[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] Mikeapollo:
Hmm... I share your frustration but I really think expressing disappointment at a group of enthusiasts who are

NOT

HTC employees and

do not have

access to any HTC internal official documents is really unnecessary.

This thread contains a number of "potential" solutions to people who are having radio issues - as well as other threads warning of the risks of changing the radio ROM in the device.

The whole radio death issue is one that is not well understood, has no definite cure and is (apart from here) completely undocumented. The more established people in the forum have offered whatever advice they can but

there is no "total fix" other than replacing your mobo / device

.

On the whole - to reitterate what I originally said regarding this :

1) Radio firmware changes how the software drives the hardware.

2) Changing to inappropriate or unofficial firmware for your network/region has the possibility of causing the software to overdrive the hardware and cause premature failure.

This is part of the risk of experimenting

.

If you want to experiment with different radios for your device then this is potentially the risk you take. Whether this is acceptable or not to you will be a matter of personal choice and while there may be only 1 person in 10,000 that endsup with a dead hermes - are YOU happy to be that one? If the odds are acceptable then have fun and potentially reap the rewards of a better rom. If not, then do NOT change your radio. If you can't afford to unbrick / fix / repair or replace your device or it's essential to your business/personal life etc - then DON'T BUGGER ABOUT WITH IT. Simple.

3) After flashing a radio, any signs of very poor battery life, excessive heat or "strange" effects on signal/call drops etc

can

be a symptom of hardware being overdriven, incompatibility with your network or (at the extreme) hardware potentially being driven to the point of eventually failing. If this is suspected, roll back to a previous "safe" radio as soon as possible.

4) Increase in tranmit power / receive sensitivity caused by a radio update potentially decreases the service life of the radio hardware. AFAIK No one here knows definitively what the intended service life of the radio module is supposed to be and AFAIK no-one has access to any official documents either stating the ISL.

Given Hermes is now quite old, I suspect any units still out there (and there are many many hundreds) are well out of the "average expected design life anyway". AIUI, many PDA's and mobiles have an estimated "consumer life" of around 3-5 years before an upgrade to a different model is anticipated. I must stress, these are general figures I've found from different manufacturers/retailers and NOT HTC figures.

4) Excessive heat from a radio device being overdriven may cause possible loss of data / corrupted NAND blocks which, depending on the level of damage, may be recovered by cooling and rapidly flashing.

5) Dead hardware is, unfortunately, dead. Replacing the motherboard will cure the problem however, Hermes is now a very old phone and as such you may be better looking for a second hand replacement on Ebay rather than buying a new motherboard. Shop around - there are good deals out there.

6) If your hardware died after flashing an OFFICIAL update from your provider, or shortly afterwards, then take the matter up with them.

Finally.

If you have had the sudden radio death, make a note of what radio you were running at the time, what previous radio's you have used, your location and network and share your knowledge here then either replace/repair/etc but don't blame anyone in the forums for assisting the suicide of your device:p

If you've NOT had a sudden radio death, then be nice to your hermes - treat it well and avoid any untested radios or any radios that appear in the death guide and all should be fine :D

<rant over>