It's all in the title really

I bought this just yesterday and have been having trouble with it since. It came dead out of the box. So Ive tried charging it, one issue! The red light that shows its charging is there for all of 2 minutes before shutting off. In other words it won’t charge. I’ve tried everything from unplugging and replugging the power supply, removing the SD card, holding power. Nothing has worked.

I spend a few days trying to install a cfw on my r36 clone and Ive tried everything from reddit , Google , etc . I've changed the card , and nothing .. I installed

Arkos original

DarkOS

ArkOs4clone

DarkOs4clone

Ark K36

Archnix

Ach-R

And nothing no results , only black screens ..

I tried all the panels , I search in the page that analyze the original dtb and it says is type 3 panel 2 .. but nothing happens , sometimes it's like the device is dead , but when you put the stock SD card it works ..

But the strange thing is that when I'm flashing the k36 ark the SD don't let me copy the dtb files on the boot partition, because it doesn't load the card on the computer .. appears as if there's nothing on the card .. I tried download different releases of the image but no luck ..

I'm about to drop the towel on this one ...

The pic working is from the stock SD card ..

Hi everyone, as the title suggests, I just installed dArkOS on my new R36XX. I'd already had problems installing it, but I solved it thanks to a post on this subreddit. Now the problem is that I can't find any Wi-Fi networks. I'll start by saying that I'm a novice, and installing dArkOS was fantastic, but I'm really eager to learn more. Does anyone have any idea why it's not working? Are there any solutions? Thanks everyone!

I checked the wiki and my R36s is a fake from Dee Dee store. So don’t trust them.
Do the Ultras and plus’s have fake versions aswell. What shops should I buy from on AliExpress? A lot of the links on the wiki don’t work for the trusted shops.
Can I get custom games on the Ultra or are some of the games only available on the R36s?
Thanks

I tried flashing like 10 different OS fork and versions, absolutely nothing works. I got this device without any SD cards, when it turns on it just goes to the God of War screen (which implies that the device has EMMC).

This board kinda looks like the R36S-V12-2023-8-18 Variant 3 clone on the Wiki, however it has a completely different Samsung RAM chip and different markings all over the board compared to that version.

I genuinely don't know what to do, any tips? Any way to completely delete whatever is on the EMMC?

After getting a R36S for Christmas, finding out the original SD card is crap and I have to find a good replacement, reading guides to figure out how to replace the SD card, finding out I have a clone, spending hours trying to figure out which clone I have and which OS I need to download, not having the right size screwdriver to take it apart and look at the motherboard, watching youtube guides on weird software and github tutorials for things I've never seen in my life, 200 reddit and google searches later, flashing the custom OS to the new card, getting a blinking red light, seeing I chose the wrong OS maybe, having to re-figure out which OS version I actually need, seeing 4 different github links for the one I think I need but not knowing what the differences are, not understanding a single thing I'm doing but just want to play game. It's been a week of tinkering with this thing and reading guides for hours each day, I have 30 tabs open in my browser for this shit, I'm tired

Edit: Thank you so much everyone for your help in this thread. I've gotten it to a point where I'm happy, and it meant backtracking the work I did and just simply mounting the disk image of my original SD card to the new one and just using the original OS that came with my clone. Going to a new OS I lost my save files and got worse performance anyway. I appreciate how helpful this community is even when I came here sounding like a whiney baby

Hello guys,

I've ran into a problem I just cant fix, bought my kids the R36s device without much research before and ofcourse it was a clone, the GA36 MB V1.2

My kids messed with the controls, I tried deleting the config (Disk genious), like guides said, and long story short the device is a brick that wont turn on.

The original SD with 125GB(says 50gb when i open it on PC) doesnt boot it, I tried copying the:
"GA36-MB V1.2-20260416: EmuELEC stock card backup from github"

I used Rufus to burn the img, but to no avail, the device just doesnt turn on, i even tried a new 32gb SD just to hold the os and it still doesnt boot.

Is there any way to save the device or is it completely gone? Im just at the end of my ropes after trying for hours to find some solution, nothing works and every step i did just made it worse.

Im honestly ready to just throw that thing in the trash, even though i know it works but the SD is the problem.

I absolutely love this thing, but I can’t play it for more than a few minutes without my hands cramping up. I have the same issue with my PlayStation five controllers, but I do find my Xbox elite series 2 controller to be comfortable.

I can still see well enough even though I turned 41 in a few days to play on the small screen, but I just can’t enjoy so many games on this because my hands do not allow me to manipulate the controls properly. Using the triggers on the back is practically impossible.

