I've just purchased an XDA IIi in Australia
ROM Version 1.11.00 WWE
ROM Date 01/27/05
Radio version 1.00.00
Protocol Version 1337.39
ExtROM version 1.11.923 WWE
I've been following a number of posts on upgrading rom (more stability, better performance) and upgrading Radio (better signal strength) but I'm confused.
1. What will I gain from upgrading? Will I see any real benefit?
2. Will the posted upgrades work for my Australian XDAIIi
3. Has anyone in Aus done any upgrades - is it hard/safe?
I'm keen to get the best from my device but don't want to screw it up. Anyone who can offer advice/guidance to a newbie would be doing me a real favour.
Thanks
The first thing is that there are 3 seperate ROM's in the XDA2i;
1. OS/boot ROM - Normally Windows 2003SE. Not much choice here!
2. Extended ROM - Operator specific software and customisations
3. Radio ROM - The bit that deals with the GSM and GPRS (phone)
What you will gain from an upgrade basically depends on what you need. Upgrades provided by your operator will normally add additional or updated software packages or patches to fix problems that have been reported to the operator.
In reality though, the updates provided by the operators will not be ideal. For example, O2 until recently were still providing Radio ROM v1.00.00, whereas 1.04.00 has been available for some time now. They have added Blackberry support in the recent Extended ROM version 1.11.169, but I don't use blackberry. Therefore the O2 ROM updates are of no use to me.
Thus I took the Radio 1.04.00 ROM from this site, and modified the 1.11.162 ROM provided by O2 (also downloadable from this site) to suit my needs and installed the resultant ROM images on my PDA.
In your case, you appear to be using Radio 1.00.00. So you will certainly benefit from upgrading to Radio 1.04.00, because this fixes some serious stability problems which caused the PDA to crash when using certain SD cards.
As for the extended ROM, you could install one of the many examples available on this site, but beware that if you choose a ROM designed for a different operator, many settings will be different, so SMS/MMS/WAP/GPRS etc may not work properly unless you know how to configure them manually.
There are lots of instructions and programs in these forums to help you make a customised extended ROM should you want to. But don't be afraid to ask if you want help - better to ask than have a broken PDA!
hope at least some of this makes sense!
Related
I have a Qtek 1010 with ROM version 3.16.13 ENG and Radio version 3.19.01. The phone part of my device is very unstable, so I want to upgrade the radio stack and see if that helps. But I am a little confused about the ROM and radio stack versions and hope someone can answer these questions:
-What is the latest radio stack version?
-Where I can get it?
-Are the radio stacks country specific or provider specific?
-Do I need to upgrade the ROM before I can upgrade to the latest radio stack?
I hope someone can help me with this.
I apologize if I'm asking stupid questions, but I would be very grateful if somone could help me with this. I've seen that there are many different radio stack versions. I would like to know if there is a newer version than 3.19.01 that will work with my Qtek 1010 in Norway.
I called my local dealer who told me that 3.19.01 is the newest upgrade available (but it didn't sound like he knew much about it). Does anyone know if this is correct? And if it is, are there any other radio upgrades that will work with my device? Can I e.g. use O2's upgrade for the XDA?
Once again, I apologize if my questions are foolish or have been answered before.
gu said:
I would like to know if there is a newer version than 3.19.01 that will work with my Qtek 1010 in Norway.
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Click to collapse
3.19.01 you said... Hmmmm, we have not studied that particular version yet. Please extract it and FTP it to xda-developers.com user 'xdaftp' password 'xdaftp' if you could.
I called my local dealer who told me that 3.19.01 is the newest upgrade available (but it didn't sound like he knew much about it). Does anyone know if this is correct? And if it is, are there any other radio upgrades that will work with my device? Can I e.g. use O2's upgrade for the XDA?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use anyone's upgrade, really. There a few T-mobile American ROM upgrades which also upgrade the (separate) phone ROM when you install them (which is bad, because the phone software is different between 900/1800 and 900/1900), but otherwise you can play to you heart's content.
Until recently, the coolest thing to run was probably the xda-developer Special Edition ROM v1.2. It was based on the O2 3.17.03 ROM, but had lots of features added. Earlier this week, we released ROMkitchen (click here for more information). Setting up your own kitchen is fairly involved, but people have set up publically accessible kitchens you can use. One example is Jeff's kitchen, but others are bound to pop up all over the place.
In the ROMkitchen, you have a choice of basing your new ROM on the O2 3.17.03 ROM, or on the 4.00.05 Windows Mobile 2003 test ROM that's floating out there, and then you can add the freeware of your choice. Installation is a breeze since the kitchen will produce self-extracting compressed .exe files which you just need to execute to install the new ROM.
Read many other messages here to get a feel for things. There's a number of reasons to still use the 3.17.03 (or 3.19.01...) over the WM2003 thing, but for a lot of others it's already cooler than the 3.xx ROMs.
