[WARNING: As you probably figured already, you follow this procedure entirely at your own risk. I don't guarantee it will work for anyone. BE VERY AFRAID :D]
What you will need
- A Micro SD card: the bigger the better (I used a 16Gb one)
- A Vodafone Sim: Preferably with some data credit linked to it (I found the $9.95 Prepaid SIM to be worth $0.01 in practice - Coles is offering a $30 Prepaid Cap for $15 till the 20th of November, so it's a fairly cheap way to test if this works if you don't have a Vodafone Prepaid Account with 500mb+ data on it)
- An unlocked U8815-51 (Huawei G300): You may be able to do this with a locked handset - I just haven't tried.
- A demo version of DFS (v4.0.1.1 worked well for me): Visit cdmatool.com for the download.
- A backed up copy of your IMEI created using 5irom
So here's the situation with a Vodafone AU U8815-51 (aka Ascend G300).
The firmware I got on my 8815 when purchased was : U8815-51V100R001C346B893
This is a Vodafone AU customized version of Gingerbread 2.3.6 as Colin 2905 kindly mentions on Whirlpool:
If you're not sure what version of the U8815 you have, take the back cover off the phone, remove the battery, and look for the model number. If you only see "U8815" and not "U8815-51" then you DON'T have the U8815-51 and this guide probably doesn't apply to you. (well, you may still find the frequency stuff useful)
Quote
Android version: 2.3.6
Baseband version: 109808
Kernel version: 2.6.38.6-perf
android@localhost #1
Build number: U8815-51V100R001C346B893
2. What the bleep went wrong?
After I bought my U8815-51 from Voda AU, I got it unlocked by some nice Armenian dude on ebay. I had no credit on my SIM to test 3G with at the time, and my Vodafone SIM was an old one so I had no idea if it was 3G friendly or not. I ended up following the wonderful tutorial at huaweig300.com, from Page 1 to Page 6. Problem was, when I ended up with B936, I noticed I could only register on the Vodafone AU 3G network before an error would appear in the status bar up the top, which, when swiped down, said something about the connection dropping out. So be careful if you're following that for the first time - it's a great guide, but should probably have some kind of warning regarding the 850Mhz frequency for Australian Vodafone users.
As a sidenote, I tried a number of other things to get the 3G working on the version of ICS B936 on Page 5 of the guide at huaweig300.com, but none seemed to work. I was a sad panda. I even
3. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!
I had read on MoDaCo that other people had some success with 3G in Australia by downgrading from ICS to Gingerbread, so naturally that was the obvious next step. So I downgraded from ICS B936 to V100R001C02B885 (UK Vodafone). (You can download this from madmodder.co.uk - but don't! I'll explain why in a tick) The UK version of 2.3.6 (B885) was good, but I still couldn't figure out how to get 3G working. I tried a number of things, all of which proved to be fruitless at the time. Packet sniffing the update service at query.hicloud.com (Huawei's Cloud Hosting platform for updates) and sending modified HTTP POST queries using their XML format was like hitting my head against a brick wall. I tried contacting Vodafone AU to see if they could send me a copy of the original Gingerbread firmware, but that fell on deaf ears. (I believe someone else on this forum has a copy if anyone is interested, but I'm not sure if it's in CWM format or UPDATE.APP format).
4. Going Cuckoo (or C00-C00)
Did I say this was a guide? I lied. The guide part is below - I promise!
Believing that Gingerbread V100R001C02B885 was a boulevard of broken dreams, I decided to shift gears and give the C00 series of roms a try. The description given to them by Huawei is "Generic" or "International" which didn't exactly fill me with confidence. But I had my first success on C00B884, so it holds a soft spot in my heart.
Flashing 2.3.6 Generic Version:
- Downloaded V100R001C00B884 from MadModder.co.uk. (Ascend G300(U8815,Android 2.3.6) V100R001C00B884.rar - about 191Mb)
- Extracted the rom in step 1 and copied the UPDATE.APP from "Step 1 dload" folder to the "dload" folder on my MicroSD card. (did this via USB cable)
- Made sure the SDcard was mounted in the Android Settings > Storage area, then went to do an SDcard upgrade/update. (sometimes this didn't let me install the update, and other times it did - tell me if you have issues).
