Samsung Galaxy SII I9100 SGS2 Modding Thread

ChriisM

Headshot wrote: »

That a good way of rooting the phone lads?

I dont trust those programs to be honest, i prefare doing it myself as i know what i did if it goes wrong and therefore i can fix it.

Honest its very simple , massive amounts of info on XDA GS2 section on rooting.
Anyway why do u want root if your afraid of taking the plunge? only helpful root request apps are the like of titanium backup , rom manager and other system changing apps. NOT TO BE USED BY THE FAINT HEARTED. Just saying....:cool:

Headshot

Thanks for the reply Chris

I want to root it to get apps like that f-ing adverts off it, remove ads on apps, improve battery performance and more apps

ChriisM

Headshot wrote: »

Thanks for the reply Chris

I want to root it to get apps like that f-ing adverts off it, remove ads on apps, improve battery performance and more apps

Rooting wont improve battery unless you start using scrips. These however can seriously f*ck with your phone. Fair enough with the remove ads, but you can either buy the app, or keep this on the hush hush , Search google for the .apk or the pro version. Once you have install unknown sources you will be fine.

BenEadir

Hi all, OP here again!!

I'm home alone all weekend minding the kids so I think its about time I upgraded my ROM to whatever the most stable ICS based ROM out there is. I'm still on CheckROM v 2!!!

Suggestions as to what I should upgrade to? I'm looking for Max performance and battery life and generally prefer as little bloat as possible.

Cheers all,

Ben

BenEadir

Hi all,

It must be a slow day on Boards

Did a bit of digging around and found a new (to me anyway) site which is aimed at guys like myself i.e. who want to flash ROM's etc but need to be shown step by step what to do in plain (not too technical) language. www.galaxys2root.com

This seems to be the best and most stable ICS ROM for the S2 at the moment http://galaxys2root.com/galaxy-s2-roms/resurrection-remix-ics-rom-for-galaxy-s2-i9100-best-ics-rom

Here's the video - http://youtu.be/_IPk7tpyeXE

Might give it a lash later.

Ben

dingdong1234567

BenThere wrote: »

Hi all,

It must be a slow day on Boards

Did a bit of digging around and found a new (to me anyway) site which is aimed at guys like myself i.e. who want to flash ROM's etc but need to be shown step by step what to do in plain (not too technical) language. www.galaxys2root.com

This seems to be the best and most stable ICS ROM for the S2 at the moment http://galaxys2root.com/galaxy-s2-roms/resurrection-remix-ics-rom-for-galaxy-s2-i9100-best-ics-rom

Here's the video - http://youtu.be/_IPk7tpyeXE

Might give it a lash later.

Ben

linky no worky

BenEadir

dingdong1234567 wrote: »

linky no worky

Linky all worky for me, which one doesn't work for you??

Ben

BenEadir

Not very impressed with two major things:-

1. The battery performance is CR*P!! Charged to 100% over night. Unplugged this morning at 8am and it's now down to 44% :mad: WTF????

2. Whilst I had CheckROM installed the phone would frequently enough (every few days) just **** down without any warning. Nothing would get it powered up again except doing a battery pull and guess what? It happened again this morning

I'm more than a little frustrated.

Also, the wi-fi signal in this ROM seems very weak. Where I would normally be getting 1 or 2 signal strength bars I'm getting none or maybe one.

What's next????

CyanogenMod?

Ben

wotzgoingon

BenThere wrote: »

Not very impressed with two major things:-

1. The battery performance is CR*P!! Charged to 100% over night. Unplugged this morning at 8am and it's now down to 44% :mad: WTF????

2. Whilst I had CheckROM installed the phone would frequently enough (every few days) just **** down without any warning. Nothing would get it powered up again except doing a battery pull and guess what? It happened again this morning

I'm more than a little frustrated.

Also, the wi-fi signal in this ROM seems very weak. Where I would normally be getting 1 or 2 signal strength bars I'm getting none or maybe one.

What's next????

CyanogenMod?

Ben

That used to happen me with an older version of CheckRom. It is really annoying having the phone shut down but it used to boot straight back up, but still really annoying had to stop using it.

shane547

BenThere wrote: »

Not very impressed with two major things:-

1. The battery performance is CR*P!! Charged to 100% over night. Unplugged this morning at 8am and it's now down to 44% :mad: WTF????

2. Whilst I had CheckROM installed the phone would frequently enough (every few days) just **** down without any warning. Nothing would get it powered up again except doing a battery pull and guess what? It happened again this morning

I'm more than a little frustrated.

Also, the wi-fi signal in this ROM seems very weak. Where I would normally be getting 1 or 2 signal strength bars I'm getting none or maybe one.

What's next????

CyanogenMod?

