here is the screenshot of the firmware upgrade process:

The upgrade process was quite fast, it just took less than 2 minutes to finish. After the process finished, the screen displayed a message to remove the micro SD and restart the tablet. After restarting the tablet, here came again the android robot, but it was just standing for a while and then proceeded to dance on the center of the screen. I was really happy to find out that this android robot had eventually come to life again after 2 months of inactivity. What an experience.. I believe that there are still a lot of people out there who may have the same problem like mine, frustrated with unbootable chinese tablet device. I personally hope this article will save your time, effort and money to fix your unbootable chinese tablet by trying what I did with my tablet.

Summary:

Never

Give

Up

The key is to use the correct and suitable firmware for your tablet, though all the firmwares are built with Android OS but they may vary by brands and models. One firmware may be suitable for a tablet but may not be suitable for others. To look for the correct firmware, I recommend you to refer to your seller or product manufacturer, either by using their online website or by contacting their customer service personally.

Footnote: Resolving Malfunctioning Touch Screen Issue After Successful Flashing and Booting
In certain cases when you have successfully flashed the new firmware and made the android tablet boot normally again, but find out that the touch screen is not functioning and not reacting to any of user touch input, it is caused by a different touchscreen decoder chip you have in your tablet. To make it works for your tablet, you need to edit some of the firmware files. You can try this solution pointed out by one of our commenters ShibuVas:

For WM8650 models follow this to resolve touchscreen issue. There're 2 different versions of 8650 tablets using different touchscreen decoder chips - vt1603 & uor615x. Make the following changes to files in the SD card prior to flashing:

1.

2.

FirmwareInstall/packages/fs_patch/root_patch/system/default.prop : ro.wmt.touchpannel=0 and change it to ro.wmt.touchpannel=1 file FirmwareInstall/env/uboot_env_head, for the 2 lines : setenv touchcodec vt1603 and setenv wmt.io.touch 1:vt1603:2:800:480
file find the line change them to,

setenv touchcodec uor615x and setenv wmt.io.touch 1:uor615x:0:800:480

Then make the flashing as usual. If you have an 8" tab change all the '480's to '600's d( 800x600 resolution for a 8" tablet) - not applicable to your 7" case.

Please note if both vt160 & uor615x codes still do not work for you, i believe that you may have other touchscreen decoder chip type which we have not discussed here. I suggest you to ask your seller for the tablet specification especially the touchscreen decoder chip so you can alter the firmware files based on it.

Good luck, adios..

COLLECTION OF ANDROID TABLET FIRMWARES

Firmware provided by my seller: Old firmware which did not suit my tablet: EP07-V2.2.part1.rar - Download EP07-V2.2.part2.rar - Download EP07-V2.2.part3.rar - Download

Another firmware which i never tried: 7inch 8650 latest firmware part 1 2.zip - Download Root patch part 2 2.zip - Download

Firmware which successfully fixed my tablet: 7inch VIA8650 M009S 06.11.rar - Download

Firmwares below are available on internet and provided by third party. Use with caution and at your own risk.

M009S_1.5.0_vt1603_0629.part1.rar - Download M009S_1.5.0_vt1603_0629.part2.rar - Download

EKEN products Patch for Android Market - rel:2011/06/20 - Download M001 Android 2.0 Model 1 rel:2011/06/22 - Download M001 Android 2.0 Model 2 rel:2011/06/22 - Download M002 Android 2.0 rel:2011/06/22 - Download M003 Android 2.0 rel:2011/06/22 - Download M003T rel:2011/04/28 - Download M003S 1.5.1 rel:2011/07/28 - Download M005S rel:2011/04/18 - Download M006 rel:2011/04/28 - Download M008K 1.2.0 rel:2011/04/18 - Download M008S 1.5.1 rel:2011/07/28 - Download M009S 1.5.1 rel:2011/07/23 - Download M012S 1.5.1 rel:2011/07/28 - Download M013S 1.5.1 rel:2011/07/28 - Download

For 8650: M003S_1.2.3_0611.rar - Download M008S_1.2.3_0611_Model 1.zip - Download M008S_1.2.3_0611_Model 2.zip - Download M009S_1.3.1_0611.rar - Download M013S_1.3.1_0611.rar - Download

For 8505: M001_Android 2.0_Model 1.rar - Download M001_Android 2.0_Model 2.rar - Download M002_Android 2.0.rar - Download M003_Android 2.0.rar - Download M009_Android 2.0.rar - Download

M008-128M.rar - Download

EASYDY products: E10-Firmware Download(1.5.1) 2011.09.17 Download E11-Firmware Download(2.12.script-24PIN-Interface) 2011.02.12 - Download E11-Firmware Download(2.12_script-30PIN-Interface) 2011.02.12 - Download E18(7"8900)-Firmware Download(2.2_1.2.3 24PIN-Interface) 2011.04.18 - Download E18-Firmware Download(7" 1603 List the point touch)(2.2 1.5.2 24PIN-Interface) 2011.08.26 -Download E18-Firmware Download(7" 1603 the double point touches)(2.2 1.5.2 24PIN-Interface) 2011.08.26 - Download ED99(8cun8900)-Firmware Download(2.2_1.2.2_30PIN-Interface) 2011.04.12 - Download ED99-Firmware Download(8"1603)(2.2 1.5.1 30PIN-Interface) 2011.07.20 - Download E88-Firmware Download(9.7"1603)(2.2 1.5.3 30PIN-Interface) 2011.09.07 - Download E16(5"1603)-Firmware Download(2.2_1.2.3) 2011.05.10 - Download

