Thread: Help for a GSM user...Radio/APN/BIS etc

Ok, I have had some help from you guys already on this. I wanted to ask my questions over here since most folks are much more willing to give detailed help on this site.

As some of you know, I am using a 9530 on AT&T. I recently sold my Bold just because I like the Storm a good bit better. It just fits my lifestyle more. I am getting Egde speeds with Speedtest of 150kbps in many areas and I am satisfied with that. I monitored my Bold this way and many times got less than this on 3G. My issues are with the .90 radio and random reboots and unstability. I understand most of the issues.

My questions center around running a later version of the radio (.132) and getting more stability. I have tried to swap radios but I cannot hold an EDGE connection. I have read about taking the APN settings out and using a BIS connection explicitly and this will allow an EDGE connection with these later radios. Here is what I mainly use on a day to day basis: BIS Email, Surf the Internet, Twitterberry (can set to use a BIS connection), BerryWeather (can set to use a BIS connection), Poynt, Google Sync, Google Maps and App World.

1) What are the main disadvantages to this type approach?
2) Are any of my apps above going to prohibit me from doing this approach?
3) Can someone point me to a good tutorial on this approach?
4) Is anyone on here using this approach and what are your thoughts?

I am sure more questions will come up. I hope to get some good info and make a good decision. I am going to try this when upgrading my next time if I get the right answers here, otherwise I will just continue to deal with the reboots. Thanks in advance for all your input guys.

I am not sure whether changing your APN settings or removing them will have any effect on holding a steady EDGE signal. Let me do some research and get back to you.

I have the same problem and I disable the APN and I can gold the steady EDGE signal. The apps I use I have it set to BIS and everything is working fine.

I am using the straight 4.7.0.141 leack on my 9530 and I am using it on T-Mobile and I have BIS/BES

Sweet Mixo thanks for clarifying this. I'm sure other would appreciate this info. Maybe we should make a thread for other GSM users.

Thanks. I thought this was the case. I am just wondering how limiting using only BIS option on apps really is. Does Google Sync and Maps use BIS? Does Speedtest use BIS? Will I have any problems clicking on links in emails? Just wondering what the limitations are. I have read a couple of threads over on CB about this but so few users are on GSM that it gets very little play.

I will say this, as far as an Edge signal goes, my Storm has a better phone signal than any 2G phone I ever had and is really better overall than the Bold. I have 2-3 areas I drive all the time and I know exactly where I would drop calls on my old 8800 and Bold. These areas are now fine for me.

Another thing is speed. I have used xtremelabs to test my Storm directly against my wife's iPhone and 2 out of 3 times, I get faster download times than she deos on her 3G phone. Its pretty amazing. I am not saying it is better in real world applications but it has been a fix for me thinking my phone is really slow.

OK, I am trying Crackman's v5 tonite. I am going to try the .132 radio without the APN and set eveything to BIS. We will see if it works.

Originally Posted by awtryau89

OK, I am trying Crackman's v5 tonite. I am going to try the .132 radio without the APN and set eveything to BIS. We will see if it works.

Good luck let us know how it goes.

Originally Posted by jlevy73

Good luck let us know how it goes.

Well, its a no-go for me. I tried the .132 radio and with nothing running it just bounced back and forth to much. I gave it multiple battery pulls and a few hours to stabilize but its not worth it. All my features work on BIS and if it would hold like .90, I would not have an issue. Oh well, I tried.

Originally Posted by awtryau89

Well, its a no-go for me. I tried the .132 radio and with nothing running it just bounced back and forth to much. I gave it multiple battery pulls and a few hours to stabilize but its not worth it. All my features work on BIS and if it would hold like .90, I would not have an issue. Oh well, I tried.

Ok I have an update. I went back to the .90 radio code on Crackman V5 and was having serious issues. I was getting way more VSODs and reboots and could not get my browser back no matter what I did. Finally I decided to do a full wipe and re-install the my 3rd parties 1 by 1. It is a hassle but I wanted to make sure everything was good. What's a few hours anyway???!!!!

I got to thinking that maybe since it acted up with V5 and .90 that it may have been the cause of my issues with .132. On a whim, I loaded .132 and re-loaded my browser. I went ahead and put in the APN settings but unchecked them. I re-loaded my apps 1 by 1.

