I have had my new Desire for 2 days now. It is the telstra version (australia) (which also has the non working GPS).
I am using my postpaid telstra sim in it which was previously in my blackberry 9700 which is NEXTG capable.
I have found the reception to be noticeably poorer. My BB would show full 5 bars and would never drop a call or have any issues with calls breaking up and being unable to hear the other person. The actual 'bars' was about 2 out of 4 for the android. it is 5/5 for the BB. The android signal strength meter shows anywhere from -90 dBm to -105 dBm in the same spot. My BB9700 shows -70 dBm !!! in the same spot with the same sim!!! -70 is as good as it gets.
for example today, i had trouble maintaining a conversation for more than a few minutes without it breaking up and having to repeat myself a few times. This happened at least on 2 separate phone calls with the desire. Granted, it never cut the connection completely.
i got sick of it because i was on call and had to be able to be contactable 100% so I swapped the sim in to the BB and continued on my conversation – 30 minute conversation without a hint of an issue.
I have always found the BB to be the ultimate in the phone department – but i was seduced by the pretty screen and graphics of the Desire and also the integration with google apps – which i use a lot of.
I also note that people have been complainng about the nexus one over in the US of A regarding the reception quality too. I bet it is the same thing.
The call quality is quite good though. The speakerphone is crap though.
The other bits of the phone are great – screen, speed, apps, and everything else everyone said was good... though i havent heard anyone complaining about the reception
Just want to know if anyone else is having similar experiences and if it is just me. Can ppl with phones that can show signal strength objectively (i.e. dBm measurements) look into a comparison? and also state what network you are on?
Im now thinking it is too unreliable to use as my primary phone... which is too bad. I hope it is a matter of a software update or somesuch to fix this. The price one pays to be an early adopter.
I suspect this applies to your Desire?
bloody hell... same thing happened when i tried what that dude did... pick up the damn thing and the signal goes to hell
devastating.... this is sad.
It's because the antenna is at the bottom, and you're most likely covering it with your hand when you pick it up.
It's quite worrying this sort of hardware design flaw wasn't spotted by HTC. I too can confirm it happens on mind has well....at least I know how to hold it now!
This thing really is a nexus one+sense huh? It even copies the 3g coverage issue.
I just tried that and found the same problem...that is really a big problem.
hi, even if that shown in the video partially occurs to me as well I can't say I'm noticing any difference with my old handset (touch hd)
I have currently got an O2 simcard in my desire with GPRS reception only.
I do not have that issue, will try with my orange 3g sim as well.
Has anyone a work around or advice for this?
Held tight in the palm I lose bars, held to the head I don't - enough of a different grip when actually using for a call. Cupped in the fingers rather than the palm, no loss.
I have the sim free desire bought from UK, and I'm using the optus prepaid sim. There is no problem for me at all.
Maybe update the radio would fix the issue, but it seems no radio update atm.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
HTC Desire Bad reception Solved!!
Hi All,
I recently bought a second hand HTC Desire and had the same thing: Bad Reception.
I tried EVERYTHING, Rom's, Radio's, Task-killers, etc. but I found the reason was something completely different!
Now my Desire has FULL 4 bars reception: What did I do?
Remove the battery cover, take out the battery, unscrew the two small Torx screws at the bottom left and right.
These two screws hold the antenna cover which is actually the antenna itself!!
You will find two spring-loaded contacts at the left of the phone on the circuitboard: these are the antenna contacts. Pry them up al little bit and clean them with some alcohol.
Now clean the two grey contact surfaces in the antenne. Do not use any scratching tool, but use a small pencil eraser!! The surface will stay a bit grey, but this is normal.
Now you are done!
Put the antenna back in place (bottom first) and put the 2 screws back.
Boot your phone and you will have good (4 bar) reception like before.
If you want to check?
Before you do anything "dial" *#*#4636#*#* , choose "Phone Information" and look at the signal strength.
The lower the number of dBm the better the signal.
Same as: the higher the ASU the better the signal.
Do the same after cleaning and you will see the result.
Succes to you all!
Extra: The antenna is at the bottom of the phone, poor design choice, we all know.
However:before -when holding the phone- the Signal Strength went from -103 dBm tot -119 dBm and then to 0, meaning losing the connection completely.
Now, the reception at the same location when holding the phone goes from -79 dBm to -85 dBm still holding 4 bars and having good reception.
My guess is that with all the Desire's these contacts corrode over time, so cleaning does help to get the phone back in it's original condition..
Satbeginner said:
Hi All,
I recently bought a second hand HTC Desire and had the same thing: Bad Reception.
I tried EVERYTHING, Rom's, Radio's, Task-killers, etc. but I found the reason was something completely different!
Now my Desire has FULL 4 bars reception: What did I do?
Remove the battery cover, take out the battery, unscrew the two small Torx screws at the bottom left and right.
These two screws hold the antenna cover which is actually the antenna itself!!
You will find two spring-loaded contacts at the left of the phone on the circuitboard: these are the antenna contacts. Pry them up al little bit and clean them with some alcohol.
Now clean the two grey contact surfaces in the antenne. Do not use any scratching tool, but use a small pencil eraser!! The surface will stay a bit grey, but this is normal.
Now you are done!
Put the antenna back in place (bottom first) and put the 2 screws back.
Boot your phone and you will have good (4 bar) reception like before.
If you want to check?
Before you do anything "dial" *#*#4636#*#* , choose "Phone Information" and look at the signal strength.