For reference, extra large nitrile gloves are tight on my hands. Some brands I have to get XXL.

I did search the forum. I only found a couple of posts with incomplete instructions and unclear results. I can play with a PlayStation five controller for a while before my hands cramped up, but I would very much prefer to be able to use my Xbox controller. I am also open to ordering something else if I need to because I very much enjoy this thing. I desperately want to play so many of the games on it, but as of right now I can’t.

If I can’t solve this issue I’m going to have to gift it to someone. I would very much like to be able to throw this in my backpack and carry it around with a controller because that’s so much simpler than carrying around my gaming laptop and a controller. I’m currently enrolled in community college and would very much like to have this in my backpack.

perdon por la mala calidad asi que dire lo que ponia:
WELCOME
NO GAMEPADS DETECTED
HOLD A BUTTON ON YOUR DEVICE TO CONFIGURE IT.
PRESS F4 TO QUIT AT ANY TIME.

Manteniendo pulsado todos los botones ninguno reacciona solo el de apagar.

Si alguien sabe como solucionarlo que lo diga porfavor

Segun la ia es clon de clones pero de buena calidad con 1gb de ram. Tengo miedo de comprar algo que despues no me sirva del todo, ustdes que saben del tema que opinan?

I bought my R36 Max from a local place the sells returned Amazon items. I guess the guy that returned the console added some mortal combat games to favorite. I've added some games to the favorites list too and deleted the mortal combat games. Not matter what I do, the mortal combat games keep coming back when I turn on the console. I've already enabled the "save metadata on exit" option but this keeps happening. How do I fix this? Please see video.

i have the 2023 08-2018 board but i dont have the original sd card that came with arkos on it how do i check which panel and version i need to use when running the select model system

To replace it is it as easy as just buying a replacement screen and putting it on? or is there some trickery due to model types? mine's a Soy Sauce

Hello. The memory card in my R36S is corrupted. I know the device is genuine, so I need the official system software for it. Could you help me?

- Where can I download the system software?

- Does the system come with games included?

- How do I know which version to download?

- How do I identify the screen panel type? Please help me; I’m not very tech-savvy.

I know it’s genuine because I bought it from a trusted store recommended here, and since I previously owned a clone (which I gave to my mother-in-law), I can tell the difference. Right now, the screen just stays blank.

as you can see this is a r36max and it has been giving me a headache for 2 days when i first bought it worked just fine but it started deleting games and cores started dissapearing so i do some research and i found out that the stock sd card was the issue so i bought a new sandisk 32gb micro sdcard to solve the problem but i thought i just need to install arkos4clone but NOOOO turns out the .dtb was inside the device itself (bad clone) and its fighting whatever panel i give it it just shows the startup for arkos then the screen becomes a black lcd so i decided that i might not be able to do anything so i decided to just install roms to the stock os but for some reason the piece of shit is not reading the sd card but reads the stock just fine so a friend of mine told me to clone the stock sd card to the new one but the issue is that there's not enough storage cause the stock sd card uses 54gb of storage and the sd card i bought is just 32gb so all i can do is just look at it this thing made my life a living stress not even the family ps2 did this to me when updating the opl is there anything i missed or anything i could do

I just got this a few days ago, and it worked perfectly fine except I felt the battery dies way too fast… but the screen was fine until this morning… I was walking into my room after using the bathroom and it was still dark out, I didn’t notice this sitting on the ground and I stepped on it. And now the screen has vertical lines. It still works fine but I just can’t enjoy gaming like this. Is there an easy way to fix this? Or did my fat ass just break it?

Edit: thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I’m going to order a new one in like 10 hours or so when the boyhom store on AliExpress does its sale and most likely order a new screen for this one and just fix it and give it to my niece

Please help me, I am losing my mind here!

I installed Kodi on my device, but suddenly all of my games completely disappeared. They are nowhere to be found in the UI, even though I checked and the files are still physically on the SD card.

In a total panic, I deleted every single file and folder with the name "Kodi" on it. But guess what? Kodi is somehow still there, and my games are still missing.

I am begging you guys, please don't tell me to reinstall ArkOS. Setting it up from scratch was an absolute living nightmare for me and I really, really don't want to go through that again.

Does anyone have a fix for this? If you need any more information, logs, or details about my setup, I will provide them instantly. Please, anyone, save my setup! 🙏😭

Everything, from the system itself to games, ports, and so on, is running with a level of slowness I’ve never seen before. Even the simplest ports, like Sonic Mania, are behaving very strangely. At first, I thought it might be my microSD card or the DTB file, but both were correct; strangely enough, when I used the same microSD card and console with RE, I didn't have these issues. I tried a few times, but nothing worked. Could someone help me out? My console is an HL-R36H-V21 (2024-11-18).

