[Q] Can't find the right HTC tweak... - General Questions and Answers

So,
I have and HTC Titan, and I've done a bunch of stuff to it, including getting aGPS and Touchflo, etc. Three things about it, though, have irked me for the duration of owning it, and the only thing preventing me from doing a whole ROM flash was that I was not too far from my "new every two" deal on Verizon. Well, I am now eligible for an upgrade, but I am too poor to get a "cool" new phone, because I can't pay for data...I thought about going for the Kin2m, which now does not require a plan, but...it seems like that would be a mistake. So, for the time being, I am sticking with my xv6800, and I am wondering if anyone can please help me out with the three items below:
1) Volume! I have tried tweaking the registry to no avail. No matter what I do, I can't get the volume loud enough on calls. I can't make calls outside or where there is any noise.
2) Speed...it lags when I do anything. I would get rid of Touchflo, but it doesn't seem to make much difference --still laggy. My laptop has the ability to use a flash card for RAM...is this possible with a phone?
3) Interface...this is least important, but it just seems like it would be nice if it operated like a touchscreen phone (since it is touchscreen). If I use opera-mobile, it works just like an Iphone...is there any way to get the same functionality on an HTC phone (like, flick around menus with ease)?
Is there a ROM out there that will definitively solve the above problems, or am I truly doomed to a sad, sad existence..?
Please help!

Related

TouchFlo Crashing

Hi
Only had my Orbit 2 for a few days and already there are quite a few problems with it...most of which got resolved so not too bothered there
However there is one problem that I cant fix. Sometimes when I bring up the TouchFLO it will crash on the screen with the radio, copilot, alarm, etc. The text under the icons does not load and the only way to get out of it is by pressing the end call key.
Soft reset doesnt solve the problem, it did once but only temporarily.
Hard reset has solved it (don't know if the problem will come again), wouldn't mind too much about that except I did a hard reset about 2 days ago for another reason so it is clear the device is just screwing up somehow. I barely installed much software on it.
So i've only hard resetted once to see if I can solve the problem and so far its worked. Hope its not temporary.
If anyone could help me I'd be grateful
(P.S. The button with the end call key and 'OK' is a bit loose, I can jiggle it about slightly left and right...)
Never had this many problems with my Artemis and for a device worth over £300 (over $600) I really think this is unacceptable. First the drivers, and now small problems which screw up the device totally. HTC are messing up big time and I think with all their negative feedback O2 might just cut down on buying their products.
The only time I've ever had Touch Flo, well, the Touch Cube crash was due to my installing City Time Alarms. After uninstalling, everything went back to normal. Maybe a specific app was causing your woes?
I installed an old version of SKTools and did a registry cleanup, maybe that had something to do with it... It did delete a whole lot of stuff..
I remember the problem only occured after I installed SKtools. I did do a hard reset earlier today and that was because the device became slow.. but nothing to do with TouchFlo.
Anyway I have hard reset the device now so I should not be getting any more problems from it..
But I am getting worried about the deivce though, there are so many bugs with it! Like today when the alarm went off to wake me up, the GPRS was turned on for about 56 minutes and I was definately asleep so I couldn't have turned it on!
I am scared to install a program on it incase that likes to mess up my device!
Also, is it normal for the right buttons (end call/OK) to be a BIT wonky? Like you can move it a bit from left to right? They work perfectly fine and I doubt they will suddenly detach or something! If you shake the device you CANNOT hear the slighlty wonky keys or anything, but just got a bit worried cos the other keys opposite it (pickup/windows) is not wonky at all...
This device is not worth £300
At most I would say it is worth £250
It is just so full of bugs and I have never had these kinds of problems with the other 4 PDAs that I have owned in the past. The more higher tech you go, the more unreliable the device becomes. My XDA II which I owned about 2 years ago was the most reliable I've ever had. HTC are really screwing it up and I think they are more interested in their money than their customers. I hope they screw up big time and I mean big time. If it wasn't for XDA-Developers they would have been out of business a long, looong time ago.
With regards to HTC, they didn't screw up. Sounds to me, just like anything you buy, you got a lemon. I would exchange it for another unit, not only for the system instability but also the "defective" (loose) button.
I bought the item off eBay so I cannot return it
The button is fine though, its nothing major it only moves ever so slightly and I dont think theres any problem with it. It works perfectly fine, I shouldn't really have mentioned it in the first place!
The system instability is normal though I am sure, look at what other problems people are having with their devices that get resolved every day.
O2/HTC doesnt expect lots of users to install custom ROMS (well I haven't) or edit the registry so the devices will be more user friendly and if you play about with that it can screw up.
I thought the device is kinda bad but I guess i'm happy with it, If I just use it normally and stop trying new things out on it and stop using programs like SK tools (lol) then I'll be fine. And if I have any small problems I am sure they can get resolved on here.
Anyways I am only 15 so I am going to be happy with what i've got lol!
prank1 said:
Hi
Only had my Orbit 2 for a few days and already there are quite a few problems with it...most of which got resolved so not too bothered there
However there is one problem that I cant fix. Sometimes when I bring up the TouchFLO it will crash on the screen with the radio, copilot, alarm, etc. The text under the icons does not load and the only way to get out of it is by pressing the end call key.
Soft reset doesnt solve the problem, it did once but only temporarily.
Hard reset has solved it (don't know if the problem will come again), wouldn't mind too much about that except I did a hard reset about 2 days ago for another reason so it is clear the device is just screwing up somehow. I barely installed much software on it.
So i've only hard resetted once to see if I can solve the problem and so far its worked. Hope its not temporary.
If anyone could help me I'd be grateful
(P.S. The button with the end call key and 'OK' is a bit loose, I can jiggle it about slightly left and right...)
Never had this many problems with my Artemis and for a device worth over £300 (over $600) I really think this is unacceptable. First the drivers, and now small problems which screw up the device totally. HTC are messing up big time and I think with all their negative feedback O2 might just cut down on buying their products.
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Click to collapse
I had the same problem. You actually have to let it sit for about 10 mins and it will load. If you close it, it might freeze for another 10 mins. After some time, the problem went away for reasons I cannot explain. Then, every time I select a button on the cube, the cube closes and I have to reopen it every time I want to use it.
