Database Users

Possible new way to load OSes onto Gen 8 devices

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1236273
If I understand this thread correctly, the developers have figured out a way to replace bootloaders in devices that run the Cortex A8 processor. I checked and I think all of the Gen8 devices that Archos makes run this chip. Right now the developers in thread are looking for people to donate broken/not wanted devices with the C-A8 chips to be able to make their program run for specific devices. I figured I would post this here in case someone has a Gen 8 Archos device they might want to send these guys for the cause...

The problem is that it needs some harware modifications, so not many people will try it :s

@Guanfy
This is for the samsung hummingbird processor, not a ti omap.

Yupp, fzelle is right...
The Cortex-A8 is just the CPU core of the so called SoC's running in our devices.
Samsungs Hummingbird and Ti's OMAP are completely different architectures but running the same core.
BTW, they are tweaking the boot mode pins of Hummingbird to make it "unbrickable".
On A101 there are similar pins
Anyway if you like tweaking hardware see this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1199450
Though it is not pointed out very clearly, but...
by using peripheral boot mode and the Ti Flash tool you may put anything you like into your devices SDRAM and execute it
Regards,
scholbert

AMD!

Hello!
This isn't relevant to hacking but I need to know about the AMD 8120 CPU, as if you guys are hacking windows 8 hopefully you'll be able to help me out here.
I'm building a new pc system but cannot seem to find anywhere on the internet if the 8120 has any sort of intergrated graphics?

Definitely not the right place to ask, but what the hell... the FX 8xxx series does not have any built-in graphics. There may be a low-end graphics chip built into the motherboard, however. Alternatively, AMD does have a line of CPU+GPU combined chips. They run a little underpowered as CPUs (even for AMD), being equivalent to Intel's i3 chips at best and usually not even that. However, they come with quite respectable middle-of-the-line GPUs, and for most games, that's what you need.
If you just need *some* sort of graphics and don't need it to be really gaming-quality, though, then you probably don't need one of those higher-end hybrids. I'd suggest that you look at the products on AMD.com, and do a search for motherboards with integrated graphics on your favorite product-comparison site (Newegg is my usual go-to, but I haven't bought much PC hardware in the last few years).

Adarzannh said:
Hello!
This isn't relevant to hacking but I need to know about the AMD 8120 CPU, as if you guys are hacking windows 8 hopefully you'll be able to help me out here.
I'm building a new pc system but cannot seem to find anywhere on the internet if the 8120 has any sort of intergrated graphics?
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I am an owner of an FX-8120. I can tell you like the last guy did that it doesn't have integrated graphics. It's an 8-core chip clocked at 3.2Ghz stock. Now granted, it may not have an GPU processor on the chip, but you can customize graphic settings to allow the chip to process all of the video rendering. Usually this results in poor performance as GPU chips are alot more efficient when processing graphics. I have a 560gtx and the 8120 clocked at 3.8ghz. I use the GPU to render. Honestly though, you should get a 2500k or an 2600k. I've had nothing but headaches with my 8120. It sucks alot of power, it gets really hot and it locks up quite a bit.

Galaxy S 4 as a Development Board

Hi,
I am wondering whether the Galaxy S4 (I9500, specifically) can be used as a development board.
By this I mean something like the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, etc.
The I9500 already has powerfull CPU, 2G RAM and lots of ROM. What is missing (if at all) is:
# I/O pins. I am sure the exynos 5 has lots of I/Os, but the question is how many of them are accessible on the I9500 board? Looking at techinsights.com teardown article, the motherboard looks very dense and no I/Os seem to be accessible, but hopefully I a, wrong.
# Ability to run Android 4.0 (or any other version) with minimal resources. For example, is it possible to run Android in text-mode so that we leave the RAM and CPU power for the application we want to run/use?
# Availability of replacement parts individually. In such case, we would "buy" a blank motherboard with only the CPU, RAM, ROM and PMIC chips. All other chips (all of networking) are irrelevant. This should not be too expensive(or is it?). This poses another question about the ability to modify Android so that it still work without having the other chips on board.
BTW: Where is the GPS module? It is not mentioned in the teardown article.
Regards,
1ccbf

Will it be possible to have 2 cpus ?

Will it be possible to have 2 cpus on the Ara.. It will be a beast if it could .. ( p.s. sorry if i have mistakes! )

51r said:
Will it be possible to have 2 cpus on the Ara.. It will be a beast if it could .. ( p.s. sorry if i have mistakes! )
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I highly doubt it, I reckon the device would heat up so much and consume so much battery. Plus I think it will take a much longer time for two mobile cpu's to play nice with each other

I doubt it. It'd be cool if you could though but I still see no point as to why.

