What is the ESN tied to? Radio? Main Board? Can a Sprint Pre be turned into a Plus?

[neit_jnf]

Let's say I buy a broken Plus, would it be possible to frankenstein the 512 MB ram and 16 GB memory into my regular Pre?

Is the ESN tied to the radios, the board, what? If I change just the main board to get the extra memory but keep all the other hardware, would it work?

and yes, i'm a pre noob, sorry if already been discussed...

[Arthur Thornton]

Originally Posted by neit_jnf

Let's say I buy a broken Plus, would it be possible to frankenstein the 512 MB ram and 16 GB memory into my regular Pre?

Is the ESN tied to the radios, the board, what? If I change just the main board to get the extra memory but keep all the other hardware, would it work?

and yes, i'm a pre noob, sorry if already been discussed...

The level of work involved is much more than one would expect.

The RAM is attached to the processor (SoC) and the memory module is quite small.

Your best bet is to:

1) Buy a Pre Plus
2) Buy QPST - this is the dangerous part of the operation
3) Write down the Pre+ configurations and then put the Pre configurations in (when using QPST on the Pre+), INCLUDING the ESN
4) Use meta-doctor to modify the configuration the webOS Doctor uses so it will give webOS all 16gigs
5) I think that is all, but there could be minor hardware differences to account for...

[dz1262]

Originally Posted by arthurthornton

The level of work involved is much more than one would expect.

The RAM is attached to the processor (SoC) and the memory module is quite small.

Your best bet is to:

1) Buy a Pre Plus
2) Buy QPST - this is the dangerous part of the operation
3) Write down the Pre+ configurations and then put the Pre configurations in (when using QPST on the Pre+), INCLUDING the ESN
4) Use meta-doctor to modify the configuration the webOS Doctor uses so it will give webOS all 16gigs
5) I think that is all, but there could be minor hardware differences to account for...

And with that go my hopes and dreams of just buying a a pre plus from someone and just doctoring it over with the sprint doctor and calling a level 2 technician like I read once on this forum.

[jhoff80]

The radio is on its own separate board, and I've read that a person or two has switched the two boards out and gotten the Pre Plus to work with Sprint (after a bit of software configuaration). Don't know from experience, or how true the account of this was though.

If I see a bad ESN Pre Plus for cheap enough, I might attempt it myself.

[rwhitby]

Originally Posted by jhoff80

The radio is on its own separate board, and I've read that a person or two has switched the two boards out and gotten the Pre Plus to work with Sprint (after a bit of software configuaration). Don't know from experience, or how true the account of this was though.

If I see a bad ESN Pre Plus for cheap enough, I might attempt it myself.

I've swapped a GSM board into a Sprint Pre and it worked fine.

Note that you may lose access to the app catalog by doing so. If you transfer over all the tokens (you can do that with Meta-Doctor) then you might be able to keep it, but no guarantees.

-- Rod

[toyotast165]

rod, you are awesome, nuff said.

[Gaurav]

You know if someone would offer a memory upgrade service for the Sprint Pre to 16 GB or more, I think a lot of people would be interested in this...

[gitit20]

Originally Posted by dz1262

And with that go my hopes and dreams of just buying a a pre plus from someone and just doctoring it over with the sprint doctor and calling a level 2 technician like I read once on this forum.

That was me you read that from and that's all i did i was able to doctor it with the sprint rom and it worked it saw the 16 extra gigs automagicley was some hassle to get it activated but all was good the Verizon and Sprint radios have diff firm ware so if you wanted to put your sprint radio board in a verizon pre plus you would have to change the firm ware i have had a verizon pre plus on sprint for a while i also got sick of the verizon logo on the mirror so i swapped it out from a broken sprint pre there is not a lot of difference in the design of the pre and pre plus same slider mech mobo is same size but has the more memory radio board look identical down to the parts and part number just has diff firm ware. I had to use the ## msl number # to set the data and msid numbers as well as the phone number as well all has been fine.

In order to to use the webOS doctor from sprint i have to put it in recovery mode and then was able to get it to work one other side effect is when ever it updates it will down load the verizon rom and have to doctor it back to the sprint so i just block the updates and use doctor to update it when its released.