Once again, I apologize if my questions are foolish or have been answered before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, to be honest we've been lazy, and we haven't spent enough time on writing really good FAQs that represent the current situation. A case of being too busy building the stuff to actually document it all right. And this forum is so busy that I can well imagine people being overwhelmed by it all. I know I am sometimes...
Good luck... (and please don't forget to extract and FTP the 3.19.01. There's documentation on how to extract and backup your old ROM here..)
Thank you very much for your reply. Are you saying that I can use any radio upgrade with my Qtek, or are you talking about operating system upgrades?
To avoid any possible misunderstanding: My current Radio Version is 3.19.01. I'm having a lot of problems with the phone part of my device, so I'm hoping that there is a newer and more stable radio stack version available.
If you're still interested in my 3.19.01 radio stack, I'll try to ftp it to you, but I'm currently getting a permission denied message from your server. I'll try to access it again later. Or you can download the radio stack from this location.
BTW: The ROMkitchen looks excellent. I'll probably do some cooking there soon.
I'm practicaly a newbie! so pls be patient if some of my questions would sound dumb to many of you techy ppl. I have recently upgraded my stock rom and radio to rom 3.20.06 and radio version 4.21.00 which I got directly from the O2 Xda site. And by accident I've stumbled accross this incredible site " Jeff's Kitchen " which allows XDA users like me to further upgrade our ROM to the latest WM2003. Unfortunately, I am completely blank on how to go about this... Also, I have no idea on what ROM to apply from the ROMs listed on his site. Out of curiousity, I experimented on burning my own ROM and selected 4.00.16 ENG T-Mobile US and to my surprised the capacity meter indicated "overload" when in fact my XDA RAM size is 64mb, flash size is 32mb and SD card is 256mb. Lastly, when I upgraded my ROM to 3.20.06 everything was as simple as a click of a button.
When you go to the kitchen, you choose which rom you wish to download, I would suggest not using the T Mobile roms unless you are a t mobile customer, once you have chosen the rom you will see next to it the space it will take up in your rom space, the reason for the overload message is you have too many extra items listed, these are shown lower down the screen, just untick all of these, then add the bits you want within the constraints of the memory space available in rom, at the top of the screen it will show you if it will all fit and how much space you have to play with. I always download the rom in .exe format, that allows you to execute the file from desktop and carries out a "normal", upgrade of rom over usb cable/cradle. Always backup existing rom before attempting any upgrades, preferably via the sd method, read about on the forum for this method. This ensures you can always get back to a working system should an error occur. Oh, and moving your mouse over the extra bits in the kitchen will bring up a short note on what that particular program does, also some of the progs are specific to wm2002 or wm2003 which is also shown on screen.
I really appreciate the help but one more thing---somebody told me from another forum that there's no difference if I download ROM 4.00.16 ENG T-Mobile US due to the fact they are the same XDA unit. So what's your comment about this?
I've downloaded and applied successfully the ROM 4.00.11 ENG to my O2 XDA unit, unfortunately the upgrade did not include the Radio Stack upgrade that's why I'm still using the old radio version 4.21.00. Where can I download the latest version for the Radio Stack upgrade? and what would be the most reliable and stable version applicable for my unit?
We should create a newbie forum!
Regarding the radio stack issues, I really do suggest you hunt around on the forum for info about this, some radio stack upgrades can be problematic if you wish to go back to an earlier build, please make sure you are aware of any pitfalls before carrying out any changes.
Would it be safer for me to just stick to my old radio stack version 4.12.00 since it's been running perfectly well under my old ROM? will it produce conflicts with my newly applied ROM?
Well I am of the school of "if it aint broke leave it alone".
If ever I choose to do a retro-active installation, like going back to my old ROM--should I be doing the same .exe procedures? since I still have my ROM 3.20.00 ENG .exe
i have just put my sim card in but the OS is
ROM version 3.14.17 ENG
ROM date 10/11/02
Radio verison 4.16
Protocol Version 32554
are there any upgrades or programs i should add or is it fine as it is?
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated :wink:
I would suggest leaving the radio stack alone if it works ok. You can backup your current rom to sd card then go cook a rom with lots of extra features and software in the unused rom space at one of the kitchens.
Hi ... congratulations first
Your ROM is PPC2002, so you may consider upgrading to WM2003 (it's not essential tho :wink: ).
In all cases, if your Radio is working fine (the phone part), just do NOT touch it!!
Take enough time to read in this forum before any steps or questions ... Good luck
O2 XDA and WM2003
I just saw posts on this thread, is it possible (safe?) to put WM2003 on an O2 XDA. What ROM upgrade should be used? I ask because I got impression that 2003 upgrade was vendor sensitive and you had to use (if they did one) your vendors upgrade. (i.e. Siemens, etc). Thanks for help, maybe I get to update after all !!
Alan
I have been reading this forum for about 3 weeks. It convinced me to get an SX-56 (at&t) and use it with my existing cingular account. I like to try and figure stuff out by searching rather than asking question after question. A good example is i took my xbox and modified it without installing a single chip. It now has a new O.S. and a 40 games on it without voiding the warranty or asking a simple question.
