Database Users

MDAPro Just a few questions?

Forgive me for not really being able to search deeply into this matter, I've seen threads detailing updating with the JasJar ROM or an amalgamation of the the MDA/O2 ROM.
1) I have 43.72mb total storage and 47.93mb Program storage. This results in 91.65mb total storage??? Right, at 128megs where has 40mbs gone? I have pretty much the exact same set up on the MDA3 yet the two figures more or less add up to 128mb. Can someone confirm these figures with me?
2) Is there a new ROM coming out and soon? I'm not one to complain if results are going to happen, but the memory issue is a biggy to me as there is one more program I want to install on the thing and I doubt there will be enough free memory.
3) Software, I'm sure there was a better suite of software on the MDA3 when that came out. Okay time consuming it may be but sometimes I do like to run Messenger when I'm on the train - where has it gone? And if Microsoft think I'm going to pay £10.99 more for that feature they can go swivel. I followed a thread that said it's included in Windows - it's not on the MDA Pro.
I really love the design of the thing but the software just seems to be a joke. Where do I start? I have posted the MDA3 for sale on Ebay and I want to honour that sale, but I also want a device that replaces my MDA3 100%.
This includes getting TomTom 5 to work with my BT GPS receiver!!!

1. Sorry not sure about the memory
2. I havent heard of a new T-mobile ROM being available and they never seemed to work on any updates for the MDAiii
3. The software suite was better - I miss my messenger too and like you I am reluctant to pay microsoft a tenner! The backup software isnt avialbel either which is an arse.
4. Good luck with TT5 I had to upgrade my co-pilot to get it to work on new os.

If at all possible could anyone with the MDAPro and the carrier ROM please do a memory check on theirs to compare with mine?
If you're not sure how to do it - Start/Settings/System/Memory, I just need the total figures for Storage and Program

I have the same memory CONFIG as you have stated!

In WM5 you have separate ROM & RAM configuration unlike WM2k3...
So here's how ur memory is split up -
1. RAM 64MB
Out of 64 megs of RAM, you loose roughly 17MB on internal allocation. For the device to run perfectly it has various fixed RAM permanently allocated (DMA buffers (for ur cameras etc.), kernel level memory allocation, GSM memory, video memory, mem swap space, cache etc.). This total memory fixed can vary from device to device, and each company can tweak it accordingly. Eventually, the OS has roughly 47MB for use. Now again, when WM5 powers up, it again consumes around 17megs of RAM, giving you 30-32 megs of ram to use for your programs or apps!
2. ROM 128MB (permanent storage)
This is divided into the following -
a. OS install: This is where WM5 related files etc. gets stored. This is a total of 64Megs
b. Extended ROM: This is used by maufacturers to store their customizations etc. Another 20megs allocated for this
c. User storage: This is the space available for you to install programs, and for windows to bloat Thats 43megs that you find!
Hope this clears out
Cheers,
San

Thanks for you response having had an XDA for some time and then the MDA I was just quite suprised to see a Memory low warning message so quickly as I never saw one on the MDA3. I wanted to confirm that I wasn't having memory issues.

Where'd all my memory go?

Hey
I am new to the Universal, very new. Infact, I just got it today! After using an Alpine since it came out, I gotta say this brick is really kewl.
Just one thing, the specs say it has 64mb RAM and 128MB ROM. But looking in control panel, the Storage Memory is 43.50MB (not even close to the 128MB) and the Program Memory is a respectable 49MB. So where's it all gone? Or am I missing something?
Apart from this, I have one other major complaint. If I leave it on for a while doing nothing, it becomes extremely sluggish when I start using it again. I check the memory usage and suddenly I see 20mb of my program memory has 'vanished'. Memory Leak?
Please enlighten me.
Cheers Dudes

Come on People.......Help us newbies out
I really got no idea about WM5. Even a link to explain all this would be helpful
Please......
Cheers Dudes

There was a very good reply about this on MSDN sites. I remember seeing it on a RSS feed.
Anyways the long and short of it is that the OS (+ customisations by the operator) take up between 70 & 80 Mb, the rest is then available as storage.
As for the RAM, the radio and XIP modules are the culprits in this case.
The start of the article could be found on http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/11/17/494177.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/11/29/498154.aspx

moghisi101 said:
Come on People.......Help us newbies out
I really got no idea about WM5. Even a link to explain all this would be helpful
Please......
Cheers Dudes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude
if you had taken the time to read any of the forums since the release of the device, you will find hundreds of discussions on this, try looking around as some of us have answered these questions just to many time already, given the number of discussions, and your newbie status, you will find 98% of your answers and 90% of the answers you going to ask in the next few weeks, already well and truly discussed and exhausted.
s.

