Samsung Galaxy SII I9100 SGS2 Modding Thread

Grassey

yeah no need to keep it after updating, unless you really want to.

Bluefrog

Right, I'm new to flashing Android devices but figured since I wanted root access to run some ssh and samba stuff I'd give it a whirl. Flashed to Lightening 4.2 without any major issue that I've noticed so far, too soon to say on battery.

Anyway, one thing I wanted to point out to anyone else flashing on 3 prepay is that when you first boot up your newly flashed phone you'll get a prompt asking you which APN to use - there are two, one called 3 and the other called H3G IE WAP - the one you want is the latter one. I initally choose 3 and had no data. Had just entered the settings I got from the sticky in the mobiles & PDA's forum when I noticed there was a reset default option. Clicking it gave me back the H3G Wap apn AND the correct mms one too. The data apn give the phone much faster settings than those mentioned in the sticky as far as I can tell after brief testing.

Only other issue I had was there was a notification for a skype update which downloaded correctly from the new market but when it came to a certain point in the installation it told me it was incorrectly signed - anyone know if this is something I should worry about - couldn't find mention of it anywhere else online. Existing skype is working fine with video anyway.

Irish Gunner

Anyone bought any screen protectors ? Anyone tried the SGP or any others. To many finger marks on screen and looking to get a decent one

Also on Lightening rom 3.0 see there is a 5.0 version available worth changing to?

Been in the Sun recently and the screen is near almost impossible to read that's been my only gripe with this phone

Bluefrog

Yeah, 5.0 came out a few hours after I flashed 4.2 - reviews seem mised and bit disappointed to hear that people seem to have lost access to GTalk video - one of the reasons I flashed in the first place (god knows when 3 will catch up with the Android build)

Regarding earlier post, phone at 77% battery now with some texting, a few photos and a few tweets done - oh and I have G+ automatically uploading photos in the background too.

Think I'd recommend 4.2 over 5 atm.

Kenny Logins

I'm on 5.0 now, call recording is a nice feature.

Grassey

From what I remember reading its the kg6 radio that doesn't support gtalk video not the 5.0Rom per say. The Rom is based off the latest modem though.

I presume flashing back to a different radio might solve that issue. Kg3 maybe?

To be fair though there have been many complaints and mixed reviews of his Rom since 2.0 plus. He is also just throwing them out too quick and unstable without consistency in what's included in each update.

I still use 2.2 as I find it fast and stable and none of the other updates have really offered anything more. I have however changed the kernel and radio from his 2.2 release.

Kenny Logins

Yeah, the release frequency is getting silly now. I think I'll stick with this until Cyanogen is ready.

R.P.McMurphy

Ever since I flashed to Lightning Rom I am getting sweet FA battery life, like 9 hours maybe. Its not too obvious from my battery usage stats what it is, display seems to be eating about half, even though brightness is set to minimum, and when working I rarely check my phone.

Have more or less the same apps as I did on the original firmware. Just wierd the way others are getting improved battery life and I am getting worse!

On Lightning 2.2 if that helps.

-Corkie-

I am on 3.xxx and I get the whole day and more. I am on the phone all day talking/broesing and using the nav.

marathonic

For those of you that have flashed multiple versions, how do you find battery longetivity between the various versions?

Alligator Wine

Recently Flashed Villain Rom 2.3 and finding it decent enough batterywise so far. Used GPS with My Tracks for 10 hrs straight at the weekend before it died.

26% battery left after 28 hours use.
Just wondering if I should change my kernal as well? At the moment it reads 2.6.35.7-I9100XWKE2-CL187606 root@DELL101 #2

I don't really understand what the kernal does.

cheers

Grassey

Alligator Wine wrote: »

Recently Flashed Villain Rom 2.3 and finding it decent enough batterywise so far. Used GPS with My Tracks for 10 hrs straight at the weekend before it died.

26% battery left after 28 hours use.
Just wondering if I should change my kernal as well? At the moment it reads 2.6.35.7-I9100XWKE2-CL187606 root@DELL101 #2

I don't really understand what the kernal does.

cheers

From what I've gathered the kernel is like the drivers on your pc telling the os (Rom) what to do and how to do it.

The baseband is the phones radio or modem which relates to how it connects to networks, Bluetooth, wifi etc.

