yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] ujoty:
I would say it's rather sim slot problem. I had exact same issue, I connected micro sim slot with wires (I used some xperia sim slot) and at least once a day I had a problem with lost signal/invalid sim/no sim and only phone reset helped. I re-soldered slot like 3 times and no help. The problem with sim slot is that it is very thin, and when not soldered in to circuit board, it lacks stiffness, it bends when sim is inserted. When I soldered wires to sim card all my problems disappeared. I bought sim/sd module from galaxy S4 and I think it might do the trick as sim slot is glued to thin metal plate which gives the sim slot stiffness, but I hadn't time to play with it.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] coon42:
Hey, do you know, where the internal sd card chip is located? I guess i bricked the phone by wiping the partition table of the internal flash, so I'd like to try to fix it by desoldering the flash rom, restore the data and resolder it.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] olegfusion:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SIM-Car...660?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58a27fb9bc

this one?

do you offer miniSIM (general)? Why don't you use nano slot or microsim slot?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] w0ng88:
Thanks for the comment ujoty. Yea the sim slot i use (galaxy s3) is really fragile and flexible/ easily damaged. The slot from S4 looks like a good idea, may try it.

It does seem like connection issue. Initially I realised the issue occur only when I was playing Simpson Tapped Out + charging for a some time. Turns out the heat generated results in this no signal/invalid sim issue. Hence it is likely that somewhere it short-circuited/ result in open circuit (sim slot?) due to the heat. Resoldering everything improved the threshold temperature from 42 degree celsius to 48 degree celsius (read off from battery via Cool Tool app) but problem still exist.

Just out of curiosity, for those who faces the same issue as me, what's your threshold temperature??

---------- Post added at 07:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 PM ----------

Hey

The i9300 and HTC one v are both microsim slot. I believe minisim is too big/difficult find a place within the housing.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Kampfgans:
I also recognized a realtionship between the temperature and this issue.

Going to install Cool Tool and wait for the next poor signal :D

Havent opened the Photon Q yet, so i cant say if my Slot is loose or flexible, but Cornohlio has done it..
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] hans_dampf88:
-.-

mod working perfectly! Thanks for the instructions!!!
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] schmandroid:
Hi guys, thought I would give a heads up on possible sim/reader failures, check the fit of your sim reader & back chassis - check for flex & pressure on it. Cornholio sounds like he is flat out doing these, he's a smart guy - understand, this is not criticism of his work.

I did some extra trimming on the one he modded for me when I got it back a while ago, around the reader & chassis, managed to get my reader sitting flat on the mobo, & cleared some extra space off the chassis to relieve a bit of pressure. I also trimmed the front plate at the reader, as the reader was actually sitting high on the rim (also super glued it down to the mobo 'carefully').

I am not using that PQ as a daily driver yet though (CM & WiFi issues), and haven't had any reader issues, but I've read about some of you guys with failures. This got me thinking. I don't think it's Cornholio's mobo/reader work, just check your chassis fit!

The Q I'm writing this with, and the one with Cornholio's reader both have no issues with sim rego, but I'm really fussy about the fit, so I put quite some time into making them schmicko when reassembling the PQ's.

I can post pics of my extra trimming if you want to have a look for reference. Check yours, if you have had some sim rego issues.

Thomas - keep up the good work!
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] w0ng88:
Hi schmandroid, thanks for the heads up. I can't comment on Cornholio's work and whether this issue is present on his work as I modded my own following this thread but i bet he sure does a pretty decent job for everyone. Would you be able to test if yours stays connected to the network at high temperature? Mine got pretty high just by charging it on bed and leaving Simpson tapped out on.

Still curious about the source of this error (Invalid sim) and wonder could it be a safety feature of the phone initially as connection problems, be it short circuit or open circuit, usually or mostly results in sim card absent state instead of this unknown state (using the SIM card app). Kindly correct me if I am wrong?