VOILA!!!! I have been steady on full EDGE all day today. I do not have any apps loaded that even try to access TCP. I use all BIS connections. The only one I miss is UberTwitter but it is supposed to be updated for BIS soon. I'll just used Twitterberry and suffer I guess.

I have a very full week this week of travel and emails are going to hit hard. I will see what happens after a full few days and report back but if you can live without apps that need APN, this is the way to go.

Wow, light at the end of the tunnel. Let us know how it holds up as if it does will add something in the help section to this affect because many GSM users have gone through the same pain as you. Appreciate you posting your feedback.

Still going strong. No random reboots in over 9 hours and that is a record for me. With .90 I usually had at least 3 in that length of time.

Also, now I understand what everyone on here talks about how rock solid Crackman's hybrids are. Changing our the sfi file makes a bigger difference in the way the overall OS performs as well, not just the reboots.

I am happier than I have ever been with the Storm now.

Originally Posted by awtryau89

Still going strong. No random reboots in over 9 hours and that is a record for me. With .90 I usually had at least 3 in that length of time.

Also, now I understand what everyone on here talks about how rock solid Crackman's hybrids are. Changing our the sfi file makes a bigger difference in the way the overall OS performs as well, not just the reboots.

I am happier than I have ever been with the Storm now.

Fantastic to hear. Hope it continues.

I wanted to report a few more findings. My guess is that no one is really following this thread but eventually someone will have the same problems I did and do a search. I hope it helps them then.

Today I ran almost all day without a hiccup. I travelled from Atlanta, GA to Lexington, KY and had no issues. I held EDGE almost all day. Later in the day, around 4pm I bounced to edge and it would not come back. I continued to receive emails and Twitter so I am not sure if it was bouncing and I just missed it or what. My battery was under 20% and the phone had been on without reset for over 28 hours. I cannot remember where memory was but I am pretty sure it was in the mid to low 30s.

I tried to regain EDGE by turning off all connections and I got a flash white screen with an error message and the phone reset. I am not sure what the error message was but when the phone came back I still had edge. I discovered when this happens, it takes the phone a few minutes and it will finally regain EDGE status and then hold it. Once it regains EDGE, it is very stable.

I got to my hotel and had to uninstall a program so I had to do a reset. At this point I thought it might be a good idea to do a battery pull. I did this and the phone came back at edge. It does not bounce but is just steady edge. Being impatient, I tried my browser. When I did this, it is like it forces the phone to go to EDGE. It bounces a few times then is steady. I reset the phone again and tried it the same way. Browser does force the phone to EDGE and I am good to go.

I wish there were some others that could try this as well to see if my findings are consistent. Hopefully so but anyway, I can live with what I am getting now. Having to do a daily reset to get EDGE back is not a hassle for me. Its the random reboots and VSODs that I hated. Who knows, this may not ever happen again. I am only on my first day.

Originally Posted by awtryau89

I wanted to report a few more findings. My guess is that no one is really following this thread but eventually someone will have the same problems I did and do a search. I hope it helps them then.

Today I ran almost all day without a hiccup. I travelled from Atlanta, GA to Lexington, KY and had no issues. I held EDGE almost all day. Later in the day, around 4pm I bounced to edge and it would not come back. I continued to receive emails and Twitter so I am not sure if it was bouncing and I just missed it or what. My battery was under 20% and the phone had been on without reset for over 28 hours. I cannot remember where memory was but I am pretty sure it was in the mid to low 30s.

I tried to regain EDGE by turning off all connections and I got a flash white screen with an error message and the phone reset. I am not sure what the error message was but when the phone came back I still had edge. I discovered when this happens, it takes the phone a few minutes and it will finally regain EDGE status and then hold it. Once it regains EDGE, it is very stable.

I got to my hotel and had to uninstall a program so I had to do a reset. At this point I thought it might be a good idea to do a battery pull. I did this and the phone came back at edge. It does not bounce but is just steady edge. Being impatient, I tried my browser. When I did this, it is like it forces the phone to go to EDGE. It bounces a few times then is steady. I reset the phone again and tried it the same way. Browser does force the phone to EDGE and I am good to go.

I wish there were some others that could try this as well to see if my findings are consistent. Hopefully so but anyway, I can live with what I am getting now. Having to do a daily reset to get EDGE back is not a hassle for me. Its the random reboots and VSODs that I hated. Who knows, this may not ever happen again. I am only on my first day.

Thanks for the update! I am sure this will come in handy for others