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Root Why should I root (Droid X)? And once I do, what should I do?

AJH

Lurker
Jun 13, 2011
6
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Sorry if this is a "noob" post. Just looking for some advice for my Droid X.

I've had my Droid X for exactly 1 year. I've held off rooting, in case I needed warranty for some reason (which I ended up having to use). Now that my warranty is officially up, I'm debating whether or not to root.

The most obvious reason to root to me appears to be tethering. I don't believe there is a way to do this unrooted (if there is, please tell me!), and I'm getting a Transformer Prime as soon as it's released. Having access to my 3g plan on that would be great. However, I'm really not sure why else I should root. Does it make your phone faster? Does it change basic performance at all?

Also, if I do root, what should I do afterwards? I know there are ROMs out there, but I don't really know what their strengths or weaknesses are.

Any suggestions are appreciated! Thank you!
 
Rooting does not change your performance or make your phone faster by itself. The benifit to rooting is you can remove unwanted crap shoved on you by VZW such as Madden, Blockbuster, etc.

The increase in speed and performance you mention is obtained by overclocking and/or undervolting your phone which you can only do if you're rooted. Another benifit to rooting is you can flash new Roms and themes when you get bored with the look of your phone, keeping it fresh looking and new feeling.

Check the top of this forum for the root guide and Rom list for more info on rooting and Roming. If you are new to all this, which you do appear to be, I would read those guides in there entirety and gain some much needed knowledge before you begin any kind of modding to your phone.
 
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Ok, that makes sense. Just a couple more questions...
What exactly is sbf-ing? I see in the guide I'm supposed to do this, but I don't exactly understand what it is.
Are there any negative effects from overclocking and/or undervolting?
Finally, any ROMs you'd recommend?
Thanks again!
 
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SBF'ing your phone is pretty much the same thing as formatting your computer hard drive and loading a fresh copy of windows 7 onto it. When you SBF your phone it formats your internal memory wiping it clean and it then installs a fresh, clean copy of your OS.

The only negative effect to undervolting is slowing your phones performance down too much and in extreme cases causing your phone to crash. The negative effect on overclocking is heat. And the more heat you generate the boggier your phone will get and also cause it to crash.

Either way you would just simply reboot your phone, or pull the battery in severe cases, and start over till you find your phones "sweet spot". One thing we always advise here is to NEVER set your OC/UV settings at boot till you are sure your settings are stable.

As far as Roms go. The best advice I can give you on that is because you are new I would start with basic Roms like Liberty, which I think is one of the better Roms out. Once you have the knowledge you can then move up to what is known as 2nd init Roms.

Another good piece of advice I can give you is to ALWAYS make a backup of your phone before you start flashing and ALWAYS make sure your battery is fully charged before you begin. If something goes wrong AND your battery dies before you can fix it you are gonna be so damn mad my friend.

That's a problem you don't wanna have to deal with right now being a begginer. Good luck to you and let us know how you make out with your phone. But please be sure to keep reading and understand what you are about to do before you do it. Also come back and ask all the questions you need to if you don't understand something. This is how we learn, especially from our mistakes.

We were all noobs at one time too.
 
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rooting is a gateway drug, once you root, you will rom, then you will theme, then you will overclock, then you will brick, then you will sbf, then you will reroot, then you will re-rom then you will theme, then you will overclock, then you will brick, then you will sbf again, then you will... see where this is going?

Lmao. But it is true.
 
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