I'm on litning 2.2 which was cf kg1 kernel and kg1 baseband, and I've changed to ninphetimine 2.0.4 kernel (I find its faster and enables bln) and a kg6 baseband (which is giving me better reception at home over kg1 or kg3 but at the cost of not having gmail chat video)

If you are happy with current battery usage (and 70% in 28hours is pretty good) and unsure about changing things and not willing to spend hours reading up about it all then I'd leave the kernel etc as is

Grassey

R.P.McMurphy wrote: »

Ever since I flashed to Lightning Rom I am getting sweet FA battery life, like 9 hours maybe. Its not too obvious from my battery usage stats what it is, display seems to be eating about half, even though brightness is set to minimum, and when working I rarely check my phone.

Have more or less the same apps as I did on the original firmware. Just wierd the way others are getting improved battery life and I am getting worse!

On Lightning 2.2 if that helps.

It could be anything causing the drain, do you have a lot of apps syncing constantly that could be changed to every 15mins, hour, once a day or manual etc, or have gps or wifi turned on constantly? Have you frozen/removed apps you don't use or need? do you have a live wallpaper or have 7home screens yet only use 2 of them, the list of things is potentially endless.

maybe Download a task manager to see what's running in the background, or a battery stats app to see what's causing drain. Should give a better indication than the phones battery usage graph facility.

R.P.McMurphy

Grassey wrote: »

It could be anything causing the drain, do you have a lot of apps syncing constantly that could be changed to every 15mins, hour, once a day or manual etc, or have gps or wifi turned on constantly? Have you frozen/removed apps you don't use or need? do you have a live wallpaper or have 7home screens yet only use 2 of them, the list of things is potentially endless.

maybe Download a task manager to see what's running in the background, or a battery stats app to see what's causing drain. Should give a better indication than the phones battery usage graph facility.

I have turned everthing down sync wise. The only thing I really have syncing is facebook contacts and gmail. I presume the facebook contacts thing doesn't use anything though? Its just syncing to my phone contacts?

Wifi is on only when I am at home and using it. Once in work I turn wifi off and also my gps off. So it can't be that cause when I got into work today it was 100% but it slowly just drained till it was about 25% when I was leaving 9 hours later. I have frozen a few stock apps today using Titanium Backup so that may make a difference also. Is freezing basically as good as removing bar the fact that you can just unfreeze to re-use? When I go to remove some stock apps I get a warning that they may be needed for the ROM so I kind of freak and just freeze!

I noticed as well that it seems to auto run a lot of apps I don't even use, I have looked into this a bit and apparently all Android 2.3 and up do this so its probably not unique to me and therefore not the cause of the problem?

Its such a constant steady drain though I agree it must be some kind of app doing the damage, will have to experiment a bit and see what I can come up with.

Grassey

Here is a list of items that "may" be frozen at your own risk and discretion of course.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0Ag43oj7rLQP4dENZcmhGN0ZUa3pHSENVeXlqUm5vV0E&single=true&gid=0&output=html


Are you logged into google latitude? I remember that being reported as a big drainer of battery and causing maps to have a high usage and constant connecting to internet.

R.P.McMurphy

Grassey wrote: »

Here is a list of items that "may" be frozen at your own risk and discretion of course.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0Ag43oj7rLQP4dENZcmhGN0ZUa3pHSENVeXlqUm5vV0E&single=true&gid=0&output=html


Are you logged into google latitude? I remember that being reported as a big drainer of battery and causing maps to have a high usage and constant connecting to internet.

Cheers!

Not sure on the Latitude thing, I would have thought that goes off when I turn the GPS off so it may not be that. I do use it though, but when I am in work I am logged on via my pc so I turn the GPS off on my phone.

Grassey

Latitude is like google's version of Foursquare (kinda) if there is no gps it'll use your data connection to get a rough idea of where you are located.

alternatively you could try this see if it helps

My phone's battery drain is insane! How do I fix it?
As a first step, try calibrating your battery by doing the following
1. Plug in and charge the device to maximum.
1.1 OPTIONAL: Turn off the phone and charge again.
2. Reboot the device into Recovery with the plug still attached.
3. Go to "Advance" and select "Wipe Battery Stats".
4. Reboot system from the Recovery main menu (1st page).
5. Unplug and use.

or you could try betterbatterystats to see whats the problem

budgemook

Hi,

Just moved from SGS1 to SGS2. I had Darkys 9.4 on my old phone.

