Springboard repeatedly crashing, and reboots acting CRAZY

[braminc]

So first, I have an Iphone 4 running 4.3.3 jailbroken via jailbreakme.com. I'm using Gevey Ultra Sim (original) to unlock my phone as I moved out of USA temporarily. I have 2 separate problems that are confusing me:

1) My springboard crashes extremely often. It used to be 1 time a week and that didn't bother me much, then it got to be the point of every 5 minutes, now its back to 1-3 times a day. I downloaded Crash Reporter and it never has any suspects in the list, always empty. I restarted my phone a few times and had 1-2 days of very smooth operation. Then I downloaded Cydia updates (presumably related to 5.0.1 jailbreak enhancements via mobile substrate and ultrasnow?) and it started crashing more often and seems to be crescendoing back to the every 5 minutes mark. Thoughts?

2) Lately, when I reboot the device I'm getting the connect to itunes screen always. I downloaded blackra1n to fix this as I read on google this will fix but the sftware just froze. Then I rebooted and it magically returned to normal. Since then I've noticed that if I just plug the iphone into my computer (MBP) it will reboot normally 95% of the time. If not I just give it a couple reboots til it catches. I almost was wondering if I somehow got turned into a tethered jailbreak? But then I thought that's not possible because it simply isn't possible and because I'm not using redsnow/snowbreeze to reboot or anything... just plugging into computer and not doing anything on the computer.

I'm wondering if this is being caused by the Gevey chip because it too has been acting up. It sometimes works upon 1 reboot, sometimes I need to reboot 2-3 times for it to catch the signal again...

Any help is appreciated! I am strongly considering upgrading/restoring to 5.0.1 hoping that a fresh OS and fresh jailbreak will erase my springboard crashes at the very least. However I'm reading a decent number of horror stories on here so I'm waiting... Also I'm nervous to make sure I don't lose my 4.10.01 baseband Gevey compatibility (i already created custom IPSW in redsnow...but call me paranoid...?)

Thanks!

oops should I post this elsewhere?

[braminc]

Please can anyone help? The springboard crashes are killing me. I'd love to know if i have any options other than full restore.

[Simon]

I would say starting fresh would be the way to go. Restore to the custom 5.0.1 so you can preserve your baseband and see how it goes without installing a bunch of stuff from cydia first to see if that took care of your problems.