- Waited for the update to install. (The pink bar took it's sweet time!). If I got the update failed message, I would use the middle UPDATE.APP, then try the main UPDATE.APP again. (it's a good idea to keep a copy of the middle update under your SDcards dload-middle/ folder for emergencies)
- Once it finished installing, I think it had to reboot once or twice, then I got the classic android logo at boot time, and it eventually got into the OS setup screen (I just pressed Next next next until it let me use Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread.
- Using file manager, rename the dload foldero on your SDcard to dload-b884.
- Create a new folder called dload on your sdcard, and connect your g300 to the computer via USB (switch on storage mode).
- Copy the UPDATE.APP file from the C00B884 "Step 2 vendor" folder into the empty "dload" folder on the SDcard.
- C00B884 is a bit laggy at times, and didn't seem to recognize my simcard for some reason - even though it seemed to work with 2G no problem.
- You should have done this before starting, but if you haven't, install 5irom (there's an APK ToolBox5iromV1.0.4.2.apk) floating around on huaweig300.com from memory that will install without any issues.
- I don't recall if you need to have Rooted Gingerbread or not before you can backup/restore your IMEI. (follow the rooting procedure if you haven't)
- Run 5irom, backup your IMEI to SDcard, and then plugin your G300 to the computer using USB cable, and switch on storage mode.
- COPY the 5irom folder to your PC in a safe place !
Read this section before performing the steps!
- With a Vodafone SIM in your G300, try registering on the Vodafone AU 3G network. (I used a SIM that had credit on it for this!). After flashing back to Gingerbread from ICS, most people still seem to have 3G dropouts. It's worth checking to see if you do. (I did too, so read on)
- Download the 5irom backup which contains a zeroed out IMEI in it. You can grab it from the Bronasium here.
- The next few steps are a carbon copy of "How to Free SIM unlock your G300", (great guide margityu!) but I'm going to include the steps here for completeness.
- Copy the 5irom folder from "g300-downgrade.zip" onto your SDcard.
- Run 5iromtoolbox, and select restore imei. (if it can't find the 5irom backup folder on your SDcard, check to see if your SDcard is mounted in Settings > Storage, and also check to see what the default install location is. Sometimes if the SDcard is mounted to a weird path (like /mnt/sdcard2) 5iromtoolbox cannot see it. In cases like those, I copy the 5irom folder to my internal memory and it seems to work okay. YMMV.
- 5irom toolbox will ask for root permissions, so grant them, or if you aren't rooted, reroot gingerbread.
- Power down your G300, remove the battery, put the battery back in, and power on. I forget exactly what happens here, but I believe the phone will reboot after the Huawei logo. (only once before going back into Android)
- Once back in android, dial *#06# to see what your IMEI is. It'll probably appear to be the same as it was before - mine LOOKED like it didn't change. But it had. Here's how I know:
- Dial *#*#4636#*#*
- You'll see the Testing Menu. Choose "Phone Information"
- Scroll down until you see the "Turn off radio" button. Press it, and hopefully your radio will turn off. (that includes wifi, gps and gsm/wcdma i believe).
- Unplug your g300 from the computer. (this may not be required, not 100% sure)
- Dial *#*#2846579#*#*
- Another Testing menu with MMITest_II and ProjectMenu appears.
- Select ProjectMenu
- Select 1.Background Setting
- Select 4. Usb ports setting
- Select Manufacture mode
- It may say something about rebooting - so power down, remove the battery, reinsert the battery, and power on the g300.
- Get back into the Background Settings menu by following steps 13-16 again.
- Try opening the maintenance/service mode on the phone by selecting 1. Qualcomm background open setting and selecting "background open", then select Confirm.
- If it asks for a password, try 0 (zero) and press okay. That only works sometimes, so here's what you can try if it doesnt.
- If background open does not succeed, Try pressing 3. OTP NV filter switch (which toggles the nv filter switch between open and closed) and then try 21-22 again. If that fails (or succeeds!) try the following:
- Download DFS 4.x (link at top) and install it. Run DFS, wait for the nag screen to disappear, then plug the usb cable from the g300 into the PC, and wait for any drivers to download and install (I'm on windows 7 - on other platforms you may have to manually install the drivers).
- Once you are in DFS, click Ports, and if you have done the right thing,you should see one port described as DBadapter. Double click on it, then down the bottom of the window your phone's details should appear. double click that, and you'll be returned to the DFS main screen.
- Make sure the log window is visible - in v4.x of DFS a log button is in the top right. If DFS has recognized your phone, yellow text will appear on the Equipment tab with all the fields filled out.