Villain ROM seems to be the popular choice on the S2. Is it good? Stock on this phone is a lot better than stock on the SGS1 - What are the pros and cons of Villain ROM and what are some good alternatives?

Thanks.

Bluefrog

Well I was happy enough with Lightening 4.2 until I came across two deal breakers last night - first one is that buddys widgets seem to get wiped from time to time for no apparant reason that I can figure.

Second Google Skymaps doesn't work. Just gives me a static image of the sky.

I see the paid version of commandbot now supports commands to be executed after ssh connection and I can wait for Google Talk video so its back to stock for me - was fun though

Bluefrog

Right, so I've got the thread on the XDA forum where I can download stock firmware and kernels http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1075278 which links to the separate thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1113928 for provider stock firmware + kernels and found the 3 one there so I could flash back to that.

But I'm thinking, if there was a generic European one (like there was when I was using Symbian) I would get a stock experience back but I wouldn't be tied to the delay in provider updates plus would avoid the bloatware the provider adds (not much from 3 at the moment but who's to say what's coming).

So my question is, can I flash to a stock firmware and kernel, still get my updates through kies and if so, which one do I use - me confused.

5500

Anyone else tried batista70 3.4 rom?
Using it a couple of days now and Its my favourite rom so far. Battery drain was abit significant with the thunderbolt 16 rom but using niph 2.05 and so far so good

Vikings

Few noob questions here, just updated my firmware through Kies to KG1. Running android 2.3.3. All stock, for now.

Just got titanium backup pro in preparation of flashing a custom rom so first thing I want to do is root the phone so I can use titanium. (I know flashing a custom rom would root as well but I want to wait and see how Litening Rom 5.0 develops a bit more)

I've seen a few guides mentioning SuperOneClick or something or other to root it using Odin (I have Odin 1.85 downloaded) but those articles are a few months old at this stage and I am wondering is there a more recent way/better way?

If I root the phone do I then lose the ability to update the phone through Kies for example? Don't feel too restricted by the stock phone really but would like to go a bit further and play with it a bit more. Thanks

Zagato

Best way to root is probably using Chainfire's method which will give you ClockWorkMod Recovery 4, and one of his kernels (which are all simply stock kernels + root)

If you root the phone, why would you update via kies, the main benefit of rooting is to be able to flash to the latest bloatware free ROM

For example you've just updated to KG1 and I imagine have some carrier bloatware (as well as the Samsung rubbish), which is all that is available via kies.

I'm running a bug free KG6 with no carrier bloatware, and I've frozen anything else I don't want.

So essentially Kies becomes useless (That seems to suggest that it was useful before) after you root

Zith

Bluefrog wrote: »

...

So my question is, can I flash to a stock firmware and kernel, still get my updates through kies and if so, which one do I use - me confused.

Short answer no. When you have the stock rom kies won't let you update through it. You can flash back one of your providers roms and then kies works again. But I guess the point of putting a generic stock rom on in the first place is that it will be a much more recent version than your providers one.

I have the generic XKG6 on my vodafone S2. Kies won't let me update but that doesn't matter because when something newer than XKG6 comes out I can just flash that using Odin anyway.

evolutionqy7

Any one know is there a working MIUI ROM available for the S2. Not a fan of tw

Professey Chin

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

Any one know is there a working MIUI ROM available for the S2. Not a fan of tw

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1130951

Tried it out last week. Really stable from what I found

subway

guys, need some basics on this

have rooted via chainfire method and flashed batista rom as a start.
is there anything else i need to do on the SGS?
kernel,firmware etc etc?

5500

With the batista rom I found the ninph 2.05 to be a better kernal on battery, just download it and put it on your phones storage and flash via cwm.

Other than that you dont need anything once rooted and rom flashed thats the hardwork done so just enjoy playing with the phone!

Cyrus

whats the current status with MIU and CM7 lads? much stuff broken still?

5500

MIUI is supposed to have had an update in the past day or two that's brought it on well, I might just give it a try and see how its looking