As you may or may not know… when the Evo shipped it came with PRI 1.40. The PRI (as best as I know it) is a connection between your phone and the radio and is responsible for carrying both voice and data. During the rooting (nand unlock step) process your PRI gets downgraded to 1.34. Many users reported slow data speeds on the 1.34 PRI (which was an older PRI during the Evo’s testing/development days). It is a pretty simple fix to get it back to 1.40 if Sprint had made the files available to us, however they didn’t. I spoke with HTC a few days ago and they told me that a FOTA was coming from Sprint that included the correct PRI but they didn’t have an ETA. Thanks to a thread on XDA I was informed that it is live now.

You can follow these steps to get your PRI back to 1.40 without any data loss.

Note: These instructions assume that you know your MSL. If you do not then you can get it by calling Sprint and asking for it (if you have an issue with someone not giving it to you then just hang up and call back) or you can use CDMA Workshop to retrieve it. My instructions and screen shots are also while using Amon’s recovery. The steps should be very similar in Clockwork but they won’t be identical.

  1. Reboot in to recovery using whatever method you like.
    • Easiest way: download quickboot from the market or do it from rom manager
    • Second easiest way is to power the phone off. Then hold volume down and turn it back on. Keep holding until you get a menu. Pick “Recovery” off that menu.
    • Or if you know adb you can just do:  adb shell reboot recovery
      01-recovery
  2. Once in recovery go under Backup/Restore and then create a Nand backup (or nand + ext if you are using apps2sd. If you aren’t sure if you’re using apps2sd then just doing nand + ext shouldn’t hurt).
    • Doing this step will not only allow you to recover if there are any issues, but it will actually let you restore your phone back to exactly how it was, just with the new PRI included.
      02-performing-backup
  3. Boot back in to normal mode. Then open your phone and dial ##786# and wait while it automatically loads Reverse Logistics Support.
    02-poundpound 03-rls
  4. Hit Menu < Reset < Enter your MSL that you obtained before you started this < OK. It will then prompt you that all data will be lost. Once you OK that your phone will think for a second and then reboot in to recovery where it will format Data and Cache. After that finishes just pick “Reboot system now” off of the list. Your phone will reboot again.
    04-reset 05-format
  5. Be patient while it boots up as this boot will take extra long. After your phone boots up it will go through Hands Free Activation as if it was a brand new phone. This is the step where it actually downloads and installs the new PRI. I had spoken with HTC just a few days ago and they told me that a new FOTA from Sprint was coming but they didn’t have the date. It is this new release from Sprint that is allowing this to work now. It is actually the same exact fix that had to be done on the Hero. After it activates it will also check for a PRL update (it tells me every single time that there was an update, even when there wasn’t) and a firmware update (it should say no update available).
    06-activated 07-prl 08-no-firmware
  6. After it finishes booting you will get the normal setup that you see after doing a restore. Do not set anything up at this point, just click Next/Skip all of the way through it. Now do Menu < Settings < About Phone < Software Information and you should be presented with your shiny new 1.40_003 PRI. :)
    09-new-pri
  7. Once confirmed (check troubleshooting below if it didn’t work for you) you can reboot back in to recovery and restore the nandroid that you created in step 2. This will restore your phone back to how it was before you started but you will retain your 1.40 PRI because nandroid doesn’t touch the partition where that is stored. And you’re done!
Troubleshooting:

  • If it doesn’t work for you on the first try and you are still on 1.34_003…
    • First simply try rebooting.
    • If that didn’t work then try doing it again from step 3 down. Some people are reporting that it took 10+ tries to get it to come through. For me it only took 2. My assumption is that just like every other update this FOTA from Sprint is getting rolled out slowly so it just happens to be what server your phone hits during activation.
    • If that still doesn’t work then try rebooting in to recovery and doing a full wipe (data/dalvik/cache/ext) and then loading the phone up and then following from step 3 down. You will still be able to restore your data at the end (step 7).
    • If it STILL doesn’t work then the FOTA just may not be available in your area. Wait a few hours and try again.