Thanks again to this wonderful community for making life just a bit more interesting!
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...thankssssss

...i use now these slots:

they looks little better and is smaller, so is not needed cutting on battery cover
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] schmandroid:
Hi there w0ng88, All I can say is that my first direct-sim mod (months ago, before the reader mod) failed in the same way everyone is reporting. The Q actually found the sim again on re-boot a couple of times, but then died permanently. As I had directly soldered & trimmed the sim (to fit the other side of mSD reader), I was unable to easily check the sim in another phone, so lots of screwing with the wires & solder joints followed (= loss of smd resistor etc).

My sim card ended up pretty twisted from all the (re)soldering etc, as I had tried a few different wires in the initial mod (cornholio's suggestion of using headphone wires solved this later) so I suspect it's life had been shortened by maybe 100 years or so, and it only lasted 1-2 weeks from the original mod.

The sim network failed while I was on a call, but I wasn't sure at the time if it was actual network failure, or software/hardware, as I'd just updated the stock OS, and hadn't been using it long.

While waiting for cornholio to repair & reader mod that one, I did my own on another one. That has worked flawlessly ever since, but I used a larger reader with no eject spring, pulled out of a SE or Samsung (I forget), so it has probably got stiffer body & contacts.

I think a reader that is under pressure, or slightly twisted would probably cause bad connections, and the phone will fail to register/maintain the sim. When modding the second Q, I had to reboot a couple of times while testing to get the sim to register, as I was just holding the sim against the contacts with my fingers & probably not well enough. I'm pretty (100%) certain that once it loses comms with the sim (or never establishes it at boot), it won't re-connect until you do a re-boot. That was my experience.

A soldered sim would be better in these circs, but then you have the down side of not being able to remove easily, and could overheat it like I did first time.

The reports just sound similar to what I found when doing my own mods, and reminded me of how I trimmed my chassis etc a bit extra on the one cornholio did.

P.S. it may be only a couple of his sim reader modded phones that need a bit extra trimming, which is why only a handful of people have had issues (no offence intended Tomas).

Check yours if you have had trouble & report what you find.

P.S. see the pics from my re-fit of the chassis/reader etc. A bit blurry, but you get the idea.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] schmandroid:
P.P.S. people have also reported mSD reader errors - remove your card before removing your back cover!

It gets caught on the cover when removing & re-fitting, which is likely to contribute to a mSD read failure.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Eeeeeehm, I was curious, is it possible to squash microSIM from Sprint for LTE? Good that my phone actually has good ESN, one would never say it actually might be useful someday. :D
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] wintrxtrem:
I've been wondering this for quite some time. Are you coming to the states or selling your phone?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] illtww:
anyone in the us doing this mod? I would like to do it to my Photon Q.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Coming to the states for 3 month (internship). No way selling the top qwerty phone there is. And yes, according to Sprint map that area has LTE coverage :D
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] illtww:
When can we send the Photon's to you for modding service? welcome to the states! :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] arrrghhh:
I think he's more of a software guy ;). I'm pretty sure Cornholio did both his and nadbalak's SIM mod's.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Yup, Cornholio is the one doing it. While I'm HW oriented, but my hand isn't trained enough for this mod.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] illtww:
I got ya. What is the going rate to ship the phone and get the mod done?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] arrrghhh:
PM the OP, CornholioGSM
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] wintrxtrem:
Have you tried doing the radiocomm edit to unlock US GSM networks in case Sprint SIM/LTE doesn't work?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Yeah I did that mod already.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] wintrxtrem:
Let us know if it works, both GSM and LTE!

When do you arrive?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
LTE won't work on a different US carrier, because only Sprint uses 1900 band. I'll arrive in early September. But I suppose if Sprint will give me a LTE sim card, then it should work just fine.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] senia:
I had exactly the same problem and I sent back the device to Cornholio to repair. After he sent me again the mobile the problem remain but it's less frequent. What I discovered:

Problem happen when mobile change the cell, or to some cell and lose network. For some reason this happen when I arrive at home but it's noticiable when I do a car trip... this happens frequently.