Ben

I've tried resurrection 9.6 along with a number of others over the past few days and I'd definitely have to recommend cyanogenmod 9. Bar some problems with video playback its easily the most stable with no crashes so far. You can find the latest build under the nightlies section on the cyanogen website.

Shane

BenEadir

wotzgoingon wrote: »

That used to happen me with an older version of CheckRom. It is really annoying having the phone shut down but it used to boot straight back up, but still really annoying had to stop using it.

I too assumed it was CheckRom related but it happened to me this morning on ICS Resurrection Remix 9.4.

Just about to flash CM9 nightly. Can't eat battery as fast as Resurrection!!

Never tried CM before on my phone but installed it on my HP Touchpad and it works a treat. Probably makes sense to have similar ROMS's on both just to keep my head sane so fingers crossed CM9 will work well on the SGS2 in terms of battery and no longer randomly shutting down.

Will report back how I get on.

Ben

Grassey

BenThere wrote: »

1. The battery performance is CR*P!! Charged to 100% over night. Unplugged this morning at 8am and it's now down to 44% :mad: WTF????

Something is keeping it awake, use Better Battery Stats and check to see what wakelock is keeping it running, sounds like something is preventing it from going into deep sleep.

BenEadir

Grassey wrote: »

Something is keeping it awake, use Better Battery Stats and check to see what wakelock is keeping it running, sounds like something is preventing it from going into deep sleep.

CM9 is also murdering the battery and Bluetooth doesn't work. I left to play golf at 13:30 with the battery at 60& and 5 hours later (not much use during 3 hours of golf!!) it's down to 12%. I looked at the battery stats and Android OS is taking up 31%.

Ah well, time to move back onto a stable ROM, CM7 or the latest CheckROM? Decisions decisions.

BTW, Since installing CM9 I no longer have the CWM app for booting into recovery. I do have "ROM Manager" which boots into a 5.5.0.4 version of recovery with some errors stated at the bottom (e.g. E:failed to seek in /cache/update.zip (Invalid argument) and E:signature verification failed Installation aborted) and requires you to press the power button to activate a menu option rather than the home button. Hopefully this will still allow me to flash CheckRom V6 which is what I'm now going to go for.

This weekend has reminded me why once I find a stable ROM with excellent battery life I tend to stick with it for a while!!

Ben

Grassey

Ben you were on litening rom before yeah?

Apparently he has resurfaced and has an ics rom now too.

I tried resurrection a while back but to be fair I'm sticking to cm7 until there is a fully working ice rom, sources released or a build off an official and not beta leak.

BenEadir

As they say in Snatch - I'm proper fcuked this time!!!

Two problems:-

1. In an effort to make the next ROM install as clean as possible I deleted my Titanium backup of all my user apps and user app data because I wanted to do a nice new backup before flashing the new ROM - problem is I hadn't restored my apps from when I loaded CM9 so now I've deleted my backup I now have no apps to backup I can live with this, probably a good idea anyway as it will force me to only reload the apps I actually use/miss!!

2. For the life of me I can't get the SGS2 to load as a USB connected drive so I can drop CheckROM V6 onto it prior to flashing. When I connect the SGS2 via USB to my laptop the phone instantly states it's "USB debugging connected" and also states "Connected as a media device" but it doesn't show up in "Computer" no matter what I do. I've tried rebooting the SGS and laptop several times and also tried it on another PC with the exact same result. What I am doing wrong? How can I get it to mount as a drive my PC will see????

I'm tired and pi$$ed off so please bail me out here, I've got work tomorrow and currently a battery eating CM9 nightly phone with no apps - not happy and it's all my own fault so I can't even blame someone else :mad::mad::mad:

Ben

Grassey

Hey,

Off the top of my head, CM9 still can't connect to pc via usb as a MTP device (its one of its current problems)

You need to install app airdroid (or similar) and transfer checkrom to phone via wifi

Then you should be able to flash checkrom no problems

G'luck with it!

BenEadir

Hi Grassey,

Good idea, another little flaw in CM9 - stay clear unless you are into Android S&M!!!

As it happens I was fluting around in Recovery when I saw "restore" and remembered that for once I had done a Nandroid backup before installing Resurrection Remix yesterday.. I hit restore and through luck more than judgement I'm now back on CheckROM V2.

Currently updating apps and going to do a new Titanium backup and hopefully get CheckROM 6 working before I hit the sack.

Can't believe people do this for fun!!!

Ben

griffdaddy

BenThere wrote: »

Hi Grassey,

Good idea, another little flaw in CM9 - stay clear unless you are into Android S&M!!!

As it happens I was fluting around in Recovery when I saw "restore" and remembered that for once I had done a Nandroid backup before installing Resurrection Remix yesterday.. I hit restore and through luck more than judgement I'm now back on CheckROM V2.

Currently updating apps and going to do a new Titanium backup and hopefully get CheckROM 6 working before I hit the sack.

Can't believe people do this for fun!!!

