iPhone No service/Sim not supported - please help!

iHandy · Oct 9, 2013

Hi, I'm new to these forums and not too technologically literate (entirely reliant on google so far), but I'd be really really grateful for a bit of help..

Basically I've got an Iphone 3GS which was locked to Orange network (simcard working perfectly), ios 5.1.1. and baseband 05.16.05 (old bootrom, whatever that means). I wanted to unlock it so I could use a different sim card so decided to jailbreak it with redsn0w which worked fine. Then I tried to unlock it with ultrasn0w but this didn't work (I got the 'sim not supported' message), I did a bit of research and it seemed like my baseband was the problem, so thought about upgrading to 06.15.00 ipad baseband, did some more research, realised my serial number meant this might seriously mess up the phone (after reading lots of horror stories) so decided against it. However, by this point if I put my Orange sim back in the phone I could no longer get any signal, just 'no service' in the top corner.

So I backed up my phone and tried to restore it, by mistake I just clicked 'restore' in iTunes rather than 'restore from backup'. Anyway, it made me update to 6.1.3 then restored, but now it's telling me to connect to iTunes and when I do that, I just get the same 'sim not supported' message, even though this is the original sim that the phone came with..so it's now completely unusable, and I have no idea what to do!

Any advice much appreciated, thanks in advance...

darricksailo · Oct 9, 2013

iHandy said:
Hi, I'm new to these forums and not too technologically literate (entirely reliant on google so far), but I'd be really really grateful for a bit of help..

Basically I've got an Iphone 3GS which was locked to Orange network (simcard working perfectly), ios 5.1.1. and baseband 05.16.05 (old bootrom, whatever that means). I wanted to unlock it so I could use a different sim card so decided to jailbreak it with redsn0w which worked fine. Then I tried to unlock it with ultrasn0w but this didn't work (I got the 'sim not supported' message), I did a bit of research and it seemed like my baseband was the problem, so thought about upgrading to 06.15.00 ipad baseband, did some more research, realised my serial number meant this might seriously mess up the phone (after reading lots of horror stories) so decided against it. However, by this point if I put my Orange sim back in the phone I could no longer get any signal, just 'no service' in the top corner.

So I backed up my phone and tried to restore it, by mistake I just clicked 'restore' in iTunes rather than 'restore from backup'. Anyway, it made me update to 6.1.3 then restored, but now it's telling me to connect to iTunes and when I do that, I just get the same 'sim not supported' message, even though this is the original sim that the phone came with..so it's now completely unusable, and I have no idea what to do!

Any advice much appreciated, thanks in advance...

If its old bootrom, then it should be fine to be flashed to the iPad baseband and downgrade to the 5.13.xx baseband to unlock with ultrasn0w

Did you try uninstalling ultrasn0w when you saw that your phone showed sim not supported?

When you restored to 6.1.3, did you start new or did you restore from backup?

TriJetHero · Oct 9, 2013

Jailbreak the phone with redsn0w, that will also hacktivate the phone.

Do as suggested, upgrade to the ipad BB and then downgrade to 05.13.04 BB.

Then install ultrasn0w and it should work

iHandy · Oct 23, 2013

darricksailo said:
If its old bootrom, then it should be fine to be flashed to the iPad baseband and downgrade to the 5.13.xx baseband to unlock with ultrasn0w

Did you try uninstalling ultrasn0w when you saw that your phone showed sim not supported?

When you restored to 6.1.3, did you start new or did you restore from backup?

sorry, for some reason I never got the notification that you had replied, so gave up hope... just to clarify, I looked up my serial no. before jailbreaking and i'm certain that digits 3-5 were higher than 134, which (if I've understood) means I have new BR. however, redn0w identifies it as old BR when I plug it in. seeing as it's currently unusable I suppose I might as well try the ipad baseband despite the warning that it will fry my phone?

or should I try uninstalling ultrasn0w first (I assume I do that via 'deactivate' in redsn0w?).

lastly: I intended to restore from backup but I think I clicked the wrong thing in iTunes so not entirely sure..

thanks!

darricksailo · Oct 23, 2013

iHandy said:
sorry, for some reason I never got the notification that you had replied, so gave up hope... just to clarify, I looked up my serial no. before jailbreaking and i'm certain that digits 3-5 were higher than 134, which (if I've understood) means I have new BR. however, redn0w identifies it as old BR when I plug it in. seeing as it's currently unusable I suppose I might as well try the ipad baseband despite the warning that it will fry my phone?

or should I try uninstalling ultrasn0w first (I assume I do that via 'deactivate' in redsn0w?).

lastly: I intended to restore from backup but I think I clicked the wrong thing in iTunes so not entirely sure..

thanks!

