Downgrading iPhone 3G Firmware?

[shuffles]

My g/f is giving me her old iPhone 3G later as she uses a 3GS. I'm looking to downgrade the firmware because the phone is running really slow. I don't know the name of the current firmware on the 3G but it's the one that added folders and the background picture on the home screen. I figure this is why the phone is running really slowly? If I can downgrade it to before, will I see a significant performance boost?

Also, by doing this, will the phone be completely wiped? She said that all the music on the 3G is not on her current laptop and she doesn't want to lose it by me wiping the phone.

If this is the solution, how do I go about downgrading it?

 

[shuffles]

I just realised that when I connect it to my mac her music will be lost. Is there a way I can save her music somewhere?

 

[awadeee]

You can see your firmware by going Settings > General > About > Version.

Yes, the newer firmware is most likely the cause of your performance issue because the 3G hardware is not current enough to run the higher firmwares. Hence why the 3G isn't supported on iOS 4.3.

You probably won't be able to downgrade very far unless you have SHSH blobs saved for the older firmwares (from Cydia). If you have no idea what this means then you probably don't have them. You can always just put your phone in DFU mode, shift (or option, if on a Mac) + Restore and manually select a firmware to restore to (available at http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/), and hope for the best but Apple probably won't sign the restore and it will fail.

To avoid the music being lost upon sync you can go into iTunes and go Edit > Preferences > Devices tab and check "Prevent iPhones, iPods, and iPads from syncing automatically". But when you downgrade the firmware you're going to lose all the music anyway so you might want to look into a iPod to computer music extract program such as iDump. Not sure if it exists anymore but it worked for me back in the day.

 

[shuffles]

I found this for downgrading the firmware?: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/07/how-to-downgrade-iphone-3g-from-ios-4-to-iphone-os-3-1-3.html

Also, I searched around and apparently senuti is good for syncing music from an iPhone to any iTunes library.

I won't know what fw is on it till I get my hands on it tonight.

 

[hackthatphone]

Here's how I went from 4.0 to 3.1.3 on the 3G:
http://www.hackthatphone.com/4x/downgrade_3g.html

 

[Crystal-RX]

You can see your firmware by going Settings > General > About > Version.

Yes, the newer firmware is most likely the cause of your performance issue because the 3G hardware is not current enough to run the higher firmwares. Hence why the 3G isn't supported on iOS 4.3.

You probably won't be able to downgrade very far unless you have SHSH blobs saved for the older firmwares (from Cydia). If you have no idea what this means then you probably don't have them. You can always just put your phone in DFU mode, shift (or option, if on a Mac) + Restore and manually select a firmware to restore to (available at http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/), and hope for the best but Apple probably won't sign the restore and it will fail.

To avoid the music being lost upon sync you can go into iTunes and go Edit > Preferences > Devices tab and check "Prevent iPhones, iPods, and iPads from syncing automatically". But when you downgrade the firmware you're going to lose all the music anyway so you might want to look into a iPod to computer music extract program such as iDump. Not sure if it exists anymore but it worked for me back in the day.

for 3G, you don't need SHS blobs to downgrade the firmware, Itunes will give a 1015 error message when downgrading, just use tiny umbrella to kick the phone out of recovery mode.

 

[kuebby]

Definitely use Senuti to transfer her music to your computer, it's the best software I'll come across for that issue.

 

[awadeee]

for 3G, you don't need SHSH blobs to downgrade the firmware

Oh sweet. I've bought and sold a few 3Gs but that minor detail must have slipped my mind. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[gravytrain84]

for 3G, you don't need SHS blobs to downgrade the firmware, Itunes will give a 1015 error message when downgrading, just use tiny umbrella to kick the phone out of recovery mode.

Really? Why?


eta: OP, were you able to downgrade?