Ben

if it happens again Ben just select the mount usb option in clock work recovery and the pc will see it. It's probably the best way of transferring stuff if you're gonna be flashing anyway

BenEadir

griffdaddy wrote: »

if it happens again Ben just select the mount usb option in clock work recovery and the pc will see it. It's probably the best way of transferring stuff if you're gonna be flashing anyway

Thanks GriffDaddy, that's a good tip.

CheckROM V6 seems to be working fine.

ICS does look very slick but having had my fingers burned a little I'll be waiting until there is a stable(ish) version out with full functionality before I go messing around again.

BTW, what's the crack with CM7? They still haven't released a stable version (they pulled their original stable release) and CM9 can't be too far away.

Ben

BenEadir

Me again!

OK, so I'm happily up and running on CheckROM V6 and now I want to optimise it to get the best performance in terms of:-

- Signal strength - Wi-Fi/3G/HSPA (Vodafone's new faster technology)/GSM etc
- Battery Performance

Is there a way to optimise the kernel and/or modem to suit my circumstances i.e. being a Vodafone customer in Ireland? CheckROM comes pre loaded with the CF-Root-SGS2_XW_OXA_LA4-v5.0-CWM5 kernel and XWKL1 modem but there are lot's of alternatives which can be easily downloaded and flashed.

Each has different pro's and con's Vs what comes bundled with the ROM but I don't have the technical skill or confidence to determine which if any would give me the best signal and battery performance on the Vodafone network in Ireland. Any thoughts??

Also, there seems to be a clever way to seriously extend the battery performance by tweaking voltage and CPU settings as described here http://checkrom.com/threads/more-battery-life-on-checkrom-v6-try-before-posting-about-bad-battery-life.542 but it looks a bit scary to me - what a wimp eh?

Thoughts anyone???

Ben

AntiRip

I'm using Siyah v2.6 and KI3 modem and found a drastic improvement in battery. I usually get 1.5 to 2 days with medium usage (a bit of surfing, few calls, lot of texts, radio and some streaming).

I also have juice defender and airplane mode by night.

P.S

I heard Siyah was one of the best kernels for this rom. Also I'm with vodafone. If this doesn't work for you, why not try out different combinations that may work best for you.

griffdaddy

I was getting huge battery drain on checkrom 6 when I first installed it. I checked the battery section of 'about phone' and 'android os' had been using 40%. This is a known problem that occurs sometimes and was sorted by flashing the siyah kernel. If you're experiencing battery issues you should check if you have the android os battery drain before you do anything else

Zagato

griffdaddy wrote: »

I was getting huge battery drain on checkrom 6 when I first installed it. I checked the battery section of 'about phone' and 'android os' had been using 40%. This is a known problem that occurs sometimes and was sorted by flashing the siyah kernel. If you're experiencing battery issues you should check if you have the android os battery drain before you do anything else

Thanks, this has been an issue for me, charged phone before going to bed the other night (never really done this before) and in the morning down to 11% (Android OS 94%) will give Siyah a try.

BenEadir

griffdaddy wrote: »

I was getting huge battery drain on checkrom 6 when I first installed it. I checked the battery section of 'about phone' and 'android os' had been using 40%. This is a known problem that occurs sometimes and was sorted by flashing the siyah kernel. If you're experiencing battery issues you should check if you have the android os battery drain before you do anything else

I'd really like to understand why the CheckROM team choose to build the CF Root kernel into the ROM. They presumably know about the performance of the other ROM's yet opt for CF.

Really tempted to start messing around with the battery performance tweaks :eek:

Ben

Atomic Pineapple

Has anyone got a way to root the SGS II and place a vanilla ICS ROM on it?

srsly78

Just flash the ics rom, and then flash the rooted kernel. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1544487

Download links above are slow tho, I had to find a torrent to get the rom.

OneWayBet

Yeah this is well documented online just Google it, flash the LPQ ROM using Odin with your phone in download mode and then flash the CF Root (ChainFire root) to get root.

http://knowmydroid.com/blog/manually-install-official-lpq-ice-cream-sandwich-firmware-on-samsung-galaxy-s2

Professey Chin

draffodx wrote: »

Has anyone got a way to root the SGS II and place a vanilla ICS ROM on it?

No fully working stock ICS rom for SGS2 at the moment.
Im using CM9 which is nearly there (little buggy and no video camera) but it wont be done until samsung release the kernel source code (although I think 1 of the devs is fed up of waiting and currently building his own kernel)

OneWayBet

The Great Chinholio wrote: »

No fully working stock ICS rom for SGS2 at the moment

Are you serious? What is LPQ then, not stock or not fully working? I've been using it since the release a couple of days ago without a hitch.

OneWayBet

Sorry I just spotted the word vanilla (i.e. presumably meaning not TW) in the first post. I take it all back