- If not, make sure the DBadapter Reserved interface port is selected up the top, and click the connection icon/button to the left.
- When the connection icon is green it should be connected.
- Once connected, go to the Programming tab. Make sure the "Write changes" button is pushed in and UseNam1 is selected.
- Click on the NAM tab, and click on "read" underneath the green column for network identification.
- In the detail box, NAM lock is filled in. Before we can change this, we need to unlock the phone, so put 000000 (six zeroes) in the SPC field in the top left, and click he SPC button. You should see DEVICE UNLOCKED in the log view.
- Once the device is unlocked, you can uncheck "NAM Lock" and click Write. That setting will be saved to the phone.
- Now take a look at Preferred Setting on the right of the NAM tab.
- Heres what I set mine to:
Sys pref: <nothing selected>
Pref mode: GSM_WCDMA
Pref srv: <nothing selected>
Band Pref: BC10_800Mhz_Sec
Roam Pref: Automatic
NOTE: If you are using a 900Mhz UMTS network you will need to change your Band Pref to suit the network you are using. I haven't tested this for Optus 3G networks though. - Click the red Write button in the middle of the NAM tab, then wait for the progress bar to finish.
- Disconnect from the DBadapter REserved Interface port by clicking the green connection plug icon/button.
Now that we've specified a Band Preference (of 850Mhz for Vodafone users) we have to restore the original IMEI using 5irom toolkit.
- Rename your 5irom folder containing the zeroed imei to 5irom-zero using the file manager.
- Follow steps 13-17 under "What's next?" above, and you'll be back in the maintenance menu under the USB setting section.
- Select "Google mode" from the options, and then press the back button until you're completely out of the maintenance menu.
- Connect your g300 to your PC, and copy across the backup of your original IMEI (it'll be in a 5irom folder - make sure you copy the right one - not the zeroed out IMEI version!)
- Run 5irom toolkit and select Restore IMEI. Once complete, power down your phone, pull out the battery, put it back in, and power up again.
- Once booted, check your IMEI by dialing *#06#
1. First try setting your Mobile Networks preferences to "Use 2G Networks only".
2. Make sure Data is enabled too, as we will be testing EDGE over 2G first.
3. Select the Vodafone AU 2G network, and if all goes well it should say "Registered on network"
4. Go back out to the main desktop in Android and run the web browser software. Try visiting www.google.com. If it is working, you'll see the "E" above the signal strength meter and google should load in slowly! (hey, it's EDGE, whaddya expect?)
If that doesn't work, it means something else is amiss. I noticed that the first tiem this worked for me, I had just run the UPDATE.APP for C00B934, and it said : Update Failed. (because I hadn't used the middle update). I pulled out the battery and put it back in, and when I got into Gingerbread (C00B884) - the Edge connection and 3G was working. See if it works for you.
The "even more horrendously acidic" test
1. If the acid test worked, try unticking "Use 2G Networks only" and select the Vodafone AU 3G network".
2. If all goes well, it should say registered on Network. If you have data enabled, it may have the "H" (HSPDA) symbol above the signal strength meter.
3. Try visiting google.com in your android web browser. See how you go.
If that doesn't work, then it's possible there is something else going on with your phone I'm not aware of that affects the 3g connection.
Hey, I tried.
5. "It worked, but Gingerbread is so yesterday..."
If you've got it working on Gingerbread, then it should work on the C00B934 build of ICS too. (worked for me, and that build of ICS runs a bit smoother than the C00B884 build of Gingerbread mentioned in this guide). The only problem is, the download connection for C00B934 often drops out with Huawei's website, so you may have to wait a few hours for it to work. (I tried three times before it downloaded the 350+Mb file - sheesh!)
As you probably already know, before you update to C00B934, you'll need to run the middle update again, and then run the C00B934 update. I had no issues getting the C00B934 update installed once I had done a middle update.
Once you have updated to ICS C00B934, try the steps under "4. Going Cuckoo" from "What's next? Zeroing the IMEI and setting the Band Preference." onwards. (obviously all references to Gingerbread should be changed to ICS and references to C00B884 should be changed to C00B934.
6. Report your findings and if something doesn't work, tell us!
Hopefully this guide will come in handy to other people experiencing 3G dropouts.
I will update it in response to feedback and hopefully we can make this guide a bit more specific/bulletproof.
Cheers,
bogo.
Edited by bogomips, 20 November 2012 - 09:05 AM.







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