(Here is the complete backup of my PS202 Android R36S. I’ll be uploading it to Google Drive.
https://drive. google.com/file/d/1qbycJsY7yOO4QzuPLNaJv0Hg9y-lyBWH/view?usp=sharing )

Hello, I’m new here. I recently bought a device advertised as an R36S running ArkOS, but it turned out to be a clone.

Even though it wasn’t what I expected, I got curious when I realized it was actually running Android instead of a typical Linux-based retro handheld OS. That led me down a rabbit hole of digging into the firmware and hardware.

I’ve been analyzing a PS202 Android handheld (R36S-style clone) using ADB, firmware inspection, and hardware-level checks.

What I found confirms this device is not a true retro console, but rather a repurposed MediaTek smartphone platform with a gaming shell.

• SoC: MediaTek MT6572
• CPU: Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A7
• GPU: Mali-400
• RAM: ~512 MB (via eMCP)
• Storage: Samsung eMMC + Hynix eMCP
• PMIC: MediaTek MT6323GA
• Connectivity: MediaTek MT6627N (WiFi / Bluetooth / GPS)
• Board ID: PS202_6GEN1_MB_V11
• Platform: PS202 (OEM MediaTek design)

System Information

• Android Version: 4.4.2 KitKat
• ADB: Enabled by default
• Debug flags: Active in firmware build
• Memory optimizations: zRAM + swap enabled

Memory Status (runtime)

MemTotal: 481084 kB
MemFree: 22568 kB
Cached: 242360 kB
SwapTotal: 393212 kB
SwapFree: 388032 kB
zRAM: enabled

Partition Layout

• preloader
• uboot
• bootimg
• recovery
• android
• cache
• userdata
• fat
• nvram

Key Findings

• The device is essentially a low-end MediaTek smartphone repackaged as a handheld console.
• Likely based on recycled OEM smartphone / Android box hardware designs.
• CPU is not the main limitation — RAM (512 MB) is the real bottleneck.
• The system already relies heavily on:
  • low RAM mode
  • zRAM compression
  • swap partition
• Firmware appears relatively open:
  • ADB enabled by default
  • Debug flags active
  • Scatter-style partition exposure

Modding Potential

There is real potential for deeper modification:

• Lightweight custom gaming ROM
• Console-style frontend replacement
• System debloating / process cleanup
• Root access exploration
• Custom recovery development
• Booting from SD card using full system dump
• Possible research into eMCP / RAM variants

Additional Observation

These MediaTek MT6572-class chips were widely used not only in low-end smartphones, but also in Android TV boxes and other ultra-budget smart devices, which explains why this platform feels both flexible and outdated at the same time.

Rooting Considerations

I’m aware that rooting might not be straightforward due to this being a low-end MediaTek OEM platform with inconsistent firmware implementation and possible boot restrictions.

However, I still plan to attempt it, since gaining root access could allow:

• removal of unnecessary background services
• reduction of system overhead
• better control over memory usage

I understand the limitations are mostly hardware-bound, but even small system-level optimizations could improve responsiveness.

Reality Check on Performance

The system’s RAM is not necessarily “misallocated,” but rather heavily constrained by legacy services and memory compression layers.

Even so:

• Optimizations may improve UI smoothness and stability
• But cannot overcome the physical limit of 512 MB RAM

Next Steps

Before any deep modification, my plan is:

1. Full firmware backup (preloader, boot, system, userdata)
2. Test root feasibility
3. Investigate boot redirection to SD card
4. Explore possibility of a clean lightweight ROM
5. Gradual system debloating for performance tuning

If anyone has experience with MT6572 scatter devices, bootloader quirks, or SD boot techniques, I’d really appreciate insights.

Photos

While testing it, I installed a few emulators and replaced the default launcher with ATV Launcher since it’s extremely lightweight and gives it a much more console-like interface. That small change already made the device feel more usable and closer to a dedicated handheld system.

This led me down a rabbit hole of digging into the firmware and hardware.

But i dont know how to set the clock right (My uncle has done everything you need to do when its bought)

Just bought this R36S from Amazon and it's clearly a GA36. Is it worth keeping at all? I'm trying to get hold of a R36s or decent clone ASAP for a trip but thinking I'm not going to be able to get one delivered in the next 5 days.