3Gs flying across screen with auful soundeffects

[goldenyears]

When I turn my phone on or off "3G"s fly across the screen, which is OK, but the soundeffects.... I'm embarrased to turn my phone on or off in public. It's an LG phone and LG tech support says they can't turn it off... that AT&T wants it that way, and AT&T says they can't turn it off either. So I'm dead in the water..... unless someone out there has found a way to turn the darned thing off? Anyone know why AT&T would think it was a neat idea in the first place? I mean, yeah, I'm back in the dark ages and technically challenged, but really.... who needs to hear that noise in order to make a phone call?

[hidden_dragon ACE - Champion · Accepted solution]

Try to put your phone on vibrate before turning the phone off.

[goldenyears]

Thanks for the suggestion. The only two choices are Vibrate AND ring or Vibrate THEN ring. Unfortunately neither one will eliminate the 3G's and soundeffects.

[hme83 ACE - Professor]

Does the phone not have a silent profile?  That may solve the problem if it doesn't have a vibrate only ("meeting") profile. 

I'm not familiar with LG, but some phones will allow you to customize the vibrate feature when using it with an audible profile - so maybe that's where you are looking?

[goldenyears]

Thank you for your suggestion. Yes, the phone does have a silent setting and I have it set that way. I have not fully investigated what sounds are suppressed and what ones are not. However, I know that now pushing the buttons is silent but the 3G fireworks are still there.

Would anyone know where the 3G spash screen and soundeffects come from? I mean.... are they in the SIM card, the phone electronics, or coming from AT&T over the air? The SIM card I have in the phone right now is AT&T's Pay-as-you-go product that I took out of an older phone. Our older AT&T phone also has soundeffects on turning it on, but not nearly as offensive as the 3G soundeffects. My guess is that the phones are made for AT&T to use with their Pay-as-you-go service and someone in their design department thinks the 3G soundeffects are neat and required LG to put them in the phone. I've noticed that stuff like that is turning up on my cable TV now... I'm watching a serious engrossing movie and all of sudden some cartoon figures start dancing around on the bottom of the screen accompanied by annoying soundeffects...

[hme83 ACE - Professor]

Unfortunately they are part of the phone's at&t branded firmware (not associated with the SIM, etc.).  If changing the profile doesn't silence them, there probably is not a lot you can easily do.  (Having the phone reflashed with generic firmware may resolve it, or at least give you less obnoxious startup/shutdown graphics and I believe with SE's if you are technically adept there is a modifcation you can make to the phone's firmware; but both of those possibilities may be more serious solutions than it's worth to you.) 

[goldenyears]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I'll just live with it.

Actually, I am testing out the battery life when leaving the phone on all the time. That way I don't have to go through the 3G start-up process ever. The phone came with an extra battery, wall charger and car charger so using it in that way shouldn't be a problem. We only use our cell for emergencies and I bought this one in order to be able to use a European prepaid SIM when vacationing there in the near future.