[jhoff80]

Originally Posted by rwhitby

I've swapped a GSM board into a Sprint Pre and it worked fine.

Note that you may lose access to the app catalog by doing so. If you transfer over all the tokens (you can do that with Meta-Doctor) then you might be able to keep it, but no guarantees.

Which option in Meta-Doctor is it that transfers the tokens? Didn't see that in the makefile.

Originally Posted by gitit20

when ever it updates it will down load the verizon rom and have to doctor it back to the sprint so i just block the updates and use doctor to update it when its released.

Ouch, that sounds painful for me, I've got about 4GB in apps that would have to re-download each time. Is that experience the norm, because that'd probably make it not worth attempting.

[rwhitby]

Originally Posted by jhoff80

Which option in Meta-Doctor is it that transfers the tokens? Didn't see that in the makefile.

You have to edit castle.xml manually between patch and pack.

-- Rod

[opacityzero]

If one was to attempt this, would running future webos doctor revert back the original esn? or is the esn with the radio comm board so it transfers over to the phone?

[jhoff80]

FYI, I performed this 'surgery' yesterday.

First I tried the QPST method, which did not work, the communications board still seemed to be tied to Verizon, even after saving the settings directly from the Sprint Pre and loading them to the Verizon device. I know there's at least one thing I missed though (changing the PRL to Sprint's) so maybe that'd make it work.

Then I swapped the communications board, and it worked.

As for the webOS version installed, I tried a few things, but what seemed to have worked out best in the end was using Meta-Doctor (thanks again, Rod / webOS-Internals) to overwrite all of the tokens with my Sprint token values.

I was then able to use the standard, run of the mill Sprint webOS Doctor to give myself a completely stock Sprint install.

All of my bought applications installed onto the Pre Plus with no issues (and one has even updated in the time since). I suspect that because of the modified tokens thing, I shouldn't have any issue with OTA webOS updates either, but of course I won't know that for sure until 1.4.5 hits.

All in all, it's working out really well. The cheap bad ESN VZW Pre Plus that I picked up off eBay has minor cosmetic damage (few light scratches, the piece of pearlish plastic over the speaker is broken off) but the functionality is perfect, with no oreo, no double letters, etc.

The only issue is that there might be a loose connection to the LCD screen from when I opened it up, because three times in the 24 hours since, I've seen major glitching all over the screen for about 15 seconds.

I highly doubt that has anything to do with it being a Sprint Pre Plus now, and everything to do with the fact it was used hardware.

Oh, and you do NOT have to do anything special to get the full 16GB to be recognized, like is mentioned above.

[dz1262]

Originally Posted by jhoff80

FYI, I performed this 'surgery' yesterday.

First I tried the QPST method, which did not work, the communications board still seemed to be tied to Verizon, even after saving the settings directly from the Sprint Pre and loading them to the Verizon device. I know there's at least one thing I missed though (changing the PRL to Sprint's) so maybe that'd make it work.

Then I swapped the communications board, and it worked.

As for the webOS version installed, I tried a few things, but what seemed to have worked out best in the end was using Meta-Doctor (thanks again, Rod / webOS-Internals) to overwrite all of the tokens with my Sprint token values.

I was then able to use the standard, run of the mill Sprint webOS Doctor to give myself a completely stock Sprint install.

All of my bought applications installed onto the Pre Plus with no issues (and one has even updated in the time since). I suspect that because of the modified tokens thing, I shouldn't have any issue with OTA webOS updates either, but of course I won't know that for sure until 1.4.5 hits.

All in all, it's working out really well. The cheap bad ESN VZW Pre Plus that I picked up off eBay has minor cosmetic damage (few light scratches, the piece of pearlish plastic over the speaker is broken off) but the functionality is perfect, with no oreo, no double letters, etc.

The only issue is that there might be a loose connection to the LCD screen from when I opened it up, because three times in the 24 hours since, I've seen major glitching all over the screen for about 15 seconds.