Ok, cheers dudes. I'll have a look around, but the search function on this forums is useless. You have to resort to browsing 100s of pages.
Anyhowz, I aint a complete n00b. I've had an Alpine for ages and had uber customised it to the last byte. Is the way the extended rom works similar to what I had on the Alpine?
Thanks again

Ok, cheers dudes. I'll have a look around, but the search function on this forums is useless. You have to resort to browsing 100s of pages.
Anyhowz, I aint a complete n00b. I've had an Alpine for ages and had uber customised it to the last byte. Is the way the extended rom works similar to what I had on the Alpine?
Thanks again

no, the search function is not useless, but you need to use SENSIBLE and descriptive search terms, otherwise you will get crap.

The Universal comes with 128MB ROM and 64MB RAM as compared to its predecessors who had the exact opposite.
The 128MB ROM is divided into 2 parts:
1) OS + Extended ROM (around 84MB)
2) Storage (remaining 43.5MB as shown above
The 64MB RAM is 90% available to run programs. As with the earlier version of the OS, there is no longer a provision to alter the memory allocated between storage and program memory. Of the 64MB RAM, around 15MB RAM is used for running the OS while the rest (47.93 MB) is left for running installed programs. This is more than enough to do multi-tasking without hiccups.
Hope this helps If you still have any queries about it, please feel free to ask.

Hi all,
just got my new qtek9000 and, after reading some of the excelent posts on this forum, found out that by disabling the cache of the file system (setting EnableCache to 0 in registry for FATFS) concerning both the extended rom and the sd card I could get back some RAM memory which was being taken for that effect - almost 5 MB.
Does anybody know if setting the EnableCache to 0 for the IMGFS can also be done without harming the system? It is taking another 8 MB and I would prefer to have them for running programs rather than for a very small gain in speed with that cache ... the thing is that I am not quite sure what the IMGFS stands for.
Thanks a lot.

Uni speed and ROMs

We use the Universal for speech systems for people with disabilities. However the speed of the device is marginal for us, because the system itself uses a massive (30%+) fraction of the processor time even when the system is at idle.
I've just been asked if using any alternate ROM images might help speed the device up much, and I haven't got a clue. Help!
Does anyone know if any of the ROM images that are out there makes a significant difference to the speed of the universal? Is there a ROM image around which completely removes all phone functionality (not all our users use the phone)?
I'd be very grateful for any guidance, before we start trying ROM images at random...
Stuart

Hello, first of all, -and I'm not sure about this- I think that the ROMs images are not available at this site's FTP anymore.
Then, if you can have a ROM, prefer the "plain vanilla" ones, unless you might need several extra programs, if you need speed, you need a light and simple ROM, there are several of them, from Helmi's, to Ivan's and others that I just can't remember now, look out in the posts and find a stable one to use, test it with your app until you think is the right one.
Alternatively you can increase your CPU's clock, but this drains the battery faster, a solution for this might be to install a larger battery, your use of the uni might permit all of these things.
I haven't tested any custom ROMs, but I have a friend with a uni that has installed in its uni a Helmi's ROM, I saw it, it seems quite speedier than my T-mobile one, he told me that the voice tags call fuction didn't work and something else, but, was it faster indeed.
bye

stuartaw said:
We use the Universal for speech systems for people with disabilities. However the speed of the device is marginal for us, because the system itself uses a massive (30%+) fraction of the processor time even when the system is at idle.
I've just been asked if using any alternate ROM images might help speed the device up much, and I haven't got a clue. Help!
Does anyone know if any of the ROM images that are out there makes a significant difference to the speed of the universal? Is there a ROM image around which completely removes all phone functionality (not all our users use the phone)?
I'd be very grateful for any guidance, before we start trying ROM images at random...
Stuart
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
have you tried to kill useless proggy at startup???
if you want i may be able to make a clean rom for you...
actually try increasing the pagingpool a simple hexedit on existing roms (wm6 section of this forum look for helmi's kitchen)

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
fallenczar said:
have you tried to kill useless proggy at startup???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried killing everything I can. The processor is occupied by one thread within devices.exe; and I can't really kill that process... Everything else had minimal/no impact.
Stuart

What application are you using to identify process usage? 30% sounds very high to me.

