[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] flipster64:
I'm back.

The distributor told me to send it back and they'd run it by their QC dept. I got an email back saying that I was "100% Right", and that they'd mail me a new phone. Which they did. And I assume by "100% right", they included the fact that I said I thought it was an i747 motherboard in a T999 case.

So I got the new one yesterday.

It's a T-999 package with T-999 IMEI stickers and a T-Mobile back, the "about device" says it's a T-999, it boots up and shuts down with a T-Mobile logo, but it does not have the T-Mobile account software or the WiFi calling, and the Download Mode screen says SGH-i747, which is AT&T's version of the phone. It had SuperSu on it, but it complained the binaries were out of date and needed updating - but updating failed. One solution was to uninstall and re-install SuperSu, which I did - then I read you will lose root doing this. But I think it was lost before. So it probably would need re-rooting.

Easiest way I know to do that of course is to flash a pre-rooted stockmod rom, but I want to be REALLY sure what I've got first and how I should go about it should I choose to do so. I'd flashed a stockmod 4.3 TMO ROM to the other one that had everything I needed, but wiped the IMEI.

The only way to restore an IMEI the way I understand it is through a client that uses RMNET, and the RMNET drivers would crash within a minute after the phone connected. Currently, on this phone, the RMNET drivers work and I backed up the IMEI. It is unclear, though, if I would be able to restore it if I flashed it the same way again and lost it since I don't know where the RMNET code is inside the phone and whether it gets overwritten by a ROM flash. There's a possibility it'd do the same thing it did last time, leaving me with a nice little PDA but no phone.

But let's see if we can get some people to brainstorm about what we're looking at here.

Download (ODIN MODE) screen says

ODIN MODE

PRODUCT NAME : SGH-I747

CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD: No

CURRENT BINARY : Samsung Official

SYSTEM STATUS : Official

QUALCOMM SECUREBOOT : ENABLE

About Device

Model number SGH-T999

Android version 4.1.1 (I think the other one came with 4.1.2 on it?)

Baseband version T999ZSEMC

Kernel version 3.0.31-247808

se.infra@SEP-103 #1

SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 15 16:12:42 KST 2012

Build number T999ZSEMC1

build.prop

# begin build properties

# autogenerated by buildinfo.sh

ro.build.id=JRO03L

ro.build.display.id=T999ZSEMC1

ro.build.version.incremental=T999ZSEMC

ro.build.version.sdk=16

ro.build.version.codename=REL

ro.build.version.release=4.1.1

ro.build.date=Tue Nov 20 22:35:43 KST 2012

ro.build.date.utc=1353418543

ro.build.type=user

ro.build.user=se.infra

ro.build.host=SEP-106

ro.build.tags=release-keys

ro.product.model=SGH-T999

ro.product.brand=samsung

ro.product.name=d2vl

ro.product.device=d2can

ro.product.board=MSM8960

ro.chipname=MSM8960

ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-v7a

ro.product.cpu.abi2=armeabi

ro.product_ship=true

ro.product.manufacturer=samsung

ro.product.locale.language=zh

ro.product.locale.region=CN

ro.wifi.channels=

ro.board.platform=msm8960

# ro.build.product is obsolete; use ro.product.device

ro.build.product=d2can

# Do not try to parse ro.build.description or .fingerprint

ro.build.description=d2vl-user 4.1.1 JRO03L T999ZSEMC release-keys

ro.build.fingerprint=samsung/d2vl/d2can:4.1.1/JRO03L/T999ZSEMC:user/release-keys

ro.build.characteristics=default

# Samsung Specific Properties

ro.build.PDA=T999ZSEMC

ro.build.hidden_ver=T999ZSEMC

ro.build.changelist=538866

# end build properties

Should I post this in another forum to see if other people have had some experience with this? It just seems like I should be able to get this to work, if I choose to do so.

Now that I have pretty much an identical copy of the first phone with the same dual personality, I gotta wonder just how common this is? Is this an early run of T999's before they got their own motherboards? Is it some sort of counterfeit? The thing is spotless and came with all the protection plastic and everything (so did the last one).

For grins, I'm attaching what windows said as it was installing device drivers: