I got it some company
 

I love my E53 so much I gave it to my wife and bought it a companion for me. A 2008 E83 3.0si to keep her X5 company in the driveway. Got it last week, Silver with a Gray interior, 105k mi.

AceEngineer :cool:

:thumbup: Nice!

Over the last few days I have optimized the pathetic performance of my Eonon GA6166 1GB RAM operating system that I installed in my E53 in January/February 2017.

It took three full nights of researching threads in this forum

https://forum.xda-developers.com/and...re-development

But now I have a 56 second cold boot up (according to Startup Manager app) of the "modded" GA6166 and full functionality access to my apps. The bass response is enhanced so much so that I had to back off on my low frequency and sub volume settings. My rear camera stability appears to be improved as well.

Essentially, I installed a ROM from developer Hal9k_

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1S...pfLWNwUU0/view

Reloaded all my apps and then set the framework to "microG" which is a faster operating framework alternative to the Google Apps platform (apparently the Google Apps "platform" slows down the OS)

https://microg.org

The microG framework allows me to interface with the Google Play Store and apps platform for full download and update functionality of Google Play Store Apps.

It was a difficult and tedious 3-day journey but this sure salvages the pathetic performance I was getting from the 1GB RAM Eonon GA6166.

During my multi-day research I learned of a board mod for the GA6166 that will take it to a 4GB RAM and 32GB of storage available from:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/WITS...814725689.html

I contacted Eonon for help before embarking on this research and mod journey but their assistance only offered another poor performing factory ROM and they were not able to offer me an upgrade board. Of course they would like me to buy a later model unit and quite possibly have to do the excruciatingly difficult task of running the FAKRA cable to the rear of the vehicle again (NO WAY was I up for that again!).

Possibly some folks out there are aware of this modding capability for the Android head units that are popular for our E53s, but I sure wasn't. So, for those that have a 1GB RAM unit and are experiencing painful slow cold boot performance, this may help lead you in the direction of some solutions.

Good luck reading the >55 page threads on the XDA forums to get yourself up to speed on these head unit mods.

PS: I fully understand that this voids any expectation of warranty from Eonon.

Mike

Our warranty is already out for the E46, we bought the headunit over a year ago. Would like to fix the crappy radio issues where it just randomly auto searches for stations, the lagginess and long boot up times. I'll be PMing you with some questions once we get started.

Hi Itsbrokeagain,

Sure, will help you with how I went about my mod. Hopefully the steps I used will yield the same or similar results for you.

Best to start out digesting these threads to get up to speed on the hardware and software background

https://forum.xda-developers.com/and...units-t3623982

and

https://forum.xda-developers.com/and...o-px5-t3581741

Mike

Thanks Mike. Two nights ago I just started to look into flashing my GA7166. Your post is perfectly timed

You're welcome xbimma!

I was amazed that this type of head unit modding was absent from this and the E46 Fanatics forums and knew that I had to share this knowledge with our BMW communities that may be looking at these Android based systems.

Mike

I don't remember the name of the aftermarket firmware I run in my eonon that's in my e46 but it was like getting a new radio when I switched to it a few years ago.

If I have driven the car any that day boot time is zero seconds. Really zero aka instant on.

If its the first time I have driven the car that day it takes about 20 seconds to boot the sound and main part and another 30 to bring up nav if I had left it on nav.

Love that firmware. If I get around to fooling with my e46 before I forget about this post I will see what firmware I am running :)

Installed my Gloria OEM fire extinguisher. Hard to come by but with enough searching, I was able to get one from Germany.

Nice ! I want one.