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Root [MetroPCS] MetroPCS 4.3 Restricts me from doing what?

exitprogram

Well-Known Member
Jan 26, 2012
113
15
Dallas, Texas
I Seen't it, so i read the unofficial All Things Root by ARocker (Nice, btw) and I read that if you have 4.3 you cannot downgrade to 4.2 or anything older and that the "MK5 bootloader locks things down a bit" with the main thing being your warranty is GONE after rooting when on 4.3... My phone was shipped to me from Asurion with 4.3 on it :(

I guess my question is... Does this mean that i cannot install any custom ROMs that are not based off of 4.3 or I just cant ODIN back to a stock 4.2?

Basically this is what i want to do to my phone so far...
Flash KT Kernel: [KERNEL][TMO][AOSP/TW/GE - 4.4/4.3/4.2][03/27/2014] KT-SGS4 - MJ5 - KTweaker - xda-developers
Flash Insane Kit Kat 4.3 Touchwiz: [ROM] Insane Kit Kat [TW- NB4] UPDATE [NEW REBUILD] 3/24/2014 - xda-developers

and... I've not decided if i should change the modem on my phone. If i'm not mistaken the modem i'm using is the MK5? I found it at the end of Build&Baseband and when i googled it only modems came up so i'm guessing i'm correct but i do not want to assume anything with a $600 phone.

What factors do you take in to consideration when making a decision to flash a different modem? Your physical location? Modem Reviews??

Is the above safe to do? Other than not flashing to a stock 4.2 (or older) via ODIN is there anything else that i should NOT do or any other ROMs/Modems/Kernels/Firmware that i should stay away from?

My Phone:

Baseband: M919NUVUEMK5
Build Number: JSS15J.M919NUVUEMK5

IMEI: yea
ESN: right :D


THANKS IN ADVANCE!
 
Having 4.3 from factory means that your phone has Knox installed and having Knox means that you are going to loose your warranty if you install any custom recovery but what you will not be able (even if you wanted) is to Odin flash anything below 4.3. If you don't care about warranties you would be able to flash any custom recovery and would be able to install or flash any ROM/Firmware upper/equal to 4.3 and that includes any KitKat ROM
 
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It means you wont be able to downgrade the bootloader to the 4.2 KNOX free bootloader, but you can still install 4.2 roms, not sure why you'd want to install a 4.2 rom with all the 4.3 roms around though. Also, there are a few new 4.4 roms too, Insane Kitkat being one of them. It comes with a custom kernel (I think) but feel free to try others.

You have the latest modem available for our device. It came with the 4.3 update. Once 4.4 is released for us we will have another newer modem but no one knows when its coming. Soon hopefully. Theres the older 4.2 modem as well, thats what im using, its always worked well for me so I never updated.

Ive heard some people have flashed the Tmobile version of the 4.4 modem but havent heard how it has performed for them.
 
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Having 4.3 from factory means that your phone has Knox installed and having Knox means that you are going to loose your warranty if you install any custom recovery but what you will not be able (even if you wanted) is to Odin flash anything below 4.3. If you don't care about warranties you would be able to flash any custom recovery and would be able to install or flash any ROM/Firmware upper/equal to 4.3 and that includes any KitKat ROM

So basically... Avoid any and all OTA updates that are known to include KNOX in the future.

But yea i honestly didn't realize that it would void my warranty with no way to cover it up until i had already installed TWRP. Its okay though.. i was going to do it eventually, regardless. Root>Warranty :D

And i guess with the modems the only thing that you can do is try them out and flash something else if you dont like it. I was hoping there was a different method other than trial and error.
 
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Right now I'm using the T-Mobile KitKat NB4 GSM modem and my impression is that I have better signal than before. Still using the LTE MF2 modem because I'm on the old bootloader

So there are two separate modems? GSM and LTE? I did not know that... Where do i find which GSM modem i'm using within settings? I am not familiar enough with the GSM modem types to spot it.

Also, the modem's effectiveness has nothing to do with your location correct? Only how the actual modem within the phone operates? Like "drivers" so to say or a set of instructions for how the modem is supposed to operate?
 
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The GSM modem is the baseband, you can find it in settings/about, the NON-HLOS (Lte modem) there is no way to find out (if you do not flash it should be the same one from your firmware)
I do not underestand your second question. Could you please elaborate?

Drivers in a Windows (ugh) computer basically tell the hardware how to communicate and interact with the Operating System... Is this basically what the modem file does?

For some reason i was under the impression certain modems are for people in certain areas...
 
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The modem is the portion of the phone that actually connects your phone to the towers around you. . That I get. But I was wondeting what changes from one modem version to another? How much power the device uses to communicate to the tower?

Well.. As I said I'll do some research on it when I find time. Messing with mah awesome new phone and a laptop I bought for kali Linux :)
 
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