Yes, you could. The problem is that Android is not written to really use those two processors (its only recently getting support to use dual cores, much less quad) so it would just be a waste of energy and space.

good post
riahc3 said:
Yes, you could. The problem is that Android is not written to really use those two processors (its only recently getting support to use dual cores, much less quad) so it would just be a waste of energy and space.
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I was going to suggest dual core. You beat me to it. Your post is good info; just like not jumping on a 64 bit bandwagon before devices have 8 or more GB of ram [not storage].

im sure it would be great to have two cpus but i feel like all that power would go to waste im sure it could bring more development but still what are you going to do with two cpu's at the current clock speeds we have now? the newest kindle fire is more powerful than my computer im sure quad cores are quite enough for phones cant believe they make octacores its a huge waste.

Dual processors in Project Ara devices.
Actually, from a functional standpoint, I see no reason to have dual CPUs. Android can't make use of a dual processor system, and if it could, what benefit would it provide in real time?
The system as it is, is too inefficient to handle the CPU commands, support the current demand of a dual CPU device.
With a dual CPU device, you also need to design additional power control regulation and filtering, additional battery support and ASIC devices to control the processor when demands are not being called upon, this adds a lot to the base architecture, and not really a financial benefit for a healthy profit margin. When you have finite board real estate for each individual module, you can't simply 'design-in' additional power control circuitry and maintain the same, or similar board dimensions, something has to give.
If we had everything we desired in a single device, I guarantess that device would be dimensionally unusable, the form factor would grow, costs would multiply, and with every feature added as 'standard', you would need to drag around a automotive-sized battery to operate all the options and features.
Personally, I prefer a robust Rf section, and then a modular antenna system that uses PIN diodes so I can select internal or external antennas if I desire. Next, I would like to have Bluetooth access to the entire phone system and file structure, so I can, in essence, 'clone' my phones parameters in a lab environment for testing applications and RF system compatibility.
The RF module should come standard with ALL known and used modulations, bands and coding, such as CDMA, GSM, WCDMA2000, TDMA, CQPSK and even 450 bands for Euro networks. Heck, I'd even like to see P25 thrown in for good measure, along with LTR and EDACS and OpenSky! ( I work with a LOT of RF radio networks, including trunked systems, so of course, I would love to have them all at my fingertips.
Off-Network communications is always a desire when you are in areas not served by cell sites, and point to point comms. is always useful.
Instead of sacrificing capabilities, how about increasing usefulness instead?

dual, quad, octa or more cpu cores are fit in one module i guess and yes android can't make use of dual cpu like servers.

2 cpus 1 phone
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Maybe utilize a 4.0 GHz overclocked x64 cpu?

Since Google just helped develop a new CPU for Ara this may be possible now

I could see 2 cpus as like an either or situation. Heavy load. Use the one for performance. Screen off or battery saving mode. Use a decent single core thats geared towards battery life.

The thing about Project Ara is the aim seems to be to bring smartphones to the level of customization that we see in PCs. We could very well see some manufacturers who get on board with Ara eventually make SoCs that support dual processors if they feel there is a demand for it. Another interesting thought is if there comes about a project where we could design our own SoCs. Technically it's already possible if you are a hardware developer. I looked into what it would take to do it once, and from what I found it looks like you have to be a hardware developer, own your own company, and form a partnership with a chipset maker(I.E. Intel).

Current apps don't even use all 4 cores properly let alone adding a second cpu
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Perhaps software in the system settings could detect the second cpu and allow you to allocate more/less power to separate processes and assign different apps to different cpus.
Sent from my GT-S7560M using XDA Free mobile app

I think that 2 cores is possible. 2 CPU depends on whether android can run it
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Projectaratalk.com - a forum for google project ara users and developers

Since the Ara use Tegra x1 ,there's a great chance it has 2 cores.

Imagine how powerfull this phone will get in 1-2 years .. :thumbup::thumbup:
Sent from my GT-I8730 using XDA Free mobile app

Question (silly question) Can I use an older Android device's processor to add more processing power to the CPU?