I highly doubt that has anything to do with it being a Sprint Pre Plus now, and everything to do with the fact it was used hardware.

Oh, and you do NOT have to do anything special to get the full 16GB to be recognized, like is mentioned above.

Just to help clarify. Did you take the Com board out of your Sprint Pre and place it into the Verizon Pre+ or did you take the memory board out of the Verizon Pre+ and put it in the Sprint Pre? Just to help me understand in case I find a way to get my hands on a Pre+.

PS- also I like the physical Button on my Sprint Pre, and the build quality of my machine is one of those rare, absolutely perfect machines, so If I can put this chip into the Sprint Pre that would be phenomenal.

[IcerC]

Wow!

Would love a step by step pictorial if someone also does this.

how much did you get it for?
is there any soldering involved jhoff?

[jhoff80]

Took the comm board out of the Pre, stuck it in the Pre Plus.

Nope, no soldering, just two connectors that press into place:


You can see them at the top of that metal plate.

There's also the two antenna connectors that just push on as well (removed in a prior step, and I highly recommend studying the teardown guides heavily before attempting anything like this):


Also, getting a little off topic, but wow is it nice to be able to multitask and get notifications while playing a 3d game.

Oh and the other thing I meant to mention that is working perfectly is Sprint Navigation, I was a little concerned it wouldn't. Haven't seemed to have any GPS issues at all with other apps either, but as the GPS is on the communications board, it's the same exact one that was on my Pre in the first place.

There is a lot of glue holding pieces in place, but if you gently apply pressure (don't yank) it'll come off pretty easily.

Edit: For the record, pictures courtesy of the iFixit teardown.

[OldSkoolVWLover]

Nice, and congrats. Can't see doing that any time soon, but maybe someday.

[dz1262]

I just recently got my brother's old pre that he ripped in half during a moment of extreme frustration at life (oddly enough not at all frustrated with the phone) and I am pretty sure the com chip is still good on it so it's craigslist/ebay hunting time >

[jhoff80]

Since it took me an hour or so to figure out the overwriting tokens thing (don't know why I didn't just try uncommenting the set keyboard to qwerty to see how it worked immediately), I figured I'd give the general format for each line.

The original castle.xml file contains:

     <Section name="tokens" type="token" size="4KB">
				<Val name="installer" value="trenchcoat"/>
     </Section>

The new values will be added in lines after the <val... line.

			<Section name="tokens" type="token" size="4KB">
				<Val name="installer" value="trenchcoat"/>
				<Val name="ProdSN" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="ModemSN" action="overwrite" value="X"/>
				<Val name="BATToRSP" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="BATToCH" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMSVRoNONCE" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMSVRoAUTHPW" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMCLoNONCE" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMCLoAUTHPW" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMCLoAUTHNAME" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMCARRIER" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="DMMODEL" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="WIFIoADDR" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="BToADDR" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="PalmSN" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="PRODoID" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
				<Val name="PN" action="overwrite" value="x"/>
			</Section>

The values from the Sprint Pre go in where the x's are. I'm not sure if it's required to change all of them, or just the values that refer to the model / carrier, but I figured better safe than sorry. Since it's unknown what all of these do, I figured it was better to make it a complete clone of the Sprint phone. You get these values from /tmp/tokens/ on the Sprint Pre, and I highly suggest making a backup of the folder on the Verizon Pre Plus as well in case you ever want to revert it.


If you can't figure out the rest on your own, I don't recommend trying this.

Edit: Also, note that there is one more token on my two devices, DMSETS. However, whenever I tried to change that one, the webOS Doctor would fail. I decided to go ahead without it, and after changing the others, that one is now identical to the Sprint one anyway, so I think it should be fine for others to leave it alone as well.

[neit_jnf]

excellent! i will be doing this soon! Do you think a broken-lcd pre plus will work if I swap the regular pre screen into it?

also, do you need metadoctor or can you just receive the castle file in woski, edit it and send it back?

[zealster]

Quick question: With the modified Sprint Pre Plus can anyone talk on the phone and use a data connection? I'm not sure if it's possible with Sprint, but I thought Verizon allowed it.