Also, the bugs related with the "Word Completion" option, which does not function correctly, gave me a miserable experience with writing and typing. It slowed my writing and typing because I constantly have to correct bad guesses. I cannot turn it off either because the "Word Completion" option does not work. Sure I could go into the registry and mitigate the problem, but I returned it as a manufacturer defect.
I assume it will go back to HTC and I hope it will result in a response to fix the problems. For >$800 after tax, I would expect the purchase to function correctly.
Hi
Yes the word completion is annoying, I can't turn it off either. It is annoying when you write smaller words such as 'sed' as opposed to 'said', the word completion decides to change it.. It is really annoying especially when you have to type on the move. Not to mention it uses up a whole lot of characters when you try to said a text message. It is much easier and quicker to write 'thru', it uses only 4 characters whereas the proper spelling of the word 'through' uses up 7 - nearly double. With a limit of 160 characters per message you will find that you will quickly reach that limit. I have quite a lot of free texts so I do not mind much but I hate it when it puts the incorrect word in the place!
Also with your TouchFLO problem, did you try hard resetting the device? I found that if you play about with the registry the phone quickly messes up. That is understandable but harmless registry modifications such as the 'ShowSIM' can even screw up your phone!
If a problem appears on my device can I give it to O2 to repair for a fee -- I do not have a warentee so if they agree to fix it for a fee only then that seems fair.
prank1 said:
I installed an old version of SKTools and did a registry cleanup, maybe that had something to do with it... It did delete a whole lot of stuff..
I remember the problem only occured after I installed SKtools.
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Click to collapse
prank1 said:
Hi
I found that if you play about with the registry the phone quickly messes up. That is understandable but harmless registry modifications such as the 'ShowSIM' can even screw up your phone!
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Click to collapse
Maybe its just me, but while programs like sktools can simplify your life, I really hate the idea of a non-device specific program tweaking my registry. I like to do it myself so that I know exactly what goes in, and I can assess exactly what comes out. FYI: I've never had a crash due to registry mods (but in my early days (pre-Touch Cruise) of installing random cabs and fixes I did get crashes).
prank1 said:
...Also with your TouchFLO problem, did you try hard resetting the device?
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Click to collapse
Just soft resets. I didn't want to wait 10+ hours to resync my emails, contacts, etc after a hard reset.

This phone is starting to become a pain....

I was excited when I got this phone, everything was going cool and all that....
The battery is the worst thing I have ever seen. I've tried all the radios, got all the power tweaks applied, I get down to 75% battery on EDGE, only texting in less than 5 hours. WTF is this? Is this a joke? It's not even funny! And not to mention the unreliabilty of the phone. I plan to send an email to HTC and ATT to see if I can work out anything. Never buying a phone from HTC again.
I think it's your rom. I get through a full day on H no problem. Which roms have you tried?
Also it could be radio and what most likely is the signal strength. As weaker the signal, as more power required to compensate.
WAAAAHHHH! Don't buy a smart phone then.
I get a full days use. About 2 hours of music playing, signed into an IM client and do some msg and talking and still have 75% at the end of the day.
My guess that its your rom, but i am betting you didn't change the setting in HTC's task manager.
Go to Settings > system > Task manager and change the close action button actually close the buttom. The default action for WM task manager and HTC task manager is to minimize or hide the apps.
So let's say i open WMPlayer, Google Maps, Contacts, Text, Microsoft word. I hit the X, but if i don't change that setting, when i press the X, those programs are still running consuming battery and memory.
Try making sure no unneeded tasks are running and update your radio to 1.14.25.05, and Da_G's 6.5 rom and lets see how ya do next week.
PwnCakes193 said:
I was excited when I got this phone, everything was going cool and all that....
The battery is the worst thing I have ever seen. I've tried all the radios, got all the power tweaks applied, I get down to 75% battery on EDGE, only texting in less than 5 hours. WTF is this? Is this a joke? It's not even funny! And not to mention the unreliabilty of the phone. I plan to send an email to HTC and ATT to see if I can work out anything. Never buying a phone from HTC again.
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Click to collapse
Yo PwnCakes193..
I feel yur agony.. I used to experience shi tty battery life too.. My raphael can only sustained for like 5 hours.. without battery draining applications like music player even running..
However, Things took a turn when i flashed my raphael to the following rom and radio:
ROM Version: ROMeOS v1.95.4 WWE
Radio: 1.12.25.19 (With matching rilphone version)
It is so much better now !! I have calls and sms coming in while Garmin GPS is running for like an hour with battery dropping only 15% from 100% to 75%... !! And i **** u not.. And by the way.. my raphael's been with me for like 5 months now.. I'm loving it more each day..
Good luck and hav fun!
Too advanced for you?
PwnCakes193 said:
I was excited when I got this phone, everything was going cool and all that....
The battery is the worst thing I have ever seen. I've tried all the radios, got all the power tweaks applied, I get down to 75% battery on EDGE, only texting in less than 5 hours. WTF is this? Is this a joke? It's not even funny! And not to mention the unreliabilty of the phone. I plan to send an email to HTC and ATT to see if I can work out anything. Never buying a phone from HTC again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well go buy an iPhone and stop cluttering our forum. They are made for the mainstream trendy techno gadget people who cant solve their own problems, but still want to look cool and smart in public when they pull out their phone. Neither ATT or HTC is going to change their whole hardware because of your e-mail.
Do you even realize what youre saying? Do you listen to yourself when you talk? First off, anyone that knows how to use their phone, and sets up the correct ROM/RIL/Radio combination gets a full day charge off of it, sometimes even a couple days. Second, do you realize that is a small PC in your pocket, and youre complaining about battery life?? Have you ever used a laptop? You know that brand new laptops only get 2-3 hours of battery life right?
Really, go get a regular phone, HTC phones are not made for everyone, and apparently this one is too complicated for you.
I echo what's been said in above posts and would add as a suggestion only to try the new htc rom with the 1.14.xx radio both are the latest from htc. Boring I know, but very stable. Don't throw your device away without trying it. The custom roms can be frustrating as they can be unstable at times, but very fun to tweak and experiment with.It sounds like yourmore a user who wants stability over the rest. Go to htc site and search for latest rom, try that 1.14 radio and report back.
I use a 1800 mAh battery in my pro and I always charge everynight. Not a big deal. I also have prolly less than the 75% you reported at the same time, another not a big deal. "it is what it is" You can adapt or you can get a diff phone. I have an LG dumb phone my work supplies me for calls only, that battery lasts 2 weeks . LOL!!
wow, harsh words.