But, I travelled with the mobile to Indonesia, in holidays from Jakarta to Lombok and only had this problem a couple of times.

I think that the problem comes by the change between network speed or technology between the near cells. If there are not the same tech in an area or if this changes quickly we receive the "no sim card" message. If we are connected always to the same tech (3G or 2.5G) the sim doesn't drop.

I think that when this happen, the phone tries to look for some CDMA sim card, maybe. I think that Telephone Network preferences doesn't save the preference... or it doesn't work well. Maybe If we could force to delete the CDMA references in this menu, we could avoid the error.

I think that Skrilax_CZ could give us some light around this issue.

Enviado desde mi XT897 usando Tapatalk 2
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
I don't think it's changing network. I don't experience any issues, and such would be experienced by anyone. If you manage to catch the moment when SIM card drops and you get "no SIM message", send me log. On CM10.1/CM10.2 (enable developer settings and tick root access to apps + ADB):

adb root
#wait a moment
adb logcat -b radio > radio.log
#wait a moment, then press CTRL + C
adb shell dmesg > dmesg.log

and upload the logs.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] mrvek:
If you're in a car or just don't have acces to a computer and adb, just ommit the "adb" from the first command and "adb shell" from second. For the first command (logcat -b radio ...) you can send CTRL + C by longpressing on the Terminal emulator screen, select "Send control key" and press "C" on keyboard.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] w0ng88:
Fortunately I did not experience such issues, perhaps once so far under normal temperature while traveling i.e. taking bus ride. Haven't tried changing the radio from gsm (prl) to cdma and back to gsm to see whether it results in disconnection. But it is able to detect and connect to network after exiting from non-signal areas. It is relatively stable other than when the phone hits temperature of ~44 degree and above. Could be something to do with software?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
I've had zero such issues myself as well... until I've switched from T-Mobile CZ to Vodafone CZ about a week ago.

Since I've switched the SIM cards, I'm occasionally losing any connection to mobile network. When it happens, it can be cured only by a reboot.

It's very sporadic and I've been really busy last week, so I haven't done much debugging on it yet.

But I'll try to keep an eye on this issue for sure.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] ikv:
I have similar experience with losing of connection, also with Vodafone CZ.

But this happens very rarely.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] niko99:
Dear CornholioGSM

please check your PM box (there is a some problem with delivery)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] comstyle:
same issue on stock rom. often it happens when the phone has weak umts signal and keeps switching between gprs and 3g (or no signal to weak gprs).

i switched from gsm auto prl to wcmda pref etc. but it didn't help.

i had to get a new micro sim card for this phone 3 months ago. could it be a sim issue of new sim cards?

hope someone can find an explanation :D
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Excellent job here :D

So some summary, everything works fine (on production unit!) with the sim card mod and nano sim card fits in? Oh btw., how much did the Photon Q cost (incl. customs to CZ)?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
yes, all works fine 2g, 3g, HSPA+ etc....

I have now bought 2x new photon q from Texas - $350 per piece + $25 for USPS.

and customs cz.... 350+25= 375

375x20= 7500,- CZK

7500x1.20 DPH= 9000,- CZK

9000+97 posta = 9097 CZK za vsechno :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Rennert:
I bought 1 photon q for germany 351$

...Tapatalk
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gehstock:
meins war nur 275$
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] ogrfnkl:
I wasn't able to make out the exact wiring from the photos. If you could post a diagram or a description, it would be much appreciated...

Thanks!
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
this ?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] agazza:
Im really thinking of ordering one and try, these cheap broken modells, what has to be broken for me to still be able to use it?

sent from phone
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Armadill0:
I'm also thinking about buying two of these, one for my girlfriend. But I'm waiting for gehstock if he's getting the mod working also in Germany. :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gehstock:
How device is opened, I do not want to break
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Armadill0:
May this thread helps: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1850305
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gehstock:
Can´t find any Screws
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Armadill0:
The cover will be clipped to the body I think. Maybe you can carefully go between the body and the cover beneath the keyboard with a stumb knife?

