[SOLVED][ION] How do I just flash the baseband?

[archie87]

Hi guys. I have an LT28at running the the LT28i firmware. I am having an issue with calls being garbled as seen in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2115074

It is suggested to flash the baseband of the LT28at firmware but whenever I do this, the baseband does not change in the settings. Is this normal? How do I know if the baseband has actuallly changed?

I excluded everything except the baseband in flashtool. The flash succeeds but as stated before there is no change in my baseband number. Thanks.

 

[Vaith]

I heard first time that you can change baseband. But I also don't understand why you are using different fw instead of correct for your phone. Baseband could be changed on 2011 Xperia's but not in 2012. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Sent from my LT26i using xda premium

 

[zackspeed]

Yes the baseband can be flashed. I just recently flashed the at .111 baseband on my 3.7 I firmware.

1. Open Flash Tool
2. Select the ftf you want to use
3. Un check all wipes and everything but the baseband
4. Now that you only have basband selected flash and connect your phone in flash mode
5. Your done

If you are flashing a baseband from an older I firmware it is quite possible they both use the same one.

Okay this is odd. I have the .111 at base flashed and it reads the same as yours in the phone. I know it flashed though as my wifi is worse and I have the stock signal icons again for at.

 

[archie87]

I heard first time that you can change baseband. But I also don't understand why you are using different fw instead of correct for your phone. Baseband could be changed on 2011 Xperia's but not in 2012. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Sent from my LT26i using xda premium

No AT&T bloat. That's why.

Yes the baseband can be flashed. I just recently flashed the at .111 baseband on my 3.7 I firmware.

1. Open Flash Tool
2. Select the ftf you want to use
3. Un check all wipes and everything but the baseband
4. Now that you only have basband selected flash and connect your phone in flash mode
5. Your done

If you are flashing a baseband from an older I firmware it is quite possible they both use the same one.

Okay this is odd. I have the .111 at base flashed and it reads the same as yours in the phone. I know it flashed though as my wifi is worse and I have the stock signal icons again for at.

Yeah I don't know why it doesn't change in the settings. I don't really know if mine has really changed to the AT&T baseband or not. The flash was successful so I guess it did? I'll have to see if I still have the garbled phone call issue.

 

[zackspeed]

The one way to tell is the signal icon. If its a att baseband it will show 4g for hspa+ and LTE for 4g. On the i radio it shows H and 4g.

 

[jtr165]

EDIT: just checked my phone, and my baseband is the same as the OP? So i guess i have the same problem, but haven't noticed garbled calls or anything...yet...and sorry Zackspeed; I didn't see your 2nd post noticing the icon changing...i guess i'll try flashing the .111 baseband again and see if it does the same as it did for you...i just don't have my cable, so i won't get to it until tonight.

I went from latest ATT .111 ICS back to latest generic .3.7 ICS while excluding baseband in flashtool. Seems to have put the international baseband on anyway, but everything is working with ATT after i manually entered APN settings...also, I'm getting the international icons in the status bar.

Do any of you happen to know the baseband version of .111? I never took a screen of that; i guess i should've.

based on what others are saying, it does seem that reflashing .111's baseband back over .3.7 'works'...its just not updating whatever file being read for the about phone status page. Just seems weird that excluding baseband in flashtool during the initial flash seemingly does nothing?

 

[zackspeed]

Do any of you happen to know the baseband version of .111? I never took a screen of that; i guess i should've.

While I don't know the baseband number and I can confirm it does not change in about phone it does change. I have the .111 flashed at the moment and my wifi signal is not as strong but my regular signal seems better. I have not had the garbal problem and seem to stay connected to the network better. 3.7 seems to have the most issue. I had allot of garbal with its radio and allot of network drops. The one issue that bothered me the most was having to reboot the phone whenever it would switch from 4g back to hspa+.

I will test the radios today and see what I can figure out and see if any of them change in about phone.

 

[jtr165]

^awesome, thanks. weridly, just 5 minutes ago i had my first garbled thing pop up...tried to call my voice mail and it sounded like the phone was at the bottom of a pool.

I'm not in an LTE coverage area, so i can't really comment on how my phone reacts to 'in and out' things like that. I did confirm LTE works with .3.7 and apparently the international baseband, though.

This is strange though. What i've noticed since going from att .111 to international .3.7 is that i regularly have higher signal strength being displayed, and never noticed any wi-fi problems. I haven't dropped a call since i flashed over, and get at least 2 bars in places i normally would have no signal displayed (such as the server room where i work)...I know that displayed signal strength doesn't mean its truly better; but i can make calls in areas that i couldn't before....

So i haven't even considered messing with this since the flash, as the ONLY difference i've had was the different icons....everything else just seemed better....which is the opposite of what you experienced with the international baseband apparently?

but, as i mentioned, i did exclude the baseband when flashing over .3.7..so i technically should have att's .111 baseband right now, which i clearly don't...I can 100% confirm i have the international icons in the status bar, and i had absolutely NO data connection until i manually entered APN settings. The phone didn't auto-download that stuff like some guys did.

 

[archie87]

^awesome, thanks. weridly, just 5 minutes ago i had my first garbled thing pop up...tried to call my voice mail and it sounded like the phone was at the bottom of a pool.

Welcome to the club.

^This is strange though. What i've noticed since going from att .111 to international .3.7 is that i regularly have higher signal strength being displayed, and never noticed any wi-fi problems. I haven't dropped a call since i flashed over, and get at least 2 bars in places i normally would have no signal displayed (such as the server room where i work)...I know that displayed signal strength doesn't mean its truly better; but i can make calls in areas that i couldn't before....

I also noticed that signal quality was terrible when I was on .111.

^So i haven't even considered messing with this since the flash, as the ONLY difference i've had was the different icons....everything else just seemed better....which is the opposite of what you experienced with the international baseband apparently?

For me everything is better. The only issue I have is the garbled voice but that may have been resolved with the baseband flash. We'll see.

 

[jtr165]

Welcome to the club.



I also noticed that signal quality was terrible when I was on .111.



For me everything is better. The only issue I have is the garbled voice but that may have been resolved with the baseband flash. We'll see.

more lost than when i started haha. I only had ATT .105 still on my machine, so i tried flashing only that baseband over rather than waiting to download .111 again. Flashtool did its thing, booted phone...

no change whatsoever. Still have international icons...and same baseband version number...

zachspeed are you positive you're getting stock icons back? Some in other threads are saying the baseband doesn't control that; that its built into the entire rom or something.

I'm starting to think this is a flashtool issue more than anything...as its clearly not doing what it says its doing in some cases...and given flashtool's track record of just blatantly buggy stuff...i can't see how its something else entirely.

 

[zackspeed]

Well I am wrong as it indeed is not working now. I just flashed 29i to see if it would change and it did not. I know it used to work as like I said when we first went to using the H ICS we had to flash the att GB base. As for the icons I am sure they changed as I have LTE in one spot where I live and for the longest it would say H for 3g and 4g for lte. Now after I flashed the .111 it says 4g all the time and LTE when I am in that part of town. Or maybe I am just crazy lol. JB could not come fast enough lol or a Z would be great haha.

 

[jtr165]

cool man, no problem...

that still doesn't explain why basebands aren't being changed with flashtool though. If we flash att .111 baseband over, it should be ending in '-24', not 23...and has a few other letter differences in the version number.

I tried .105 last night, nothing...and .111 last night, nothing. I can't tell any difference at all with the phone, still has international icons and everything.

i've only had that garbled thing the one time, though...so agreed, hopefully whatever this weirdness is its gone with JB haha.

 

[zackspeed]

It is all kind of odd. I do know for sure it did work and not really sure why it wont now. Anyway guess we wait two weeks or so lol.

Okay I am going to put this out there. One thing I did notice was when I flashed the att radio with the build prop still reading 28i and noticed it skipped something but I did not save the log or really read it. When I tried flashing the 3.7 generic radio it did not do it. This occurred to me after I had stopped messing with it last night. So I wounder if we edit the finger print to look like what we are flashing if it would then flash?? Just a hunch so don't quote me on this.

 

[archie87]

Well I'm at 24 hours with no garbled calls after "flashing" the .111 baseband. Fixed? Lucky break? Who knows. -_-

 

[jtr165]

^i too have not had a garbled call other than that one random guy 2 days ago...other than the baseband version number not quite lining up with what i think it should be, the phone has been perfect. Still getting noticeably better signal strength than i did with ATT ICS, but that could simply be finally a few back end upgrades on their part...something very long over due, as service has sucked in this area for 10 plus years...

zack, i logged both baseband flashes i tried also...one for .105, and one for .111...I didn't read them, but saved them. I'll check the logs when i get back to my work computer. The only thing i noticed was 'flash successful', and simply unplugged the phone...but there was a wall of text i didn't carefully read above it. I agree though, this is all just something to do while bored...as JB will be pretty much the final stock rom any of us mess with on an Ion...and that will be the one i'll put the most effort into making sure its as bug free as i can possibly get it.

 

[letama]

Guys,

Baseband is contained in /system/etc/firmware. Flashing baseband partitions won't change anything except maybe resetting your current baseband.

If you want to change baseband, you have to take the files from the rom that contains it: modem.* (mdt, b00, b01...bxx), q6.* (mdt, b00, b01...) , tzapps.* and dsps_fluid.* then copy them into your own rom in /system/etc/firmware.

You'll see that by doing that, your firmware version changes.

Flashing the baseband partitions after copying the files could help having a fresh start.

 

[jtr165]

^haha good to know, so i was in way over my head...

a day later and still no messed up calls, though. So i'm happy for now...just ready for JB

 

[zackspeed]

I don't think that is correct. I am still learning all of this but I do know in some of the older threads its documented that it did work early on when we first went to H ICS. Some who had LTE in their area at the time showed LTE speeds after flashing it. Guess it does not matter much now but it sure would be nice to have a unlocked boot loader. Ha Ha

 

[letama]

Well, I'm 98% sure, I worked on radio partition extract in firmware and there is no way that the content is radio code. It could have configuration values though, that's why I said that flashing them could be useful, but the partitions are mostly empty. Proof of that is that version changes only if you change files, it will change even without formatting radio partitions.

Unlocked bootloader is not required by the way as it's on system partition, you only need root, remount partition, and replace files.

 

[archie87]

Regardless of whether the flash does anything or not, it seems to have solved my problem, lol.