It's not like this complaint is an isolated one. There are other forums out there(AT&T, and Howard) that have the same observations about battery life. To say that it is a portable pc and that someone should be happy with 6-8 hours of battery life is pretty silly too. It is a smartphone, like the blackberry, like the treo, like the blackberry. And when people complained about the battery life of the Iphone, it's not like everyone said, deal with it. Apple released another firmware to try and remedy this. Blackberrys seem to go for a couple if not more days without charging with 3G, push email etc running, so why would this not be expected from the Fuze?
I own both the Tilt and the Fuze and find I can squeeze out about 3 days with push email, a bluetooth headset, about an hour or two a day of listening to music through the headset and 3G enabled. The Fuze is supposed to be the successor of the tilt, so wouldn't it be logical to think i should be able to do the same with this product? I have flashed several different roms and radios(with the rilphone.dll) and right now cannot get past 8 hours of usage on it. I thought it was the radio but I have tested it without a sim in it and get the same results. So either the battery is faulty, or it just stinks.
I am going through troubleshooting it right now, and based on some helpful hints on other forums, am trying to discharge the battery fully in hopes that it resets the battery guage.
I think helpful posts, like those that say try a new radio/rom are good ways to respond. Saying "go get an Iphone" or "this is a ppc, deal with the battery" are not helpful to people who search the forums for solutions.
Just my 2(maybe a lot more) cents
Reefermattness said:
Well go buy an iPhone and stop cluttering our forum. They are made for the mainstream trendy techno gadget people who cant solve their own problems, but still want to look cool and smart in public when they pull out their phone. Neither ATT or HTC is going to change their whole hardware because of your e-mail.
Do you even realize what youre saying? Do you listen to yourself when you talk? First off, anyone that knows how to use their phone, and sets up the correct ROM/RIL/Radio combination gets a full day charge off of it, sometimes even a couple days. Second, do you realize that is a small PC in your pocket, and youre complaining about battery life?? Have you ever used a laptop? You know that brand new laptops only get 2-3 hours of battery life right?
Really, go get a regular phone, HTC phones are not made for everyone, and apparently this one is too complicated for you.
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Click to collapse
Really? Listen a**hole, I know what I'm dealing with. I'm running the 21210 build of 6.5 that I cooked in Da_G's Kitchen with the .20M1 radio AND RIL. Yes, I know i'm being picky, but a phone should last at least a little while, no matter what. I get a full day charge, but just texting and no calling, on EDGE, I should easily be down to 85% in 24 hours. I know it's a small PC, but that is no excuse. I am a mainstream tech savvy person, and I mod/hack everything I own, use everything to it's full potential. I don't want an iPhone because its an overhyped and, in my opinion, horrible phone. I was never trying to look cool when I bought this phone. I even helped a few members out here when they bricked their phones, and I taught a few how to cook ROMs!
Next time think before you post, you troll.
baboola said:
I think it's your rom. I get through a full day on H no problem. Which roms have you tried?
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Click to collapse
I have tried almost all the ROMs, my favorite being At0mAng's, but he's gone now . I'm cooking my own 6.5 ROMs now
The Fuze is supposed to be the successor of the Tilt? I guess according to the order that ATT purchased their HTC phones, but probably not according to HTC...
The HTC Touch Pro is the successor of the Diamond. Just because ATT replaced the Tilt with the Fuze does not mean its the successor. Tmobile is calling the TP2 the "Wing 2" in America, does that mean it's the successor to the wing?? NO. If anything most hardcore HTC follower will agree the TP2 is the successor to the Tilt (kinda obvious isn't it?).
Regardless of what order they came in, or what phone its supposed to replace, the Fuze has a bigger processor, twice as much ram, and twice as high resolution LCD. Its hard to compare the 2 on battery life. My Tilt gets a faster GPS lock, and the battery lasts way longer, than the Fuze. Does that mean its better? NO.
If you're such a badass 'hacker' then you should obviously understand how much power the hardware in your device uses vs the size of the battery.
I'm the troll? You joined XDA a month ago....
If you have an honest question where you need help then please ask, and im sure someone will help you get MUCH better battery life! All i really meant by what i was saying before i got sidetracked, is that if you don't like your HTC products, or it doesn't fit your lifestyle like you thought it would, then take it back, and get something else. Just don't come into a HTC forum, and start badmouthing products, because that will get you nowhere, and you should have been expecting the answer you got.
I'm with leak73 on this one. I think this forum is great, but I do think there are too many people that jump on someone as soon as they say anything negative about this phone.
I bought this phone to make my life easier, to manage work and personal tasks on the same device. I thought this device was the one I had been waiting for.
I am also disappointed with the performance of the Raphael. And I don't think it should be asking too much to expect the device to work properly straight out of the box. Yes, I appreciate that this is a windows mobile device that has massive flexibility and can be customised, but those possibilites should be in addition to a stock device that does the basics properly.
I have had a number of issues with the phone - battery life, dailer issues, poor reception (and I know this can contribute to poor battery life, but why should it be so much worse than other devices I have used in the same areas?).
The members on this forum have helped me out a lot over the past few months (which I am very grateful for) tweaking and trying to get this phone to be what it should have been in the first place. And while I am now enjoying tweaking and customising my phone, I will never criticise anyone who points out the shameful fact that this device is virtually unusable without putting time and effort into sorting it out.
Reefermattness said:
If you're such a badass 'hacker' then you should obviously understand how much power the hardware in your device uses vs the size of the battery.
I'm the troll? You joined XDA a month ago....
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Click to collapse
Where'd you get badass? I just said I hacked/modded a lot of the things I owned.... I haven't gotten into the processing specs and all that stuff yet...
And since when does being a troll have to do with what time you joined? I have yet to troll on this forum, I have either asked questions, or have helped people who are having trouble....
jjjacksonjjj said:
I'm with leak73 on this one. I think this forum is great, but I do think there are too many people that jump on someone as soon as they say anything negative about this phone.
I bought this phone to make my life easier, to manage work and personal tasks on the same device. I thought this device was the one I had been waiting for.
I am also disappointed with the performance of the Raphael. And I don't think it should be asking too much to expect the device to work properly straight out of the box. Yes, I appreciate that this is a windows mobile device that has massive flexibility and can be customised, but those possibilites should be in addition to a stock device that does the basics properly.