I know the question contains a little of ignorance, but idk much about windows kernels and how works the OS en general, but, it is posible that a android phone with, idk, for example a snapdragon processor with an arch of ARM been used as more CPU processing power to the computer? Im just proposing it theoretically
And also by the way if someone could explain me what are the cores of the CPU and if it has anything related to the question thanks you

No. It will not work. Cores of the CPU are like brains in Humans, more cores = more processing power. Android uses the Linux kernel and Windows...the Windows kernel. Two differant beast. It would be like Cats and Dogs agreeing on the best place to go poo....it won't happen.

A CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the part of the computer that does the actual work - performing operations. Modern CPUs have multiple cores, where each core is able to work on a different part of the operation. In a mobile context, multiple cores are also used to provide a balance between performance and power saving; depending on the CPU, there are generally 2 or more "little" cores that prioritize efficiency over performance; 2 or more "mid" cores that provide more processing power when the "little" cores aren't up to the task; and 1 or 2 "big" cores that provide the best performance but use the most power. When someone talks about "throttling" in a kernel, they're talking about the runtime mechanism that decides what cores a CPU will use under given load conditions.
There are multiple different CPU architectures, and as far as I know, it's not possible to parallel them - you can't use an ARM64 CPU in parallel with an Intel x64, even though they're both 64 bit. The reason for this is different architectures use different basic instructions and scheduling, so the amount of code that would need to go into a kernel to make different types work together would slow the system down and make the whole endeavor pointless, unless you're working with a really large scale operation.
If you look at multi-CPU systems, you'll see that everything from Xeon servers to supercomputers all use the same types of CPU to simplify interconnects, as well as the ability to use one kernel.
It's worth mentioning that there are some projects that do make use of different platforms - for example, SETI @ Home uses a network of Internet connected computers to create a sort of supercomputer. Botnets do the same sort of thing. The difference here is that these systems aren't paralleled, and they work at the application level, so they can only use a certain amount of the client system's resources.

V0latyle said:
A CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the part of the computer that does the actual work - performing operations. Modern CPUs have multiple cores, where each core is able to work on a different part of the operation. In a mobile context, multiple cores are also used to provide a balance between performance and power saving; depending on the CPU, there are generally 2 or more "little" cores that prioritize efficiency over performance; 2 or more "mid" cores that provide more processing power when the "little" cores aren't up to the task; and 1 or 2 "big" cores that provide the best performance but use the most power. When someone talks about "throttling" in a kernel, they're talking about the runtime mechanism that decides what cores a CPU will use under given load conditions.
There are multiple different CPU architectures, and as far as I know, it's not possible to parallel them - you can't use an ARM64 CPU in parallel with an Intel x64, even though they're both 64 bit. The reason for this is different architectures use different basic instructions and scheduling, so the amount of code that would need to go into a kernel to make different types work together would slow the system down and make the whole endeavor pointless, unless you're working with a really large scale operation.
If you look at multi-CPU systems, you'll see that everything from Xeon servers to supercomputers all use the same types of CPU to simplify interconnects, as well as the ability to use one kernel.
It's worth mentioning that there are some projects that do make use of different platforms - for example, SETI @ Home uses a network of Internet connected computers to create a sort of supercomputer. Botnets do the same sort of thing. The difference here is that these systems aren't paralleled, and they work at the application level, so they can only use a certain amount of the client system's resources.
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Whoa ok! Cool thanks for your explanation and time. I understood most of the reply so thanks for answering me question!
Have a good day

7zLT said:
Whoa ok! Cool thanks for your explanation and time. I understood most of the reply so thanks for answering me question!
Have a good day
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No problem. Here is a Wiki article that may provide a more concise explanation. Turns out I was wrong about instruction sets, at least concerning AMD APUs.
The bottom line is...Yes, it's absolutely possible to use multiple different systems to provide more processing power than just one. But, unless those systems are specifically designed to work in parallel with other systems, it would be a bit more complicated to get everything to work together, and the end result wouldn't necessarily be faster. If you're enterprising enough, you could set up an application on your computer as well as your phone that uses your phone's CPU to perform operations, but it wouldn't be easy.

Oh!
Ok, thanks for the references

The Northbridge chipset has limited bandwidth and is optimized to work with specific cpu's. Integrating at this level be ineffective at best even if you could get it to work because of the Northbridge bandwidth limitations.
A dual processor board is the one that you wanted, originally used mostly for servers they are also used in high end workstations. Most games are designed to run on 4 cores so it may not yield much. Some 3D rendering softwares and such are designed to take advantage of dual processor mobos. Again designed to work with a specific processor family like the Xeon series ie matched processors.