Have Reception Stability Issues? Get the New Bootloader!

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NOTE: There seems to be a misconception that I'm claiming this helped my signal strength. It did not. It did however help my signal stability. I no longer experience signal dropouts like I did before. As always, your mileage may vary. It helped me and I was just trying to see if it may help others as well.

Backstory: I was having reception issues with my phone, even in places with good reception. I didn't necessarily have lower bars than normal, but my reception would just randomly cut out, and quite frequently.

I read quite a few posts regarding the new bootloader helping reception and I found it hard to believe. I started reading about bootloaders and learned quite a bit. Long story short, it sets up the environment in your phone to allow the kernel among other things to start up properly. Seemingly, this includes making sure the radio can correctly control the hardware on the phone.

Since reading about the latest bootloader and its magical powers, I decided to give it a go and sure enough, it's been a miracle worker. I don't know what changes occurred in the latest bootloader and frankly I don't care. My reception is now just as rock solid as it was with my SGS2.

Bootloader Links

As you can see, the MD5 checksums are the same but I wanted to post both links anyway

Instructions

DISCLAIMERS:

1) This does NOT necessarily improve your reception itself, but rather helps provide stability and consistency regarding the signal.

2) I do NOT know the compatibility of this. I do know that it works on my GSM i9250 device running a 4.0.3 ROM. I've heard that it is compatible w/ Verizon as well, but I have NOT been able to personally verify this so proceed with caution. Others in this thread have verified it works for the CDMA phones and the md5 checksums do match.

3) Related to point #2, this is the bootloader for 4.0.3 provided by Google. It should work w/ ROMs < 4.0.3, but I have not personally verified this.

4) You are responsible for what you are doing to your own device. I am merely helping provide information. You need to be sure you understand what you are doing and that you are doing it properly, knowing that you could very well ruin your device if not done properly.

Sources (with Bootloader Link [PRIMEKL01]):

Original post I found the bootloader from (embedded deep within Franco's kernel thread): http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...postcount=2671

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/12866-rad...57#entry314057

As always, read before you try to proceed with applying this. This is not for the feint of heart although it is a relatively simple process once you understand what you are doing.

For a great list of resources to learn about what you are doing, please see this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1360413

Good luck and enjoy (hopefully) the reception improvement I have!

Glad to hear this. As yesterday I debated with an individual on how "bootloaders would improve battery life." This would prove my point that if it resolves issues with reception, it would overall improve your battery life due to the phone working less hard on getting reception.

+1 to bootloader helping the overall performance of the phone.

Also, the bootloader would work on any version of ICS as long as its the Galaxy Nexus. Kind of like radios, a new radio is presented with a new version but it will work universally. But the best performance would probably come out of using it combined with a 4.0.3 (or above) ROM.

To flash in fastboot:

fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-maguro-primekl01.img

Do you think that an update to 4.0.x will solve this reception issue , because I have it and don't want to root my phone just yet?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Originally Posted by NIK516

Do you think that an update to 4.0.x will solve this reception issue , because I have it and don't want to root my phone just yet?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

It's not the ROM that makes a difference unless it contains a bootloader image. You might be able to run the latest bootloader on a non-4.0.3 ROM but I can't confirm nor deny (one of my disclaimers).

EDIT: per zephiK, this should work with any 4.0.x ROM.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

My battery life has almost doubled since trying the new bootloader. Thanks for the tip!

I can confirm that this helped my reception quite a bit.

The link for the bootloader sources ain't working? I mean I can't click it.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Anyone try flashing this on an LTE yet? I would like to but I'm not sure how I would fix my phone if the bootloader goes out as I've not gotten Odin to work on this phone yet.

EDIT: LTE bootloaders here: http://rootzwiki.com/topic/12866-rad...d-dec-23-2011/

Thanks for bringing this to my attention as I was on an old bootloader. Seem to be getting markedly better reception! Thanks again!

i just installed these on my lte nexus... so far so good.