PaulMdx said:
What application are you using to identify process usage? 30% sounds very high to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The remote tools in Visual Studio. Shows 1%-4% processor usage at idle for other PDAs, 30-35% for TyTN and Universal (the only 2 HTC machines I had access to). I used the kernel tracker thing to track execution, and it was one particular thread in devices.exe which was both busy, and also, sometimes, thrashing around at <100 micro-s frequency.
This figure does fit with our other experiences. The particular speed problem we have is with a library which is spec-ed to work on any machine with 400Mhz+ processor. Works fine on other machines, including some quite old PDAs, but has 'issues' due to slow processor on the Universal and is simply unusable on the TyTN.
I couldn't find anything I could do to improve this in RAM - and a colleague asked if any of the alternate ROMs might help - and I've haven't got a clue, but hoped someone might know if any of the ROMs are visibly faster.
Stuart

Have you tried changing the default clock speed?
Hi Stuart,
I think there are a lot of applications out there which allow you to overclock and change the clock speed of Xscale CPU's. Things like XCPUScalar 2007. If you look at this thread(http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=304786)you should be able to find some useful information regarding scaling the CPU speed, hope this helps.
Will.

Useful Information for people new to XDA and Windows Mobiles

My first post.
First of all to all the seniors, gr8 forum u guys got here.
Second, it's got so much information I cant make head or tail of anything
I am going to be purchasing a HTC P3400i WM 6.0 version soon, most probably in the next week or so.
This is the first time am going to be using a WM device so I was trying to get a feel of things by reading through the posts here.
I have few questions,
1. What exactly is a ROM, why is it called so and will it void my warranty?
2. I understand it is possible to give the p3400i a "touchflow" look can i do it w/o using a "ROM".
3. When using a WM device what are the basic things that one should learn/understand/take care of??
4. Which posts should I go through and what order to understand the whole concept of WM devices, without actually experimenting with my own device.
5 Finally thanks in advance looking forward to your replies and guidance.
P.S: I sincerely hope my post is in the correct section, coz a lot of my questions are of the "General" category.

1. ROM is actually "Read Only files in your pda" ... Its actually the OS and its files running on your gadget........The default OS in p3400i or gene100 comes with lot of junk files and drivers and the RAM will not be sufficient to run all the new Programs....SO dvlpers are cooking faster ROMS than the default one by modifying these files and drivers..... also they make use of files from other faster devices.....YEs it will void your warranty... But normally all the software issues can be rectified.......
2.YEs u can give ur pda touch flo without using by softwares like.......M2D , SPB Mobile shell, Pointui......etc...etc.... But it will faster it will be better if its in a ROM....
3. There are many things.....one advice.....do a research before doing anything stupid on your device,...... Ask lot of questions and doubts...... dont get ur device bricked......
4.Read the Sticky Thread by Sumit before flashing........

Great answer go4thomman Here are my views :
1. A ROM actually is an image, much like images of CDs you create with burning software. It contains the Windows Mobile Operating system, Drivers to run your device as well as Manufacturer made programs to make the best use of device. All these things are packed into a single file, much like you do with zip files. Your phones contains 128 MB of memory for putting things on it. So to provide base functionality to the device, this ROM is written to that memory and that portion is made read only so that things like viruses (and humans ) don't mess around with the important files. The concept of ROM is there only to make this process simpler, as you don't have a CDROM drive in your mobile to pop a cd and install OS into it. Also a phone is expected to come in ready to use condition, not like a computer. So a ROM provides all the software related functionality to your phone. After that, rest of the remaining memory becomes your phone memory.
Device Manufacturers don't allow making custom roms and flashing them to phones as it makes it difficult for them to provide support. So they lock the device using their digital certificates as protection. This locking is done in the special part of the phone called the SPL (Second Program Loader) and the lock is called CID (Carrier IDentifier). SO to unlock the phone, you need to install a SPL that is CID unlocked but this is against the warranty policy of HTC or any other manufacturer for that matter. Plus the process is dangerous and if not done properly can make your device non functional, non booting also called a "Brick" coz the only thing you can then do with it is using it like the one
Fortunately, we have some really good people here who have developed safe unlocking methods as well as unbricking solutions for certain situations (but not all). Two such people that have worked for GENE SPL are Olipro (old gene) and Orefkov (new gene).
For more info regarding this and to know how to do it, ready the sticky post by me.
2. Touchflo refers to two things, Finger scrolling in applications and the Manilla 2D interface. Finger scrolling is something that you will find in recent versions of Windows Mobile OS. So if you upgrade to newer ROMs you will get it. There is also a 3rd party driver available called FTouchFLO but the older versions have problems and newer are not free.
The Manilla 2D interface, which HTC calls TouchFLO in its specs but manilla inside the ROM, is a Today plug in that allows accessing most of the phone functions without going through the usual Windows Mobile OS menus. This plugin is great, looks cool and works nicely. But its disk and ram footprints are quiet large. so HTC only uses it with devices which have 256 MB flash memory and 128 MB of RAM. It is possible to use this plugin on GENE but using it from phone memory is not recommended as it is way too slow that way. When it is cooked into the ROM, it takes half the space as ROM files are compressed and runs smoother. Cons of this plugin are that it acquires all of the screen space so you cant use any other plugin with it, it doesn't even allows to enable any other plugin, It hogs considerable amount of RAM, Decreases the battery backup by 5%, and is not easily customizable.
3. There is not much special you have to do to take care of this baby, its quiet sturdy. But do keep these things in mind:
a. Discharge the battery fully atleast once a week.
b. Use a good quality screen protector with the screen, never ever do cold lamination on the screen, it damages it. Also replace the protector every 6-8 months or so.
c. Avoid hard tapping on the screen, its quiet sensitive and if its not responding, its probably because software is hanging. Dont hit your hardware for that
d. Keep it away from liquids, get cold lamination on the rest of the body to avoid scratches.
e. Keep the volume at a point less than full, speaker sounds good that way.
f. Keep brightness and power settings to the minimum that you prefer, to save battery.
4. This is a forum not a book so i cannot recommend you any particular order, but do read things related to flashing and cooking as well as the threads related to ROMs in the gene section. Wiki is also a good place to learn things, as well as do keep an eye on General Discussions and Development and Hacking section for getting important information and software upgrades.
Always Search before you start a thread or be ready for flaming, respect other members, never demand things as you are not paying for anything and nobody owes you anything, And read thoroughly and between the lines before attempting anything with your phone.
Good luck!

One more thing, rename this thread to "Useful Information for people new to XDA and Windows Mobiles". That way, i guess i wont have to type it all again. You can rename you threads by double cliking besides the title of the thread in the list of threads.

Thanks a lot guys.

Benefits of the RAM tweak in HD2

Hi all,
First of all I was not sure where to post my question, so I decided to put it in General. I hope I made the right choice.
As for my question, I tried to Google this, but no clear answer.
What is the benefit of the RAM tweak (576Mg)? Does it really give something more than just bragging rights?
And, is it possible to make a change to a ROM that does not have this (before flashing it) to enable the more RAM? (and can it be done by someone that is not a chef)
I am ask this because I like to use the Artemis PTG ROM. I like how clean, updated and smooth it is, but I have had some times happen to me that I would get an error when having some programs running in the background and trying to open the camera, that it would not open due to being low on RAM. Many people asked the developer to implement it, but he does not think it is an issue, so I ask if it can be done, and how hard it would be?
Thanks for bearing with me.

you can't apply it to a rom that has already been cooked.
You need to make the change in the kitchen before pressing 'cook'.
Whilst the extra ram is handy for bragging rights, and ram disks, the regular ram should be easily capable of running the hd2 without maxing out.
Low memory warnings are usually not really connected to the amount of free ram, they are usually more about a program not handling its memory allocation correctly.

Thank you very much for your reply, it was very strait to the point and elucidating. I will update the ROM I am using with the newer version that came out, and hopefully it low RAM warning will be gone.