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Time for another guide for your HTC Touch Pro and this time we will talk about how we can replace your original cell phone radio with another one. This can improve your cell phone reception and increase your battery life!
Note that I won't be responsible if you end up bricking your phone, unlocking or flashing your radio or ROM can be risky. If you follow the instructions then you should be fine, I've flashed my phone several times without any problems!
Flashing your Touch Pro radio is the same as flashing its ROM except that it will NOT hard reset your device so you'll NOT lose any data or programs you might have installed!
Requirements:
- HTC Touch Pro (from Sprint and others).
- Hard-SPL package for your phone (see below for some forums where you can find the packages).
- a new radio (see below for some forums where you can find them).
- your phone should be already configured with your computer and be able to sync with it through ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center (Vista).
Instructions:
1. Unlock your phone
See my previous post about how to unlock your HTC Touch Pro:
http://techhackz.blogspot.com/2009/06/unlock-your-htc-touch-pro.html
2. Pick your radio
There are about 11 different radios available at this time for a CDMA HTC Touch Pro, there are also more for GSM phones.
Here are 2 forums that are extremely useful for CDMA phones:
- http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=531134
- http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=74422
And for GSM phones:
- http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=46352
You will have to try a few of them to see which one works better for you, it depends on where you are located.
3. Flash a new radio
Download the radio of your choice and unzip the archive into a folder on your hard drive. If you get an exe file you don't need to unzip anything just double-click on the exe file to start the process.
Open the folder where you extracted the radio, you should have at least an NBH file in it, it is the radio file and typically the biggest file in the archive.
You should also see ROMUpdateUtility.exe, double-click on it to start flashing your phone!
Sometimes the exe file has a different name but it is quite easy to know which one you should execute, if there is nothing else than a nbh file then you'll need to download the ROMUpdateUtility from here and follow the instructions given there.
Now that you have started the ROMUpdateUtility you can simply click Next on every screen and confirm you want to flash your phone. Make sure your battery is charged before doing it.
You should see the following screen on your phone.
You can also follow the flashing progress on your computer.
After a few minutes you should be done and you'll see the following screen on your computer.
Your phone is going to reboot, once it's done you're all set.
To view your cell phone signal level, enter debug mode:
- display the dialer.
- type ##33284# (##DEBUG#).
- look at the Rx Power, Rx Ec/Io and Rx FER. They should be as close to 0 as possible. Realistically if Rx Power is around 70 you have a pretty good signal don't expect to get close to 20!
Here is a good explanation of all the different parameters: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=64236
Note that I won't be responsible if you end up bricking your phone, unlocking or flashing your radio or ROM can be risky. If you follow the instructions then you should be fine, I've flashed my phone several times without any problems!
Flashing your Touch Pro radio is the same as flashing its ROM except that it will NOT hard reset your device so you'll NOT lose any data or programs you might have installed!
Requirements:
- HTC Touch Pro (from Sprint and others).
- Hard-SPL package for your phone (see below for some forums where you can find the packages).
- a new radio (see below for some forums where you can find them).
- your phone should be already configured with your computer and be able to sync with it through ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center (Vista).
Instructions:
1. Unlock your phone
See my previous post about how to unlock your HTC Touch Pro:
http://techhackz.blogspot.com/2009/06/unlock-your-htc-touch-pro.html
2. Pick your radio
There are about 11 different radios available at this time for a CDMA HTC Touch Pro, there are also more for GSM phones.
Here are 2 forums that are extremely useful for CDMA phones:
- http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=531134
- http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=74422
And for GSM phones:
- http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=46352
You will have to try a few of them to see which one works better for you, it depends on where you are located.
3. Flash a new radio
Download the radio of your choice and unzip the archive into a folder on your hard drive. If you get an exe file you don't need to unzip anything just double-click on the exe file to start the process.
Open the folder where you extracted the radio, you should have at least an NBH file in it, it is the radio file and typically the biggest file in the archive.
You should also see ROMUpdateUtility.exe, double-click on it to start flashing your phone!
Sometimes the exe file has a different name but it is quite easy to know which one you should execute, if there is nothing else than a nbh file then you'll need to download the ROMUpdateUtility from here and follow the instructions given there.
Now that you have started the ROMUpdateUtility you can simply click Next on every screen and confirm you want to flash your phone. Make sure your battery is charged before doing it.
You should see the following screen on your phone.
You can also follow the flashing progress on your computer.
After a few minutes you should be done and you'll see the following screen on your computer.
Your phone is going to reboot, once it's done you're all set.
To view your cell phone signal level, enter debug mode:
- display the dialer.
- type ##33284# (##DEBUG#).
- look at the Rx Power, Rx Ec/Io and Rx FER. They should be as close to 0 as possible. Realistically if Rx Power is around 70 you have a pretty good signal don't expect to get close to 20!
Here is a good explanation of all the different parameters: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=64236
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