---------- Post added at 04:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:22 PM ----------

Maybe someone could upload a small video how to get the device open. :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gehstock:
is Clipped,
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Armadill0:
Did you have success?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
so...good MOD ? :) :) :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gehstock:
All done, working well:good:
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Armadill0:
Very nice!

Which Provider do you have?

Which steps have you done to get to the sim ic?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] gehstock:
Show Post #73

Same like Post #1

FullSize Sim is Placed beside the NFC Antenna
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] zDisturbed1:
With this mod could I use a us gsm provider if I wanted? I dont know a lot about the bands but from what I tried to look up I think this device supports t-mo's 3/4g bands. Or is this pretty much just to use the phone outside the us?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] mad375:
Surely you could!

As i know, it has a fully functional GSM
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
and with old sim card was not problems???
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] DiMacho:
I am having the same issues as you, kabaldan, wong and ikv.

Vodafone NL btw. On the original stock JB and on CM10.1 from skrillex. When I start my phone it connects to 2G/Edge, but not to 3G. I have seen that only once or twice, the 3G/H+. Then after a couple of minutes the signal dies out... disconnecting 2G/Edge and then the total signal is lost. And it says No Simcard in the Sim Card app.

edit1: I have my Vodafone Simcard now for three months.

edit2: I will try to make some Logcat files to show what happens, but will be later tonight
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] comstyle:
my self cut sim didn't work so i had to order a new one. couldn't test with an old one. just thought about it when kabaldan mentioned he changed his provider ....... does everyone who got this issue have a relatively new micro sim?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Just lose connection or get SIM not recognized? Maybe just in case, upon SIM change, I'd reset modem state:

fastboot erase modemst1
fastboot erase modemst2

(Upon next boot, the phone will try to connect to CDMA first, so has to be set to GSM manually.)

In any case, there is a reset-modem.ko in the modules, I imagine worst case scenario to be to have to detect SIM loss and then reset the modem the hard way.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] DiMacho:
So I was chatting with Tomas and I re-installed asanti_c_sprint-user-4.1.2-9.8.2Q-122_XT897_FFW-5-6-release-keys-cid9.xml.

I got the connection running and it was showing 3G. But in *#*#4636#*#* it shows GPRS and the speeds are also GPRS. Then I walk outside, It shows UMTS. But can't do a thing online. After that I walk inside again, then the total signal is lost, No Sim Card anymore is shown in the SIM CARD app.

Skrlx. What do you need in de log from CatLog? I select Radio to monitor and what to select as filter? (I use CatLog - Logcatreader! from google play)

edit1: Found out that when I select UMTS only, it works outside after powering up the phone. When I go inside I loose the signal totaly so no internet/no phonecalls. When I go back outside, it connects agian to UMTS and works.

So the problem is something about going from GPRS to UMTS and right when it is in UMTS connection it looses the signal and there is no sim anymore.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Stock JB somehow only shows 3G as connection for unknown reason. I just recalled the phone radio reported 2G / 3G networks of one carrier as separate networks from the modem software, no? Perhaps the problem could be here.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] comstyle:
that's possible. framework.apk includes icons for g/e/3g/h. strange it only shows 3g.

but i also recognized when i search manually for providers it shows "o2 - 2G" and "o2 - 3G" as available and seperated networks.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] senia:
My most stable connection is if I have LTE/GSM/WCDMA selected in the network preferences. It can connect on UMTS and GPRS as well.

In the phone, the difference is the color of 3G icon on status bar, blue for UMTS, light grey for GPRS only.

And also, mi carrier is an virtual operator that run on Vodafone ES network (always running as roaming).

Enviado desde mi XT897 usando Tapatalk 2
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Kampfgans:
I also recognized that this issue doesnt appear that often when im into a Wifi Network.

If i a, connected to university Wifi, i rarely loose signal, but when im not Connected to Wifi i instantly loose Signal when im in University..

This is really strange..
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
Actually you're not the first one to say that enabling wifi helps preventing signal loss.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] mrvek:
I've been getting these kind of issues as well. A reboot usually fixes it for a while but pulling out and reinserting a sim card usually fixes it for a longer period in time. I've never dropped my phone but an occasional bump on the desk happend. My guess is that those bumps caused sim card to lose stable pin connection.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] comstyle:
argh...... too bad it seems to be a hardware issue :/
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Skrilax_CZ:
[MENTION=2218140]kabaldan[/MENTION]: What about some drops? I could imagine that the SIM card reader connection would be fragile towards dropping.

But it looks like irrelevant to the other problem, losing signal when switching between 2G and 3G.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Kampfgans:
So ive got this 2 Problems :crying:

Is it hard to fix the soldering issue? Because sending it to Prague and back isnt really cheap ;)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
Obviously, I can reasonably comment only on issues I'm personally experiencing or able to reproduce or that are documented by logs.

So until someone posts a radio log that captures the other problem, it doesn't exist ;) .

As I mentioned before, my issue started to happen exactly from the moment when I changed SIM from my old T-Mobile to a new Vodafone card (7 days ago).

Before that, I had no such issues for months.

I took the phone apart this morning to check how the SIM reader is seated. Now I'll wait if it will happen again.

Btw., by default (on CM), the current and past logs are stored in /data/logger, so it's easy to pull them when needed.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] comstyle:
any chance to get logs on stock easily? :D
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...you have dropped it? because this phoblem is not for 99% wrong soldering....problem can be with sim slot damage.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] DiMacho:
Well, I do it with stock and root, with CatLog.

The people with this problem all have Vodafone??
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Al936:
I am using CM 10.1 on Q. My SIM card is directly soldered (i.e. no SIM slot). I am using Q mostly as navigator while driving (a lot). Navigation software obtain jam info over mobile Internet. I found that when GSM signal is lost GPS signal is also lost. Several days ago I forgot to switch WiFi off before leaving home to drive and found that during whole way from home to the office there was no signal loss (GSM and GPS). Realized that in this case WiFi was on, I configured Tasker to keep WiFi on while navigation program is running. And it helps a lot - there was no signal lost during 4 or 5 days at all. Please note I am not connected to any WiFi network while driving - just keeping WiFi on.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Kampfgans:
No, i havent. I got this problem since i got this phone...

How do is see if Sim SLot is broken?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
contact me on pm
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] comstyle:
here as well...... ;/
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
thanks....but we need log what happens before sim missing ....and on what network are you - 2g or 3g? this can happens when you go from poor signal 2g network to 3g... on some networks can photon lost signal and then say no sim card.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] mionica:
Just a thought. What I've read on the last pages (switching SIMs changes reliability, and enabling WiFi too) might suggest that the SIM possibly isn't getting enough current at times...

Enabling WiFi obviously changes the power distribution - I'd expect that some power gates that are usually off while Wifi isn't in use, get enabled.

This would also be consistent with some SIMs working flawlessly, while others wouldn't - in the same phone.

And I expect different SIM ICs would have (slightly) different power requirements. And by that, I mean current - which, if drawn in excess (of what the original design expected) would cause the input voltage to drop, possibly leading to brown-outs.

It would be interesting to learn what the power requirements of the original SIM IC were, then compare those with the ones from a always-working SIM, and a usually-failing one.

It would be good if this was proven to be the case, as voltage could simply be supplied from two sources instead of the stock one with one additional wire.

PS. Sorry for intervening, but I'm seriously thinking of upgrading my Droid 3, and I'd very much prefer to see the problem solved before I do :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] oTToToTenTanz:
I like that theory! That being said, I think this issue occurs only for people that use sim card slots, am I right?

As for me, I use a very old sim card (probably 5 years old) and mine is soldered directly to the former sim IC connectors. I didn't have this problem once. Hence I would say this is the saver bet...just my thinking ;)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Maxpowersxp:
im using a full sim slot and all functions on my phone work perfect since the day i modded the phone