7_inch_VIA8650-Uberoid_WM8650_2.2_v1.2.2_NL_20110409-HcH.7z (Rapidshare) - Download 7_inch_VIA8650-Uberoid_WM8650_2.2_v1.2.2_NL_20110409-HcH.7z (Hotfile) - Download 7 inch M009S Factory Firmware 1.2.0 rel:2011-03-28 Android 2.2 - Download

Android 2.1 en tablet apad, epad 7" - Download (Pass: script_e11) M731-1.2.3.rar (Firmware Android 2.2 Froyo 1.2.3) - Download WM8650_1.3.0_HoneyCombMOD_20110510-HcH.7z - Download HYBRiD WM8650 UBEROID 1.3.0 v5.7z by HcH - Download from Mediafire or Sendspace

Uberoid_WM8650_2.2_v1.2.2.7z - Download Factory firmware M009s 1.2.0 (03-28) - Download 7_inch_VIA8650_blue _Led_greenheadphone.part1.rar - Download 7_inch_VIA8650_blue _Led_greenheadphone.part2.rar - Download 10in_WM8650_M008S.03.06_Ver1.1.1 2011-02-17.7z.001 - Download 10in_WM8650_M008S.03.06_Ver1.1.1 2011-02-17.7z.002 - Download M731-1.2.0_WM8650 systerm.7z.001 - Download M731-1.2.0_WM8650 systerm.7z.002 - Download M731-1.2.0_WM8650 systerm.7z.003 - Download

Slatedroid Singularity A816 Firmware.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M003s BETA v2.zip - Download

Slatedroid Singularity M008s BETA v2.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M009s FINAL v3.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M009s FINAL v4.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M009S Final v5 (WMT1.5.0 Based).zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M010s BETA v2.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M10v2 FINAL v4.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity M10v2 FINAL v5.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity MID816 FINAL.zip - Download Slatedroid Singularity SkyPad Alpha Beta v1.zip - Download Vestinious A816 1.0.1 Firmware.zip - Download Vestinious A816 1.1.1 Firmware.zip - Download Vestinious A816 1.1.2 Firmware.zip - Download Vestinious M003s Firmware.zip - Download Vestinious M009s 1.3.3 Flash 10.2 Full (WMT 1.3.0).zip - Download Vestinious M009s 1.3.4 (rebuild based on Eken WMT 1.3.0).zip - Download Vestinious M009s 1.3.5 (rebuild based on Eken WMT 1.3.0).zip - Download Vestinious M009s 1.3.6 (rebuild based on Eken WMT 1.3.0).zip - Download Vestinious M009s 1.3.6.1 Wifi hotfix if you need it (rebuild based on Eken WMT 1.3.0).zip -Download

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Jasmin Skye

please please help me,,, i have the same tablet and i have tried you instruction but my problem is that my screen just stays black, it cant get the robot anymore do you have an answer for me thanks

o o o o

Like Reply 22 hours ago


ADMIN

There could be 2 possible reasons: dead touchscreen or defective firmware. For the second reason, you can try the guides above but with a suitable firmware, but for the first reason, we can do nothing but to replace the broken display.

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Like Reply 21 hours ago in reply to Jasmin Skye

Jasmin Skye

it was working fine until i tried to update the firmware(not the one on here but from another site) then bang once i took the sd card out now it powers up but screen remains blank,, i have done exactly what you have done on here, but still when i put my sd card in nothing happens. im sure mine is the same as yours it looks exactly the same, but with out being able to turn it on it makes it hard to know exactly what sort of pad i have :( so im not sure on how to find a suitable firmware and god knows i have been trying lots over the last few hours

o o o o o

Like Reply 21 hours ago in reply to ADMIN

ADMIN

Usually you will be able to load another firmware when the first firmware you try does not work for your tablet. So dont worry and keep trying.

o o o o o

Like Reply 16 hours ago in reply to Jasmin Skye


Jelaban

Hello Admin and All,

I'd like to thank you Admin for keeping this forum/site alive! I was about to dunk into the trash bin, my China APAD 8-inch PC-180, after soooooo many failed attempts to flash out the firmware....As in most of us here, my APAD robot suddenly stopped dancing and got bricked after installing a number of programs. As you said never give up and it all paid off after several tweaks!

The last link which I used and that worked is http://adf.ly/2KAvQ. I followed all your advise as in the above. Everything was working except the touchscreen (I even changed the lines 480s to 600s) ....I tried to step back a little and think things over for two weeeks, and did the steps again. Since the line "setenv touchcodec uor615x " was missing in the env_uboot file , as advised I had to manually include this line in the said env_uboot file...and this did the trick! The touchpad is now working! I now have a fully-functioning APAD! I will post the zipped files and give the link later, so that other people won't experience the same torture as I did! Many thanks and all the best!

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Like Reply 23 hours ago

Mrwonerful

downloaded a a firmware update from another forum now os loads but only problem is the touch screen have a chinese midi tablet running froyo 2.3 everything seems to run fine except touchscreen.i will check back for firmware update

o o o o o

Like Reply 16 hours ago in reply to Jelaban

ADMIN