Which brings me to why i wanted to ask a question. This is tough stuff. Originally i was on the base PC2002 O.S. for this phone and it was locked against Bellsouth.
Here's what i managed to do.
1) try the unlock software - failed.
- solution read was to use the special edition software 1.2
2) Upgrade the O.S. via the charging/usb station to Special Edition
- success, unlocked the phone.
3) Attempt to use the Mobile2003SE .exe to upgrade once more - failed.
- screen was stuck on bootloader 5.15, solution was to use OSimage to burn the special edition .nbf over to the SD card and boot up to that.
4) Attempt #2 to update mobile 2003SE. failed.
- found that the charging/usb station was connected to a hub. Disabled hub.
- Found that connecting the cable directly did not work either, apparently the process i took has made this method impossible altogether.
- tried flashing SD card with the 2003 OS rom, OSImage reported that the filesize was incorrect.
- tried using alternate program (older xirit or something like that) to burn the ROM, success, but while the wallaby seemed to upgrade successfull, it never seemed to get past the bootloader.
5) gave up trying to go to 2003SE. Used Lump's kitchen to created a custom 2003 package.
- successfull but only through SD, USB upgrade no longer seems to work for me.
Current specs
============
ROM version A.30.09 ENG
ROM date 01/01/04
Radion Version : A.20.10
Protocol version: 324e4
Model PW10B1
ooops. forgot to give you my question.
Current specs
============
ROM version A.30.09 ENG
ROM date 01/01/04
Radion Version : A.20.10
Protocol version: 324e4
Model PW10B1
OK,
So i've upgraded, removed my lock, and installed a custom ROM.
What are the best options to have for each feature?
I've read many posts that prefer the A.30.09 ENG ROM as the best for the SX56 / Wallaby. Many seem to be disenchanted with the 2003SE anyhow.
What is the best radio Stack to have? My reception is VERY poor compared to my Motorola V400 phone here in Florida and at times throughout the day, i get no signal.
What is the best leather Case to have?
What is the best GPS receiver to have? I've read the infatuation here a couple of years back with the RadioShak version that was sold for $29, but it is now discontinued.
I appreciate all the work many here have done over the years to keep this great lil product alive and hackable. It was Lumps kitchen that got me to buy a PDA phone and I intend to support this forum and his kitchen now and in the future.
thanks.
wow, not a lot of responses here.
Well i've continued on and now have good results. Here is my personal log of things i've done.
I have found that the best ROM is the 4.01.12 O2 euro ROM.
I have found that that the best RADIO is the 6.24.02 tmobile
The best GPS is the TOMTOM. bought one from ebay for 29 pounds (50 american). Make sure you disable IRDA as it uses the com1.
The best GPS software is the TOMTOM, works without slowdowns of any kind.
The best games are by PDAMILL
MY GPRS used to barely work until i got the new radio, now it's flawless.
MY reception was dropping. With the new radio unit, while the bars don't indicate better reception, i don't get anywhere as many drops. And one thing i find cool about the SX56, even with 1 bar, it sounds as good as 5 bars. So as long as you are still on the network in any bars, you should be better off.
PocketZen is cool, it restores the features that most cell phones have, the ability to have custom phone settings for work, outdoors, meetings, etc.
Sprite backup is cooler. It will save all your custom software changes. I have made about 30 hours of work in setting my PDA to my desired settings. with this software, i can install a new ROM and restore my settings within 5 mins. Only software that i have to re-install is TOMTOM
Hi,
I'm a new (and already happy) owner of this fantastic device.
I've bought the VODEFONE 1640 ITA and suddenly upgraded with latest italian I-MATE ROM image.
The new ROM image works well but I find out that the RADIO IMAGE installed (1.9.0.0) it's older than the original (1.14.0.0).
Right now those are the version of my ROM:
Radio Version: 1.09.00
Protocol Version : 42.42.P8
ExtROM Version: 1.30.81 ITA
Considering I'm a dummy, what are the main differences on those versions?
Moreorer anytime I start the phone I get the error message: "I-MATE CONFIGURATOR application is compatibile only with I-MATE devices. It's suggested to disinstall this apps from the device"
Did I do something wrong or it's a common error after a ROM upgrade?
Thank you for your support and long life to the HTC!!!
Pablo
Please finish reading the following links, although this are all WWE ROMS. You can get the language pack from Asukal's thread.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=286036
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=283594
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=279258
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=285488
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=285338
It is 1.09.00, not 1.9.0.0. Radio 1.09.00 is not too bad a Radio, but again it depend on your network in your area. So the only way to find out which is the best, you have to try it out, because different version works for different person.
HTC products seems to be not getting any better as more competitors are coming up with equal and better devices. Although now Universal is still in its own class, but next year there should be some or at least 1 of such product to give us more choice. Anyway read more in this forum and also my 1 year experience using this device and you will find that the mechanical & battery of Universal by HTC really sucks!