I have had a number of issues with the phone - battery life, dailer issues, poor reception (and I know this can contribute to poor battery life, but why should it be so much worse than other devices I have used in the same areas?).
The members on this forum have helped me out a lot over the past few months (which I am very grateful for) tweaking and trying to get this phone to be what it should have been in the first place. And while I am now enjoying tweaking and customising my phone, I will never criticise anyone who points out the shameful fact that this device is virtually unusable without putting time and effort into sorting it out.
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Click to collapse
I hear that, I can relate as I've had my s**t jumped a few times on this forum as well and I always learned from it. I'm not an expert at all and thats the reason I come here to learn about my various wm devices, currently the touch pro. I undestand the issues especially with battery and stability.Except for battery I don't have any complaints that you mention. My RF which I value as a number 1 priority is very good. No dialer issues here either. I also think it would be nice to have perfectly operating devices right out of the box and considering what we pay for these things, it seems we should get better. In my experience all the wm devices I've ever had have had inadequate batteries. It's just the way it is. I did not expect my pro to be any diff. in that regard. I got it anyway and bought a better battery. In the past few weeks I've tried various 6.5 roms with differing results and none were very stable. It's the way it is and I don't really expect it to be better, but I love it anyway. I've used symbian s60 nokia devices and thought some of the e series have outstanding stability and battery life. So I have choices.
My choice is to continue learning and I'll get extended batteries when I think I need it. When I get tired of the wm BS I'll go back to E series for awhile.
For anyone who is calling themselves proficient in wm and the various ins and outs of flashing and obviously has some experience apparently, I find it kinda strange that they would be surprised by the battery life. Stability can be had from diff rom combos. But bad battery life is a given with wm. we get used to it and move on or go check out e series. It also rocks! Lotsa choices.
Maybe I am one of the unluck ones that have experienced more than my fair share of problems. I have had more issues than I mentioned in my last post - obviously the GPS problem, keyboard lag (although it seams to be fixed now with tweaking), dodgy call acceptance/ring delay (this seems sorted in the new HTC Rom), active sync issues (not sure if this is the software though) and the general lock up issues.
Don't get me wrong though when this device works it is everything I hoped for, I just wish it worked like that all (or at least most) of the time.
jjjacksonjjj said:
Maybe I am one of the unluck ones that have experienced more than my fair share of problems. I have had more issues than I mentioned in my last post - obviously the GPS problem, keyboard lag (although it seams to be fixed now with tweaking), dodgy call acceptance/ring delay (this seems sorted in the new HTC Rom), active sync issues (not sure if this is the software though) and the general lock up issues.
Don't get me wrong though when this device works it is everything I hoped for, I just wish it worked like that all (or at least most) of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what tweaks did you apply to fix the keyboard lag?
wow, boys, calm down. *****ing at each other is oh so productive. maybe we could try to HELP each other out and be friends! just a thought...
i'm getting maybe 12 hours on a full charge running the leaked att stock rom and it's really starting to tick me off. i bought a portable power pack that can give me a full charge on its full charge (Xpal harry II) but i want to be able to get AT LEAST a full day without having to pop it onto a usb or wall charger for 20 minutes. im thinknig of flashing to da_g's or natf's 6.1 roms witihn the next couple weeks hoping that they'd be able to improve my battery life. i'm pretty happy with the radio and i'm in boston so no major signal issues there. maybe it's just a sh*tty rom draining my battery?
and now that i wasted 10 minutes reading this thread, i'm giong to go back to studying for finals. joy.
EDIT: I installed the fuzeberry theme a week or two ago and that's caused a TF3D problem (see my thread here about this here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=511760) but is there any chance that THIS is also killing my battery? hate the att manila but i might have to revert back if it gets me more hours :\
PwnCakes193 said:
what tweaks did you apply to fix the keyboard lag?
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Click to collapse
****, sorry mate I can't remember now, I changed a setting in the registry and installed a keyboardincrease cab? Maybe others on here will be able to point you in the right direction. I am a noob at this type of stuff really and just follow instructions that members on here suggest - once the problems fixed I forget about it.
nhshah7-
try using a 6.5 ROM I cooked now, it's doing fairly well, i would Hard-SPL, then try and flash a new radio or ROM, should help you out, turn off 3G, which should help. Also download advanceconfig and turn on the power saving items there.
FWIW, I have never had good results with the gps, but since I flashed the htc 5.05.401.1 with radio: 1.14.25.05 I now get very quick lock times. Also battery is a bit better even tho I'm running shell3.

Post PHONE rom's

I am wondering if this is a valid idea....
When my TILT stopped getting on the network I switched to a new phone, but I still have mostly functional TILT with software like TOMTOM on it.
I have as best I can turned off as many phone features as I can... but it seems there might be some use for a ROM with the phone stuff disabled [to save power and prevent calls that will screw up your current phone situation] and leaving the device usable as a small MID with wifi.
I mean, these things cost lots of money and it seems silly to just toss them out... I can still use my TILT as a GPS, media player, games, sketching, lots, really, in fact I rarely used it's phone features before...

[Q] Should I Flash? If So, Where to?

Hey All,
Pardon this fundamental query. Just looking for basic layman's counsel. I've had a Sprint TP2 for under 1 year; it's the best I can do on my $30 SERO plan without paying more for access to newer phones. I've been basically content, as I only use it for texting, email, GPS/Google Maps, light occasional web surfing, and music --> bluetooth FM transmitter --> car stereo (plus the rare actual phone call. I actually hate talking on the phone, but sometimes ya gotta just do some talkin'). I had the first TP before this, and I did flash it other ROMs, although I was never 100% convinced that there was much real improvement. I've noticed that the GPS is consistently inferior on the TP2 than it was on the original TP; it can never pinpoint my locale with any greater accuracy than within about 1/4mi, which is kinda ridiculous. The TP got me within a few hundred feet. I figure this is a hardware issue, though, as I've never found a .cab or app that can fix that on the TP2.
So, the TP2 can be a tad sluggish, sometimes a tad buggy, but it gets the job done. I recently took a trip to Florida (from CT) and my phone completely stopped working; froze up, lost track of time, couldn't get into SD card, couldn't get online -- nothing. Took it into Sprint and they wiped and reinstalled everything, now it's back to normal. I bought it used on eBay after all, and turned off the insurance within a few months, so I'm on my own; Sprint won't replace or do anything if I brick it or if anything else happens.