I think it should be an old bootrom device if redsn0w says it is. However, I'm not entirely sure so maybe wait for trijethero's response. Assuming it is an old bootrom, you can update to the ipad baseband and then downgrade it

You uninstall ultrasn0w by opening cydia and uninstalling it that way. Deactivating via redsn0w does something different

TriJetHero · Oct 24, 2013

People tend to confuse 2 things on the 3GS

The old/new bootrom and
The new/old radiochip

The old boortom enables a permanent untethered JB. The new bootrom was released in 2009 fixing that.

The old radiochip allows the ipad BB to install, on the new chip that will fry it. The new radiochip appeared in 2011

The message redsn0w gives is for the bootrom only.

If it says the old bootrom you're in luck you can have the ipad BB and a untether on 6.1.3.

Check your model number, if it starts with MC it is a NEW bootrom. MB is an OLD bootrom

Check your serial number 3-5 digits give year and week.
If it is 934 or lower it is an old bootrom.

iHandy · Oct 24, 2013

TriJetHero said:
People tend to confuse 2 things on the 3GS

The old/new bootrom and
The new/old radiochip

The old boortom enables a permanent untethered JB. The new bootrom was released in 2009 fixing that.

The old radiochip allows the ipad BB to install, on the new chip that will fry it. The new radiochip appeared in 2011

The message redsn0w gives is for the bootrom only.

If it says the old bootrom you're in luck you can have the ipad BB and a untether on 6.1.3.

Check your model number, if it starts with MC it is a NEW bootrom. MB is an OLD bootrom

Check your serial number 3-5 digits give year and week.
If it is 934 or lower it is an old bootrom.

thank you (both) for your continued help. I took the plunge and tried to install ipad baseband, but it got stuck on 'Please wait while your build is being processed" with the message "waiting for reboot". I had to press quit, at which point it entered recovery mode, so I restored from iTunes and am now back where I started. any thoughts..?

darricksailo · Oct 24, 2013

iHandy said:
thank you (both) for your continued help. I took the plunge and tried to install ipad baseband, but it got stuck on 'Please wait while your build is being processed" with the message "waiting for reboot". I had to press quit, at which point it entered recovery mode, so I restored from iTunes and am now back where I started. any thoughts..?

What's the baseband now? Does it still show sim not supported after you have ultrasn0w installed?

TriJetHero · Oct 24, 2013

No service/Sim not supported - please help!

Which redsn0w version are you using?

Also you need to point redsn0w to 6.0 IPSWfor it to work as redsn0w is not updated for 6.1.3 yet.

Download the 6.0 IPSW and in redsn0w go to Extras/Select IPSW select the 6.0 IPSW.
No go to jailbreak and run the process, but uncheck all the boxes except upgrade to ipad baseband

You might have to downgrade to 4.1 to get it to install, also it might take several tries

iHandy · Nov 5, 2013

TriJetHero said:
Which redsn0w version are you using?

Also you need to point redsn0w to 6.0 IPSWfor it to work as redsn0w is not updated for 6.1.3 yet.

Download the 6.0 IPSW and in redsn0w go to Extras/Select IPSW select the 6.0 IPSW.
No go to jailbreak and run the process, but uncheck all the boxes except upgrade to ipad baseband

You might have to downgrade to 4.1 to get it to install, also it might take several tries

Ok so after a lot of messing around, I have now finally upgraded and downgraded the baseband, so i'm now on 05.13.04 and 6.1.3. I jailbroke it again and installed Cydia, then tried to unlock by adding repo666.ultrasn0w as a source and then installing ultrasnow. However, each time I try I get the error http/1.1 404 not found, and the phone still shows No Service. I feel like I'm so close to sorting this all out, so any more advice would be appreciated..!

dhlizard · Nov 5, 2013

iHandy said:
Ok so after a lot of messing around, I have now finally upgraded and downgraded the baseband, so i'm now on 05.13.04 and 6.1.3. I jailbroke it again and installed Cydia, then tried to unlock by adding repo666.ultrasn0w as a source and then installing ultrasnow. However, each time I try I get the error http/1.1 404 not found, and the phone still shows No Service. I feel like I'm so close to sorting this all out, so any more advice would be appreciated..!

Use the search function in Cydia to find Ultrasn0w.
You can remove the repo666 source to avoid errors (it is no longer working/online)

iHandy · Nov 6, 2013

right, after a few more false starts, I have finally managed to unlock the damn thing. thanks very much to you all for your help!

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