[Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note II] OneoftheRabble:
Some general information

Hi Folks,

Ye Olde Pharte Rabble here with some thoughts after reading through the thread. Just thought I would pass them along.

I sent an email to Samsung tech department and asked how many variants do they have of the SPH-L900. Their best estimate, not taking into account differences in component values, is that there are approximately 150 variants out there at this time. Yep... 150 different variants of our trusty N2. I know the old Evo 4G had over 700. So, yeppers.... there are a lot of different phones that claim to be the same. And they can all react differently to our ROMs, kernels and apps.

I have spent the last three days TRYING to break this ROM. I have found a couple of things that will have a VERY bad effect on it.

The biggest one being conflicts with different apps trying to control the CPU, Voltages, Kernel and such. If you have Perseus installed then you have STweaks running that is trying to control the CPU and kernel settings. If you happen to open up the Trickster MOD app and make any changes.... then it is playing tug-of-war with STweaks. Now, let's add something like ROM Toolbox or SystemTuner that just love to take control of these things too. If you had one of those running before and restored settings for it in a Nandroid or in something like TiB, then they are in there trying to get control. All of these things will have unknown results when they start fighting. They could just run you battery down super fast or be causing crashes, FCs and freezing. I tried just STweaks and Trickster and could usually lock up the phone within two or three minutes.

Next thing that I know causes some discomfort with this ROM and several others. Competing APPs. Stock Messenger and Google+ messenger and GOSMS will all fight tooth and nail for control over your SMS/MMS stuff. Now, if you have an incoming SMS and three apps want to control it..... Think about the fight that is going to go on for CPU timing marks and GPU access! Depending on how it "hits" during timing cycles and what the phone is doing you can easily get FCs and freezing from this kind of collision. These things will never just play nice.

Last night I flashed Goodness and then updated Perseus. Re-booted the system and went through setup. So far, so good. Checked a couple of things and everything seemed to be OK. Had my son send me an SMS and it worked great. Then let the phone "go to sleep" and let it utilize the "Deep Sleep" thing. Son sent me another SMS.... phone beeped and froze. Making the nastiest noise until I could get the case off and the battery pulled! Looked at a log and found that the stock messenger and Google+ messenger had basically locked up the CPU asking for "rights" to handle the SMS. Why didn't it happen when it wasn't "sleeping"?? I have no idea.

I know that most of you won't want to take the time to do this... but a great way to combat this kind of software/firmware fights is to make yourself a list of what apps you want to handle what. If you find that you have two ( or more ) major apps that do the same thing, chances are really good that you will have collision issues. Decide what you want to do what and then get rid ( or at least freeze ) the other one(s).

Double and triple check that you don't have more than one app trying to control your CPU, Voltages, Kernel, etc.. That is the quickest way to crash our phones. My particular phone does not tolerated being UVd very much. Others can run them right down there. Go to Samsung and download the specification paper on the Exynos 4412. It is about 340 pages and has some great information on voltages and timing cycles. Not a light read but if you want to mess around with factory settings..... You should at least KNOW what the actual limitations and specifications on the CPU are.

OK.... enough of the Olde Phartes ramblings. Just some information that I have come up with in the last couple of days TRYING to make Goodness break. I hope it will help some of you.

See ya'

OotR