Gadgets – Page 11 – Roo's View

Replacing BlackBerry 9700 keyboard redux

Earlier this year I wrote up a how to on replacing the keyboard of a BlackBerry 9700. It seems my brother in-law is especially hard on keyboards as he recently lost the M key. You can see the missing key in the picture above, the membrane has been torn making it necessary to replace the entire keyboard.

Off to eBay again for a new part. This time I took a different approach – I found a reasonably priced used keyboard located in the USA. My total cost was under $6 including shipping. By using a used keyboard I hoped to avoid low quality replicas, sensible given my last experience where the right shift key popped out and needed gluing back in.

The packaging for the keyboard was complete overkill. I wouldn’t hesitate to deal with this seller in future. The part was exactly as the listing indicated, the slight blemish on the keyboard matched the one I received – clearly they took the time to take a photo of the actual part they were selling.

The disassembly of the BlackBerry 9700 went exactly as I wrote up last time. The bottom cover again felt tricky, a little persistence and patience was required. The bezel was a bit easier as I knew to start at the bottom and work around the sides (again as per my previous description), the key to the bezel was getting the bottom started.

I still don’t have the right torx screwdriver (T5) – so again I made use of the same flat head micro-screwdriver pictured on the right. This worked surprisingly well (again).

I think it took me less than 20 minutes to do the entire keyboard swap (including taking a few pictures).

iPhone 3G with 4.2.1 – jailbreak and unlock

Wow – where did the month of June go? I’ve kept busy, but haven’t been very good about posting to the blog – I’ll try to get back to my once a week posts.

Recently my Dad rediscovered my blog and found the iPhone 3G with 3.1.2 post. He also has an older Rogers iPhone 3G and wanted some help unlocking it for use with any carrier, especially for use in the States.

He had upgraded the iPhone 3G to 4.2.1. This came along with the baseband (modem) version 05.15.04. I believe that 4.2.1 is the most current version of iOS that can be run on this generation of the hardware, and from what I’ve been told many feel that 3.1.3 is better performing but will prevent you from running some of the more recent applications that require newer features.

One of the problems with 4.2.1 is that while it can be jailbroken, it doesn’t have an unlock due to the baseband (modem) version. So my first thought was – why not just put the phone into DFU mode, and install 3.1.3 on it?

This is where I ran into the first problem. The firmware installed just fine, but we then got a 1015 error. There are two steps that happen when you’re installing a new firmware on your iPhone. (1) The firmware is installed (2) your PC calls home to Apple to verify the firmware. There is a good write-up on this by Jay Freeman (saurik) that goes into details (read up on the signature server).

At this point I allowed iTunes to just restore back to 4.2.1 to get the phone back into a working state. Still not deterred, I figured there had to be a way to solve this problem. There is probably more than one solution, but I’ll focus on the one I used: it turns out that you can downgrade your baseband (modem) in 4.2.1 IF you have the right bootloader (5.08).

I used tiny-umbrella to check the bootloader version, I puzzled a bit over the information it was providing until I realized the bootloader version was tacked onto the end of the modem version. This is actually not a required step as the downgrade process will check for the correct bootloader anyways.

On the right is my conceptual model (potentially incorrect) of how the iPhone lays things out. There is the bootloader which is a little bit of code that runs when the phone is powered on. It knows enough to help recover if things are in a very bad state and there appears to be no firmware – or we’re in DFU mode. Breaking the bootloader would be a very bad thing.

The firmware and modem (or baseband) are bundled together for distribution, but occupy unique areas in memory and are installed somewhat independently. There are a number of hacks which allow you to prevent the modem from being upgraded (allowing for unlocking to still work).

My understanding of iPhone unlocking is that most of the unlocks are software tweaks to the modem. This is not a true unlock, but a patch that is run each time the phone is booted (or possibly more often). The reason you need to jailbreak your device in order to unlock, is you need to run some unsigned code to unlock the phone. No jailbreak, no unlock.

So, assuming you’ve got the 5.08 bootloader the steps are:

Jailbreak 4.2.1 with redsnow (the latest)
Launch Cydia and install FuzzyBand
Modify FuzzyBand with a new ‘cert’ (download ICE2-05.15.04.cert)
Run FuzzyBand to downgrade the modem/baseband
Install ultrasn0w via Cydia

That’s it. At the end of step 4 you’ll see the “I HAZ DOWNGRADE!” as pictured at the top of this post.