I'm about to get a 7" Android 2.2 tablet that I intend to use for web/games/GPS/movies, and will install a .cab on the TP2 that hopefully allows me to use it as a wifi hotspot. Other than that, I can't see much real need to do any tinkering, but there's this whole world of excitement around custom ROMs and Android, and so I have to ask -- is it mainly for techie satisfaction, or are there genuine gains to be made? Could my TP2 really be made into a better device even for my simple purposes? Would flashing make my GPS work better, my music sound better, my 3G or wifi web experience faster, or my general OS more stable while traveling? Will it make my device live longer?
I don't mean to question the very raison d'être of the culture that abounds on this and other sites. Just wondering if y'all think its necessary for a guy like me to go messing with this stuff.

[Q] Should I consider a custom ROM yet?

So I'm looking over the current options and right now it's not really looking like it's promising. I have my Galaxy S3 rooted and with the help of tools like TitantiumBackup I've managed to clean up the stock ROM pretty well. Another thing of note is I actually get some surprisingly good sound quality out of my SGS3. I realize the US models aren't supposed to have the Wolfson DAC, but somehow mine sounds absolutely incredible with no noise that I can hear or anything (it's enough that I've been wondering if Samsung might have slipped the Wolfson into this one and perhaps there is variance in the DACs actually being used.) It even drives my headphones (modified HD555s -- basically you can consider them to be like the HD595s since of course I did the foam mod, but with the soundstage mod and a custom cable they're actually a bit better possibly) extremely well. It's worth noting that I have frozen the built in equalizer or whatever it was that I thought seemed like it was meant to mess with the sound (I like my devices to produce a relatively neutral sound.) Despite some complaints out there, I actually like the sound out from my US model SGS3 better than things like my Cowon D2 (which, btw, has a Wolfson DAC) and don't even use my CMoy (which has an AD8620 OPAMP that makes it sound far better than a typical OPA2132 CMoy IMO at only the cost of a bit of battery life) which I love the sound of because to me it sounds amazing on its own.
I only mention all of this because while I'm not a true audiophile per se, quality is of extreme importance to me all the same and I'm reading of issues with sound in the current custom ROMs which is not something I'm ok with. I want it to continue to sound this amazing. The idea of losing sound quality with a custom ROM bothers me. I like the idea of a few of the updates like Project Butter (though it's worth noting that mine does run fairly smoothly since I keep the number of programs running all the time as minimal as I can) and I really like the idea of having a custom ROM where I could maybe tweak more things (perhaps including better battery life options like maybe a better CPU governor built in? It drives me crazy how much my phone can run down over just a few hours while the screen is off even with SetCPU set to set the CPU to 384MHz and switch to the powersave governer with WiFi and mobile data both disabled and me not receiving any calls or texts.) For that matter, even while on it's not helping as much as it seems like it should, but I can't help but to notice that there are some more advanced CPU governors that I don't seem to have as an option and I wonder if perhaps a custom ROM could even help there as well. Plus I just plain like being able to tweak more things to my exact preferences instead and again a custom ROM helps. But, if I have to give up that sound quality that's a big problem. I think also it might be a problem to lose the camera. I don't use it a lot, but every now and then I really do kind of want to have it. Especially it would absolutely suck to lose the ability to scan QR codes or to have to do so via the front camera, but every now and then I do take some actual photos to share.
So my question is, have any of the custom ROM options out there reached that level of stability and quality to actually be worth updating and without losing those two things? The SGS3 has been out a fair while now, so it's hard for me to believe that there hasn't been a bit more progress along these lines, but I realize that it's no simple process to create a custom ROM all the same. (In fact, I only think more progress would have been made than what I've read thus far because the SGS3 is just so very popular. If it had been a less popular phone I wouldn't necessarily expect that much, but between its features, hardware, and etc, it's a pretty popular phone.) I want all the benefits of a custom ROM, but what I've read so far of them says to me that it's just not worth the trouble. Once I find one that really works I kind of want to stick to it as much as I can as I have a lot of apps installed and configured just so for my preferences. It sounds like I'm going to have to wait a good while yet though. Or have any of the custom ROMs finally "gotten there yet"?
ive been using CM10 roms for daily use and tehy do everything i need them to do without any limitations.
i suggest you make a nandroid of all your current setup and play with some custom roms. you can always revert back if you dont liek it or cant configure them match your usage. it made my S3 experience much better, btu everyone is dfferent.
---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 PM ----------
there are also sound mods and stuff that are accessible with ROMs. ive never tried them but some people swear by them
You don't have any sound issues of any kind? Does the rear camera work perfectly?
BTW, I don't want any sound mod that actually changes the sound. I want it to basically leave the sound alone and produce it as well as it can without modification. None of that Beats or whatever like some do (I think that was what HTC was pushing?)
beats is a sound thing, yeah. it hink its just an equalizer though. i have used audio through headphone jack and over bluetooth to my headphones and the quality is fine for me. im not an audiophile though. it all kinda sounds the same to me lol
the only sound issues i have with my ROM are after flash some sounds do not function until you slide the volume slider from 100 to 0 then to 100 again. Its these types of quirks that come with custom rom sometimes.
my camera is working perfectly. its not as good as the touchwiz one however.
edit: heres a sound mod that might/might not interest you
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1883262
long as you do a nandroid you can always revvert back to your preferred current setup. you should also backup your IMEI
There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.
I actually prefer to avoid all sound modifications whatsoever. Even equalizer. I like the results of a relatively neutral sound being fed to these headphones, it comes out just perfect for me. That's part of what I was worried about as some of the custom ROMs sometimes try to have stuff like that built in (and I guess that equalizer or whatever it was was Samsung or Verizon kind of doing that in the stock ROM even.)
About the camera, I actually have a commercial camera app anyway. If the only problem people have been having was the built-in app, that's a non-issue.
What's this about sounds not working until you go to zero and back though? Does this interfere with anything such as receiving phone calls (eg does it sometimes not ring because the sound isn't playing?)
BTW, where do I actually find the "official" CM10 for this phone?
no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
http://get.cm/?device=d2vzw&type=snapshot
i think that these M builds are the monthyl most stable ones.
Personally I'm waiting for something built on the official VZW JB release. And yes I know I have months to wait... :-\
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus. Qualcom is making the best arm chips right now. Can't wait to see how insane the 4 core S4 is!
