I have an interesting situation...

I have a Samsung i9505 phone in which the motherboard failed, so I jumped on trademe, garbed a broken i9505 (broken screen), ripped out the motherboard and swapped it with the failed one.

On booting it displayed it was a Spark branded phone, so as I wonted it generic I grabbed the latest generic stock firmware (I9505XXUHOE4) and promptly flashed it and all good, phone booted and Spark branding gone, so far so good.

So I inserted the 2degrees SIM (known to be working as it was in the old S4), but got a error message that there was no sim installed.... confused and thinking oh crap maybe the replacement boards SIM slot was faulty I took the one of the failed board and swapped it over, still not good, So I through I'll try a Spark SIM (well actually a Skinny one as its all I had) and well.... it worked, so I then thought how strange Spark have restricted the IMEI of the replacement board to their network, so after a few web hits and then calls the Spark they advised that IMEI is not locked.

Now I know Spark and 2degree networks use different frequencies, but as the international S4 works on all NZ networks, I can't think why it not working.  I even tired flashing new modems, still not good.

Any ideas.  I could simply leave the Skinny sim in it, but as everyone else is on 2degree we would have an orphan.... 

please no flaming if I am missing the blindingly obvious....