Nexus 6P Website/Google

Nexus 6P bootloop fix found, disables CPU cores

Zebulon McCorkle
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Senior XDADevelopers member XCnathan32 has released a fix for the “Bootloop of Death” issue present in many of Google/Huawei’s Nexus 6P. This issue is supposedly caused by the “BIG” cores on the “BIG.little” architecture Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 used in the Nexus 6P. XCnathan32’s fix involves disabling the 4 “BIG” cores, leaving only the “little” cores.

BIG.little architecture is a technology used in some ARM systems on a chip which combines 2 core types, a “BIG,” more powerful, core type and a “little,” less powerful, core type. In the case of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, there are 4 “BIG” ARM Cortex A57 cores and 4 “little” ARM Cortex A53 cores, with the more powerful Cortex A57 cores supposedly causing the bootlooping issue in Nexus 6P phones.

It is not yet confirmed whether or not the Cortex A57 cores are actually the issue with the bootloop, however disabling them does fix the bootloop. Since the fix involves disabling the most powerful CPU cores, performance of the fixed device will suffer. On the plus side, battery life will have a significant boost.

To apply the fix, you must flash the patched kernel XCnathan32 has released as well as the patched TWRP recovery if you are a recovery user. These images can be found on his forum post on XDADevelopers.

MatrixPC

MatrixPC is a subsidiary of Lambda Indie Publishing which publishes technology news and reviews of technology products.

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