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH MY FELLOW MEMBERS WHEN IT COMES TO AVOIDING ALL THOSE STUPID AUDIO MODS LIKE BEATS AND SOME OTHERS OUT THERE. THEY SUCK AND DISTORT THE AUDIO!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
ddurandSGS3 said:
no the sound works all the time after the adjustment. it takes 2 secodns to do. open volume, slide them all to 100, then all to 0, then all to 100 again.
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Ah, have I misunderstood? Do you just mean it only needs this to be done after the initial flash of the custom firmware itself? That's definitely no big deal at all...
prdog1 said:
There are roms that are optimized stock. Maybe CleanRom. Don't think he adds sound mods but may be wrong. You may have used app to underclock CPU and it shows UC but probably not actually working on stock kernel as clocking must be enabled on kernel. Know this is true with overclocking.
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Well, I want to try to do this just once or at least no more than minor updates after this hopefully, so if I'm going to go ahead I want to go ahead and go straight to Jelly Bean.
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
mike216 said:
There is no DAC from Wolfson but yes it sounds kick ass! Qualcom is a beast! There S4 chip is there pride and joy so they didn't want to lag behind when it comes to quality audio! God does it sound so much better then my galaxy nexus.
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Interesting... I do definitely wonder why some people have complained about hearing noise and such then. Perhaps a bad setting and/or that MusicFX app (finally had time to dig through the list to find out what exactly it was called and that's the one that I just assumed was probably an equalizer/effects processing thing that would modify the sound, but honestly I never had any use for it even if it's not and never bothered to try it.) I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks that the US SGS3 actually sounds good. I was beginning to wonder if my ears were maybe just getting that bad somehow even though I'm still far pickier than everyone I personally know, lol.
Let me ask you this, is the so called "Voodoo Mod" any good at least? I was never clear on exactly what it was supposed to do for audio. I know things like Beats probably mostly rely on a bit of processing to increase bass and probably play with things like stereo separation or something, but I've never been clear on what that one was trying to do exactly other than that people claim it's actually an improvement for many devices.
Anyway, back on the topic at hand, I think I'm more or less convinced to at least go ahead and give CM10 a shot. I'll use that newer monthly build from earlier this month after clearing enough space to make a full backup. (Besides CWM's backup option I've already backed up my apps and settings using TitaniumBackup, so in a worst case scenario it shouldn't be too painful if things go wrong and I have to go all the way back to a stock image with a factory reset or something. Is that option in CWM the correct thing, or must I use something separate for a Nandroid backup?) Also, it may sound silly, but how exactly do I backup my IMEI? I was looking for that already upon digging through a large tutorial thread a while back and it seemed to require something I couldn't get to work (when I try the numbers mentioned in the dialer I don't get any hidden menus, just a dialtone. Other than that I could only find something about manually restoring it if it has been completely damaged or lost which wasn't a fun looking process.)
Nazo said:
I think SetCPU wouldn't be sold as only requiring root access to do its work if it required a custom kernel. It probably just works with the internal power management features that should be built in more or less by default.
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It is sold that way. Depends on the manufacturer of the device. On stock HTC kernel it will lock 2nd core at max speed, kill battery life and cause heating problems. That is why I said it may not work correctly and without another app to monitor CPU you don't know what it is doing. How it works with Samsung I wouldn't know as I run custom kernels when possible and don't worry about clocking on stock kernels as they are under performing already.
Don't restore system apps with titanium backup! Only data apps (apps from the market)
CM is great good choice. I love the theme engine CM10 has and all CM10 based roms.
I'll tell you a super easy way to backup your IMEI! Need Root!
Download (terminal emulator)
Enter these commands. su (hit enter)
reboot nvbackup (hit enter)
It will reboot and create the backup on a built in backup partition on your SD card. The only way you could delete the backup is if you formated your SD. Super easy I just hope it works lol....
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Two quick questions before I take the final plunge.
1. Is the CWM backup to external flash function sufficient, or do I need something further for a true backup? (It says "Nandroid" in one part, but otherwise I'm not sure if it's truly "Nandroid." It seems like it just backs up each individual file or something and I get the impression that Nandroid is more of an image of the firmware? If it isn't sufficient, what should I use?
EDIT: Found this tutorial. Basically that's what I've done except instead of bothering with Odin I used the EZ-Recovery app to flash CWM directly from the phone itself (along with EZ-Unlock 1.2 from here to unlock the bootloader) as per another tutorial. The other tutorial just didn't call it a "Nandroid" backup, so I wasn't sure.
2. If anything goes wrong, is there a stock ROM image I can use for the Verizon SCH-I535 with Odin? So far my searching has taken me to a site that practically has every stock ROM for the SGS3 but that one... (Or at least if it has that one I couldn't find it on there, which isn't saying much since every single region was listed separately...)
The best way to get recovery is to get the latest recovery from the man who's created them all from the very beginning.
Get rom manager and flash the latest straight from that app. You must make sure your bootloader is unlocked. If you took the latest OTA from Verizon it locked your bootloader.
As long as your unlocked and rooted you can go straight in rom manager and flash touch recovery especially for your Verizon galaxy s3.
I've been using the latest touch recovery on my D2tmo, nexus 7,galaxy nexus and Asus infinity and it's worked perfect.
Make a backup of your current rom for safety before flashing. You can create a backup and rename it to whatever you want straight from rom manager!
I personally wouldn't back up to the external. It might work fine but when it comes to backups I just go straight to the internal
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 AM ----------
I soft bricked my phone because after taking the latest OTA it locked my bootloader! Recovered it fully from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1840030
I seen the take to your local Verizon store bla bla bla.
Got in download mode at 4am and recovered in 15 minutes.
I wish I had someone that knew what I now know and that's why I'm here to help my fellow members!
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.
Nazo said:
Hehe, funny thing about that. It tried to automatically update without bothering to ask. I presume because I had the FWupdate app frozen (for I guess fairly obvious reasons) it utterly failed and then complained, then demanded that I update again after a while, giving me an option to defer it. (I never did figure out how to get it to stop pestering, but I guess that's a non-issue.) So I didn't ever get a locked bootloader simply because it failed to do what it was trying to do.
