I originally bought the phone off ebay. It's activated on the Sprint network in the U.S.A. I live in Canada and I figured that Sprint up here could help me but they don't do wireless. I found a capatible carrier of the CDMA 1900 GSM technology the phone was origianlly on. The tech rep at Rogers told me that I have to get the unlock code from Sprint before they can activate it. I also have other people telling me that this model can't be unlocked. Could someone please tell me the correct information. Appreciate any help.
1. Buy a serial cable. They are cheap and the USB cable won't work for this
2. Download Bitpim (it's free)
3. connect your treo to your pc with the cable
4. Run bitpim
5. read the bitpim instructions. You are going to have to go through the supported phones until you find one that allows bitpim to read your phone. I am not at home so I can't tell you which one works.
6. When you get bitpim to work with the treo, look at the file system. Go to NVM, then NVM02 (or nvm002)
7. when you view the file (in hexdump) you'll see some stuff on the right of the screen, some that looks like garbage, some words like "Sprint". Look for a a sequence of numbers, 6 digits then a period, then six more, like xxxxxx.xxxxxx
The second number is your MSL. That's the code you need. You can program your phone with it. If you have access to a program like QPST, you can change it to all 0's.
DO NOT pay someone to "unlock" your treo. All you need is a serial cable.
If this works you don't know how much I'd appreciate this. I have Sprint USA telling me that the phone can't be unlocked but that I can still use it on their network with roaming charges for 60 cents a minute. I had a good laugh at that one. Convert that to Canadian money and it's like a million bucks. I guess I should be able to pick up a serial cable from Radio Shack or some place like that?
You have to enable passthrough on your treo by entering ##3424 on the phone pad before bitpim can access your phone. I did this to my Treo 300, and I have changed my MSL to 000000. I guess I also should have mentioned the MSL is a six digit number. You can enter ##xxxxxx (the x's are the MSL) and change some features. You can use it in the network preferences in the palm desktop to change network preferences also. Also, the treo 300 won't work with the Kyocera PST, but will with Qualcomm PST.
I appreciate the help. I'm downloading bitpim right now. I bought the phone because I liked the features it has and the price. Have you had any problems with yours?
Ok
Connect your serial cable to your computer and phone
Dial ##3424 to enable passthrough mode
start Bitpim
under "Edit" choose settings
You've got to pick the Comm Port your cable and phone are
hooked to
Pick LG-VX7000 (that's the phone that worked for me, anyway)
Under "Data" pick "Get phone data"
Go to "filesystem"
Click the "+"
Click the "+" next to "NVM"
There's another "+" next to another "NVM", click it
Double click "nvm_0002"
on the right of the screen you'll see a bunch of periods,
numbers and words
find a sequence of digits where you have six digits,
then a period, then six more digits
like this "xxxxxx.xxxxxx"
the second six digits after the period is your MSL
I am not encouraging anyone to do this next step,
but you can find "QPST" on the internet to download
It's a Qualcomm program, and of course it may be
illegal to use it without paying for it
You can use QPST to change the MSL to all zeros, import PRL's
and change all of the other phone settings. If
you choose to do this is entirely up to you.
Be careful with it because you can screw up
your phone with it. Make sure you back up your phone data
before you change anything.
Can anyone tell me what the serial cable does inside? I hate to waste my money when I'm only going to be using the serial connection to unlock the phone once or twice. I'd rather make my own temporary cable.
So I have the pinout of the treo phones (I think only for 90, 180, 270, 300 and 600)
Table 26.6 Treo 600 Bottom Connector Pin Summary
Pin Name I/O/P1 Function
1 RXD I Receive Data
2 TXD O/P Transmit Data/Power
3 No Connect GPIO to internal battery pack
4 HS2* I Serial Cradle Detect
5 HS1* I HotSync Interrupt
6 GND P Ground
7 USB_D- I/O USB Data Negative
8 USB_D+ I/O USB Data Positive
9 DQ I/O 1-wire communication pin
10 PACK+ P a1 Battery Positive Terminal
11 PACK+ P a1 Battery Positive Terminal
12 GND P Ground
13 GND P Ground
14 VDOCK P Cradle Power (charging)
15 VDOCK P Cradle Power (charging)
I've confirmed with my treo 300 USB cable that the pins match, and when you shop for serial cables, one cable is said to work for all the mentionned above models. It's safe to assume the pinout is the same.
My question is about which of those pins go to which on an RS-232 connector. The ground, RXD and TXD are obvious, but what about the other pins on an RS232 (RTS, CTS, DSR, DTR), are they even needed?
If someone with a working cable (like Vame) could tell me by looking at theirs. The treo side connector is easy to open and re-close, the inside should reveil the connections and any electronics needed.
I waited a few days and finally gave up on getting an answer. I went ahead and tried hacking my USB cable for its treo connector.
I hooked TX and RX between a DB9 and the treo connector together, then grounded pin 4 (serial cradle detect), and ground to ground of course. It didn't work. Bitpim says it cannot find any device or something like that.
I then modded my DB9 to do some self handshake loops, kind of as shown here (first picture): http://www.aggsoft.com/rs232-pinout-...sfer-cable.htm
I tried different permutations (pins 7 and 8 only, etc.)... still nothing.
I then went to Ebay and found a guy that sells them for 8$ US + 6$ international shipping. So I went for it. I'm not going to waste my newly purchased Treo 300 before I have tried everything. I will post back when I have some development.
The only test you are doing to verify if it works or not is if bitpim can find the device? Can you read some test data from the serial port?
Looking at the pinout for the serial port it doesn't look like there is any hardware flow control. So looping back the control lines doesn't make any sense.
Did you get the cables yet from the eBay purchase? Does this cable work
? One end goes to the Treo 300 and the other end is a DB9?
Thanks for the info! I need to figure this out!
-Henk
Last edited by henkvisser : 02-17-2005 at 12:42 PM.
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