General CDMA Question

[razermc]

I have been rooting Android phones for a while, so I'm no stranger to the basics, but one thing I have yet to answer or attempt due to the fact I have a GSM phone and dont have service anyway, does flashing any new rom [stock or otherwise] break your service activation on CDMA phones?
if so how do I avoid this besides not flashing a new rom?

 

[fdbryant3]

No flashing a new rom will not break your service activation.

 

[jhawkkw]

It can if you flash a rom that isn't for your carrier. For example, flashing a Sprint rom on a Verizon phone. Often times doing so has worse consequences than the phone not activating though.

 

[razermc]

Ok, so as long as its the same carrier, I'm fine. But jhawkkw, you mentioned that installing other carrier roms can cause other issues. What do you mean by this? If the phone is exactly the same it souldnt cause issues correct? Then again im basing this question based on my experience with the samsung metro pcs admire as I was able to flash the cricket vitality image on with no side efects (save for the fact I couldnt figure out how to set my friend up with new service being it was a nandroid backup as the instructions were very vague) due to the fact its the same phone, just different carriers. An example would be awesome

 

[SulkyAndroid17]

Android is built with the individual device in mind. This help keeps the OS and kernel lean. Otherwise you'll end up similar to a desktop OS. Needing a large amount of space to hold all the drivers and firmware.

Among carriers there are differences in the hardware, firmware, and software. Take the Samsung Galaxy S4 for example. The States are receiving a snapdragon version. While the international version will be Exynos. If you were to flash ROM from one to the other the phone would never boot. Because the OS is looking for a CPU that isn't there.

 

[jhawkkw]

Other issues can include hardware such as radios, camera, nfc, etc not working properly due to incompatible drivers, severe battery or even random reboots due to an incompatible/non-optimized kernel, or as mention above, a hard brick due to incompatible chipsets.

 

[razermc]

random reboots due to an incompatible/non-optimized kernel

sounds like the issue he had when running the stock metro pcs kernel lol. that explains alot as i flashed him a different kernel wich oc him to 900mhz and the random reboots stopped. i have noticed even official can sometimes be done poorly lol. but of course the battery took a hit afterwards. and when i flashed the vitality image, it did act kinda sluggish and the touch was unresponsive at times