Anyway, I've installed CM10 and so far so good. Well, I gave myself a good scare by forgetting to do a factory reset (*sigh* I wish I didn't have to do that, but, after all, it's a significant change going from a highly modified VZW infested ICS to a cleaner custom Jelly Bean) and it sat there stuck on the boot logo until I reread the instructions and rebooted to fix it (at least CM doesn't wipe out the CWM recovery like the stock ROM does...) I still have a LOT to do to get everything all reinstalled and reconfigured. I'm not going to be able to finish it all tonight, so won't really be able to comment about the results of the switch until tomorrow I guess. It's not helping that it's taking absolutely forever to download the Google Play package and all (and then I get to redownload a lot of the apps, though hopefully TitaniumBackup can safely restore a lot of it.)
EDIT: BTW, is it just me or do they really REALLY need to provide basic info on how to do simple tasks like the actual installation process itself, installing Google Play, and etc? I'm no stranger to googling for info, but wow what a pain to figure this all out (especially it never occurred to me that the gapps zip would have to be installed using CWM. I thought it was for the firmwares themselves only, not them and apps...)
EDIT2: Oh wow. I had no idea how much work this was really going to be! I said before that a full ROM install is something I wanted to do once. Well, I definitely want to never do this again. I'm having to fight all sorts of things. Google didn't even want to recognize my phone at first despite successfully connecting my accounts and registered apps such as, oh, I don't know, Titanium Backup Pro just for instance weren't showing up as already purchased... -.- I think I finally got it all restored and they now properly show up as owned, but I've lost hours just fighting with all of these various things...
It also seems to have serious issues with my WiFi. I haven't figured out what is going on exactly, but it seems like I'm having to turn wifi off and on a bit to get it to properly connect again -- I've put in my password so many times I'm about to go absolutely insane (unfortunately, for various reasons I'm still stuck on WEP 128-bit, so I have to type in a large hexidecimal encryption key and I'm just about ready to go postal.) Hopefully once everything is finally all setup and configured all will be well, but at the moment I've lost a pretty good bit of sleep while fighting this and barely have it up and running. I probably should have waited for an off day to do this.
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Strange that you are having so many issues. First off, when I flash a new ROM I put the ROM and the latest GApps on the sdcard. Do a factory reset, clear dalvik cache, install the ROM then the GApps. As far as wifi, I didn't have a problem when I ran CM10, but maybe there is something messed up in the latest version. Are you running the nightlies or the M versions?
The M version from the link above (the 2012 10-11 one.) At first I thought the issue I was having was the one from before where it would decide that my network with the hidden SSID was out of range automatically the moment it lost connection (either me leaving the area or turning off WiFi) but I not only tried to use the hidden SSID enabler, but also even went so far as to just re-enable the SSID broadcast on the router, so it's no longer hidden. It seems like it's having troubles initializing the WiFi. Maybe I somehow managed to freeze/remove an app that did something or other along these lines (though I just can't see how given that it can work, it just has issues.) I'm having to turn it off and on once or twice to get it to finally reconnect. I guess it's not bad since I have the power widget in the notifications tray that makes this a bit easier, but that doesn't make this any more fun at all to deal with. EDIT: In fact, whereas the hidden SSID issue I ran into previously had it just show up as being out of range after it lost the connection until I "forgot" the network setting and reconfigured it again, it looks like nothing shows up at all until I turn it off and on -- but I don't have to redo the network setting, so this is definitely a completely different issue. I think actually it's like it's just not correctly enabling the wifi on startup if it was left on when I rebooted so I have to turn it off and back on to get it to truly turn it on in the first place.
And yeah, I cleared the cache and did a factory reset before installing. Well, bear in mind that it naturally was showing up as a different device and all. So some initial configuration was definitely going to be required to even get started, and I was switching from ICS to JB (and completely different sorts of ROMs besides) so some initial fight was inevitable even if CM10 were the most established and stable build ever made just going from the one to the other. Actually, one interesting feature of Titanium Backup Pro (once I finally got it to recognize that I had the Pro version in the first place) is apparently the ability to change the device ID to seem to be the same as far as installed programs and such go, so now Google Play among other things thinks this is the same exact device as before now as opposed to being a new device. It's actually weird because the "new" one doesn't even show up on Google Play's settings anymore (and Google still hasn't gotten around to fixing it such that we can remove devices, so I still have my old Archos 43 PDA listed in there for instance.) Between everything, Google now is letting me once again access my software without re-buying or relying on backups (which is especially good because a few things seem to just get stuck when I try to restore them -- it just sits there forever, not ever really installing.)
BTW, I lost all the Verizon-specific special numbers such as *86 for voicemail. Apparently CM10 doesn't bother to list them (but then as they are vendor specific I guess that's not a big surprise.) Is there any sort of list of the numbers Verizon uses out there -- maybe even including whatever special numbers that might be more specific to this phone itself (such as that hidden menu or whatever)?
EDIT: Ok, so far things are starting to come together slowly but surely. One oddity though, I noticed at the end of my work shift that, rather than the usual 10% or so of battery time lost, it seemed to have lost about 20%. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's double -- it might be more like 15% many times -- but it is very odd all the same. I thought I was seeing a bad trend along these lines last night, so went ahead and put SetCPU back on there with the profile to do powersaving and serious underclocking when the screen is off and in both cases I used the "conservative" CPU governor for the normal use with the maximum CPU speed at about 1GHz (conservative is supposed to be like ondemand with a better tendency towards power saving at the expense of taking longer to scale the CPU upwards when needed.) As this is CM10, there should be no room for doubt that the CPU is being scaled down -- in fact in the performance menu I often see the CPU at a mere 384MHz (which is my minimum setting) -- so I'm just not sure what to think just yet. The settings menu for the battery life shows mostly just basic system processes like the screen, idle, and etc being the main culprits for battery usage, so again odd since the screen is the main thing yet is off during my working hours (with the very short exception of my breaks.) I don't think the automatic brightness setting is any higher or anything either and, in fact, configured it to use generally lower settings until the maximum brightness.
Guess more tweaking and testing is needed to be sure, but it's odd all the same. If anything CM10 is running LESS all the time by way of hidden services and such (though as far as things that actually show up in the likes of Android Assistant I'm having to fight far more things including an "analog clock" that isn't even in the app list so I'm hoping is just the normal clock despite the fact that "analog clock" in normal firmwares is actually a separate extra thing.) Guess I'll still have to wait and see to some extent.
Edit2: Haha, I just read that you have to recalibrate the battery meter after flashing, so it'd probably just not being very accurate is all. I grabbed an app to help do that so hopefully this is all that was going on (and if I go by Android Assistant's voltage status I'd say that it definitely is off.)
