Flashing With Cheap DCT 4 Flasher

You can now pick up a cheap DCT4 flasher for as little as £50. They will not flash the newer DCT4 phones but they do support:

8310/6510
7210/6610
6310/6310i
8910
3510

There are some additional limitations in that up until recently it was not possible to flash the 6310i up to or past software version 5.10. Although some clever chap by the name of X-Shadow has released some patched flash files for the 6310i. He succesfully patched 5.10 and 5.22 MCU flash files so that they can be used with the cheap DCT4 flasher! (very handy)
For all other supported handsets the cheap flasher uses genuine phoenix flash files which can be found easily on the web (see my links section for flash files). This cheap DCT4 flasher does NOT support 7650, 3510i, 3650 or newer!

If you decide to purchase this flasher you will notice that the data cables do not have any battery contacts. This is beacuse the flasher is USB powered and therefore does not require any batteries. (much safer to flash with external power!)

DCT4 Flashing software For cheap flasher

There are a few flashing programs that can be used with the cheap DCT4 Flasher (Non work on XP!!!!!). They all operate in pretty much the same way, I have chosen DCT4 Flasher Pro by Ed 2K for this tutorial (But once you can use this software you can use all the others). Download and unzip the software:
DCT4v30.zip HERE
You will have a folder called DCT4v30, open this folder and you will see the following contents

The Fia folder contains the flash loader files that the software requires to iniate erasing/writing to the phone flash memory. Nokia do change the flash chips within newer variants of their handsets. This means that a very new 8310 may require a different flash loader (fia file) than an older 8310. All this means is that from time to time the fia folder will need updating with the latest fia files. I will do my best to keep the above download as upto date as possible with the latest fia files included with the fia folder!!!

Plug your flasher into your parallel port, plug the power cable into the USB port and connect your phone to the data cable. Now run the DCT4v30.exe, you will see the following screen:

If all is well the program will auto detect your DCT4 flasher dongle. You must now select the flash file to be written to the phone. (You probably got a lot of flash files on the CD enclosed with the flasher). First you must select the PPM pack you want to flash, the software will then automatically find the MCU file by itself. (as long as the MCU file is in the same folder as the PPM file).

E.g If you are flashing an 8310 with software version 5.80 you will have a folder containing the following (you may have more PPM files in your folder, I have only one in the shot below).

The screen shot shows a folder containing both the MCU and PPM files for an 8310 (version 5.80):

MCU filename: nhm75505.800
PPM filename: nhm75505.80c

As you can see the above filenames are very similar but it is easy to detect which one is the PPM pack as it has an alphabetic letter on the end. In this example the PPM is pack "C". Pack C is normally the European language pack containg English, German, French, Italian, Turkey.........

Anway back to the flashing process. Press the button on the software to select the PPM file.

Continuing with our example we will select the PPM file named nhm75505.80c. The software will then load both the MCU and PPM automatically. If this has been done succesfully you will see the following:

Before we go any further I shall briefly explain the flashing procedure for DCT4 handsets. The flashing process has two stages:
Stage 1 the MCU is written (software package)
Stage 2 the PPM is written (language package)
(It is also possible to flash just the PPM if you only require to change the language pack.)

Now you are ready to press the magic flash button. Press the flash button and when prompted power on the phone. If all is working well the program will start erasing the flash memory. Once the erasing process has been completed the program will begin to write the MCU software. To write the MCU will take about 5 minutes so sit back and watch the numbers tick by!!:-)))

Once the MCU has been written succesfully the phone will display the words:
"Local mode"
and the program will display a message box asking you to power off the phone. What you have to do next is quite important! To turn the phone off it is best to disconnect the phone from the data cable and  reconnect it again. The words "Local mode" shoulld NO LONGER be displayed on the handset. In my experience for many 8310/6510's just disconecting and reconnecting the data cable is not always sufficient as the words "Local mode" remain displayed. If this is the case simply remove the USB power cable for a second and plug it back in.

When you have succesfully turned the phone off (i.e local mode is not displayed) you must press ok button on the message box window.The program will now ask you to power on the phone for a 2nd time. Press the power on button briefly and the program will begin writing the PPM pack. The PPM pack will only take about one minute to write.

And thats it!! You have succesfully flashed your handset!

Newer 8310/6510's and 6310i's Require Different Fia Files!!!!!

Within the DCT4v30 directory you downloaded above is a folder named fia (as well as DCT4v30.exe). This folder contains a standard collection of fia files. The fia files in this folder will be fine for flashing 90% of all DCT4 handsests. But the very latest 6310i's and 8310/6510's require a different set of Fia files. I have uploaded some new fia files for theses handsets:

LATEST FIA FILES FOR NEW 8310/6510's
LATEST FIA FILES FOR NEW 6310i

Download and unzip the above fia files. Contained within these zip files is a folder also called fia. Copy this new fia folder and its contents and overwrite the existing fia folder (found in the same location as the flashing program DCT4v30.exe).

NB It is a good idea to keep a copy of the standard fia folder, so that you can revert back to it later. (as you will be using the standard fia folder much more than the other fia folders)

Run DCT4v30.exe again and hopefully you will succesfully flash your handset!

Common Problems and Answers

The first common problem is that when people purchase the flasher they copy the DCT4 flasher program, fia files and flash files from the CD supplied with the DCT4 flasher. Now when you copy files from a CD the access properties of the files become Read Only. The flasher cannot use the fia files unless they are Archive . Just select all the fia files, then right click them and uncheck the read only box and check the archive option. You will probably have to do the same with your flash files also if they were copied from a CD.

The DCT4 flasher programs DO NOT WORK with XP. UNLESS you install a program called USER PORT (I will explain more about this when i get more time). I have uploaded userport, download it if you are using XP or 2K!