I find it a bit odd that FuzzyBand in Cydia needs to be modified with an additional ‘cert’ file to identify the 05.15.04 modem/baseband. I used a trial version of DiskAid as I was using a Mac. The modification is simply reaching into the FuzzyBand application installed on your iPhone using DiskAid and adding the cert file to it, very easy. If you don’t modify FuzzyBand, it will refuse to downgrade the 05.14.04 modem, it also appears to check that you’ve got the right bootloader (I did) – so it tries fairly hard to be helpful.

Now that your phone is jailbroken and unlocked, sync it to iTunes to recover all of your apps an files. Do not upgrade the firmware again – or you will be back to square one (or worse, possibly locked out). Also consider capturing your SHSH blob.

How To: Replace BlackBerry 9700 Keyboard

My brother in-law managed to lose the ALT key from his BlackBerry Bold 9700. He had been living with the lack of the key for some time as he didn’t realize how cheap it would be to replace it. I was happy to do the work simply because it let me take a new device apart.

Off to eBay for a new keyboard. There were many options. The prices ranged from $3 shipping included, $8 from a USA based source, or $12 within Canada (you can pay much more if you want). Lately I’ve had some trouble with shipments from China taking 60 days (or more) and my brother in-law was happy to pay a bit more to get the part sooner so we went with the $12 part.

A bit of searching located a good textual description of how to replace the keyboard on a 9700. The same thread references a youtube clip that provides a visual of the disassembly. You’ll need a Torx T5 and either slightly long fingernails, or some sort of plastic pry tool. Unfortunately my trusty micro-tip set from Lee Valley failed me here, the smallest Torx driver it has is a T6 – I cheated and used a small flathead from another micro screwdriver set which seemed to work ok.

The first step should be to remove the back and battery. You can leave the SIM and microSD cards in place.

Now we remove the bottom cover. This felt really tricky, but as we get further we’ll discover this is the easy part. Pry using your fingernail or the plastic pry tool under the “tops of the U-shape” on either side, releasing one side then the other.

You can see the two exposed screws. The lower one (in the picture) has a white dot on it, this is the tamper proof sticker. Some people have been able to slide this onto a razer blade / exacto knife and have been able to preserve the sticker. I tried, but it tore partially. In the end I just trashed it. Remove the two screws.

Removing the bezel was the tricky part. I found this youtube video to be the most instructive. You start by popping up the bottom lip (the part held down by the screws we took out). Then you need to free the clips on either side of the screen. These come free best by working outwards from the screen. Once the bottom half is free, then the top part pops / slides upwards on the phone. It took me a good 15 minutes of gentle prying and poking to determine how it came off, but once I had it sorted out it was quite easy to do again. Some folk do manage to ruin the bezel doing this procedure, so I’d suggest working as carefully as possible – you can always purchase a replacement if needed.

At this point swapping the keyboard is trivial. Re-assembly is quite simple. Again the bezel is the tricky part. Press the bezel down onto the phone 1st, then once it is in place you’ll want to squeeze the sides inwards to set the bezel correctly. Things should all click into place easily.

I ended up taking the phone apart and reassembling it twice. The second time was quite easy, once I had the feel for it. This is easier than taking an iPod apart, but harder than the Nokia 5310 mostly because of the bezel.

Things didn’t go entirely smoothly, the blame falls entirely on the replacement part.

One of the keys on the new keyboard simply fell out. This wasn’t a huge problem as a little super glue and the key was back in place. The keyboard is made up of the frame, a rubber membrane, and the keys. The membrane allows the keys to move within the frame. The key that fell out wasn’t properly bonded to the membrane. I’ve held onto the old keyboard in case more keys go missing. The original problem was a missing ALT key, but in that case the rubber membrane had torn away as well.

Above you can see the second problem, and what led me to disassemble the phone a 2nd time. The ALT key pictured above on the right is raised more than the keys around it. I thought that maybe there was something jammed under the key preventing it from lying flat. Upon inspection it appears that it is a manufacturing defect.

Certainly worth doing. While I had issues with the part quality, I suspect this was just bad luck. The slightly raised ALT key functions fine and really isn’t a big deal.