Edit3: (Just kind of adding as I go along here.) Now that all the basics are in place and I had some time and the desire to drain the battery more quickly (as part of the recalibrate process you're supposed to drain it until it automatically shuts down) so I plugged in my headphones and started listening. So far so good. I was really hoping that one of the advantages of a custom ROM would be a more precise volume control (Google really dropped the ball on that one! Sometimes you're trying to get it just right and end up stuck between either a bit painfully too loud or annoyingly too quiet with no in-between) but other than some dissapointed wishful thinking, it seems sound-wise this release of the SGS3 CM10 is just fine. I don't really hear any bloat or distortion in the bass and in general the usual modifications that they do to the sound just aren't there (or at least if they are they are subtle enough to fool my, let's say "bronze" ears since I'm definitely at the bottom of the audiophile chain, lol.) In one thread where someone asked how the Qualcom compared to the Wolfson sound-wise someone said it was a bit tinny, but if it is it's far too subtle for me to notice (and this is bearing mind that these are headphones with a slight bass roll-off, so it does seem like I'd notice any significant loss in the lower ranges pretty quickly. In this respect I'm happy or at least satisfied that nothing has gone wrong.
Also, one way or the other the wifi issue seems to have gone away. I'm guessing it was an app I had frozen that I reenabled, but that's just a guess. It's so hard to be 100% sure with these things unless you apply a long painful scientific process every single step of the way...
I'm STILL trying to figure out a way to configure the haptic feedback level. It seems to be all on or all off with no ability to reduce strength of feedback that I've found so far.
Another word to the wise, backup your imei. Not sure if that was mentioned yet
Also, your ROM will work better after a charging cycle or two. It will initially scam for media and such I believe which maybe part if the reason you're seeing slightly higher usage at first. Also, in general you'll get slightly less battery life on aosp. I don't find much use in most battery stats though. They're easily manipulated.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.) Actually, I was beginning to become quite concerned because the battery was actually going down just doing a few basic things like restoring backups while plugged into the charger despite having the governor on conservative, the maximum CPU frequency at 1066MHz, and the I/O set to SIO (which at least one person claims is better, though I wasn't 100% convinced from what little I could tell -- if anyone has any suggestions for the best balance between battery life and performance in this respect I'm curious. I try to keep it on something that kind of scales so that games and such still work fine without me having to change it specifically for each or something while it could still at least not kill the battery when it's not being pushed as hard.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess. I went ahead and ran it ("reboot nvbackup" from the terminal anyway -- it sure would be nice if it actually properly shut down first instead of doing a cold reboot -- but other than some tiny blue text in the corner that might or might not have said something to the effect of that it was making a backup it just flashed by and booted up normally. I was expecting a recovery menu or something.) But I don't know if it's going to do any good to have run it now. Is there anything other than the IMEI itself contained in that data that I should be concerned about? I think the IMEI is correct still (I checked the numbers in the settings at least and they seem to correspond to what I wrote down from under the battery) but I'm not sure about anything beyond the numbers themselves.
Nazo said:
Well, I had a small accident. I was replacing some fonts and manually selecting which ones to replace with what when I threw in Arial Unicode and another font that was still slightly large. I'm assuming because the font files were so big, but it completely stopped booting. After fighting with it for hours upon hours (and I have since found what might be a font zip file for CWM now that it's far too late to do me any good -- though of course it would have had to replace those particular fonts and it seems like most of my attempts to replace them ended up replacing everything but them.) I just couldn't get a driver to install for the phone while CWM was running (I don't know if you can maybe get an adb shell or what, but without the driver you obviously can't.) In the end, I ended up having to reformat and reinstall CM10 from scratch. So far (knock on wood) none of the real problems I was having before have really repeated. (And this time around I just kept my font changes minor and no gigantic overkill fonts.) Sadly, TitaniumBackup can't restore all apps it seems (it just sort of freezes on some) but overall I've managed to restore most of it. I was waiting to make a backup in CWM until I had fully gotten everything configured and running the way I wanted it. Guess I should have done one sooner, but now I'm close to the original goal of having it basically right where I want it before making the backup (thank goodness TitaniumBackup at least was able to get the bulk of the work. And I love how it can even restore the device ID so that as far as everything is concerned this is the same phone I've always been using.)
It does still have a worse battery life compared to the stock ROM, but I guess it's not too bad. Still better than most phones no matter how you look at it. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't the battery being somewhat at fault though. I was using a third party battery by Anker. By the feel of it, it actually is surprisingly dense for a third party battery -- it weighs about the same amount as the stock battery -- so it might actually have a pretty good capacity, but at the same time I'm not 100% sure it truly is every bit as good. At first it certainly seemed to be, but maybe it's starting to wear down more quickly overall. For now I guess I'll switch back to stock (my original plan was to just store it at some 70% or so capacity so it should last and then punish these two third party batteries, but now I guess I'll consider them to be the backups instead. I don't like that the charge goes as high as 4.33V or so though. 4.2V is supposed to be considered pushing things pretty hard as it is, so I have a bad feeling about the overall lifetime of these batteries...) Again I have SetCPU hopefully helping out a bit (I like that CM10 has options for this that it can set on boot, but it doesn't have any other options than that and I like how I can have SetCPU actually lower things much further while the screen is off. I don't care if some processes take longer to, well, process while the screen is off after all, so there's no reason not to use a lower CPU setting IMO.)
Interesting thing about the whole WiFi thing. I read on one thread where someone suggested changing the device name (in the developer options) to no longer have a dash in it to stop the intermittent WiFi dropouts. It's kind of ridiculous and should have absolutely no effect whatsoever on this, but so far it actually seems like it might have worked. Again, knock on wood... It's odd though because I never had that trouble with the stock firmware (then again, for all I know it didn't have a dash in its default device name and I doubt I ever changed it if it was even an option though I can't really remember one way or the other if I could have.) I won't know for sure for a while as it was kind of random before, but so far it's looking promising at least. And I haven't had any trouble with it picking up my network yet either.
BTW, I forgot to do the IMEI backup before somehow. Is it too late to for it to be any good now? I know, I know, but I was a bit excited about the prospect of going to CyanogenMod 10 in the first place and just forgot along the way I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No your OK you can get your IMEI underneath where your battery is. There's a tutorial on YouTube
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

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