The lower the number of dBm the better the signal.
Same as: the higher the ASU the better the signal.
Do the same after cleaning and you will see the result.
Succes to you all!
Extra: The antenna is at the bottom of the phone, poor design choice, we all know.
However:before -when holding the phone- the Signal Strength went from -103 dBm tot -119 dBm and then to 0, meaning losing the connection completely.
Now, the reception at the same location when holding the phone goes from -79 dBm to -85 dBm still holding 4 bars and having good reception.
My guess is that with all the Desire's these contacts corrode over time, so cleaning does help to get the phone back in it's original condition..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did the same thing when I was struggling with poor GPS - opened the phone and bent all contacts a little bit. Confirm that my (or my wife's more accurately) Desire now has outstanding GPS, 2G and 3G signal. This screenshot shows the two contacts mentioned by Satbeginner.
It is worth mentioning though - if your phone is still under warranty and has never been opened this procedure will void your warranty - you have to break a seal on one of the two screws to remove the antenna.
Related
I've had a few changes to the phone, and now can't get a 3G signal. Most happened at same time so I am not sure what to rule out:
1) LCD/Digitizer cracked. I replaced both which requires fully disassembling the phone. Everything went swimmingly, and I don't see any connections in there for antenna.
2) I went from the RhodiumUS rom series to the Cell EVO Leo V5, and updated the radio to the newest rom (I updated the radio rom after first noticing the lack of 3G connectivity).
3) Could be local tower issues, I've not seen any info regarding that.
Overall, even on edge, the phone has difficulty placing calls, texts and data.
I'm about to start a full teardown again, just don't know what I'm looking for.
Found it:
The top speaker/antenna assembly is held on by two screws, one of which didn't get great positive engagement. Also, there's just two mini "squares" that complete the antenna circuit, but I was able to slightly put a bend in each so that they made better contact with the two contact points on the motherboard. After making these adjustments, I went from 1 bar of edge to 4 bars 3G.
Overall, my area has a pretty good signal, but I live in a slight black spot, and my modern house with its foil lined walls does nothing to improve the situation. None of my phones have ever got a decent signal in the hous.
But I have observed a troublesome trend with the new Desire. If I leave the phone lying around on a shelf, the phone shows 2-3 bars of signal. If I make a call, the phone usually holds the call OK.
But if I pik the phone up to mess about with and dont immediately make a call, while I am holding the phone the signal will drop to zero, no service; and it doesn't come back, not until I put the phone back on the shelf.
Could it be that HTC are being too agressive with power management? Or could this be the same fault as has been reported in the Google Nexus?
It is entirely repeatable, to the point that I can demonstrate it to people.
What do other people in weak areas find?
Hi,
Is it exactly the same like the below demonstration of Nexus One signal drop?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEIA_lMwqJA
So far as that goes, yes, exactly the same.
What he doesn't do is test for less drop if a call is active. The phone appears to try harder to maintain the signal if a call is in progress.
AMAZING. Isn't it. So much talk about so many subjects, but no-one interested in how it actually performs as a PHONE!
This might be related to location of the GSM anthena on Desire and Nexus. Try to move your hand bit more up so you don't touch the bottom back part and check if there is any difference.
I would rather guess the described behaviour of a phone is perfectly normal with all phones under bad conditions. Happened to me with all my phones so far.
with older phones, there would be this rubber tab you could pop off to reveal a connection intended to hookup an external antenna. on this nexus, there doesn't appear to be one. with the battery door removed though, i see various points that could potentially be such a connection(G, L1 C2, C1, L2). the marker labelled "C1" looks like it could be a possible connection point. has anyone tried using a make-shift antenna(insulated wire, paper clip, etc)?
Reception is fine in most places on the gnex. Its a 600-800 dollar fone why would I ductape a paper clip to this gorgeous fone for reception.
But no I have not tried
Android - making grown men pee sitting down since 2.0
Paper clip? I macgyvered a hat with an old tv antenna.
My grandma beat me down and took my nexus. Sent from a jitterbug with beats by dre.
I've had great reception so far, so haven't tried.
If you try that out, let us know how it goes--never know when I'll be stuck in some building blocking signal and need to create a long antenna to poke out a window!
I had a Rezound briefly and found that I had much better signal strength + transfer speeds with that phone then I do now on my Nexus. Most likely due to how the Rezound's antenna is integrated into the back door. I frequent a local library and while I'm there the signal on the Nexus will show 1 bar 4G and lot's of times it will switch to 3G & even temporarily drop signal completely. With the Rezound though it always had 2 - 3 bars + speeds were also considerably faster. Anyway, so far I've tested out the paper clip... and upon making contact it instantly went from 1 bar to 2 bars. No matter how I adjusted it though it would not go any higher... but, upon removing the paper clip it would go back to 1 bar. I'll have to do further testing... although of course, I only do plan to do this for such situations. If I'm somewhere with a good signal I'll leave the phone be.
[EDIT] p.s. this is also my 2nd Nexus. the 1st one also had reception issues.
Hi,
I have had my HOX for 3 weeks now and since yesterday (so, not a new thing), I keep losing the signal in my appartment, in some places outside. Oddly enough, signal is OK (tho just 3-4 bars) in my office.
1. Could this be related to the WIFI antenna issue even tho it's not WIFI issue? In other words, is there a chance that by fixing the WIFI antenna issue, I can get solve this?
2. If not, what are my other options? The garanty is already voided so I cannot send it to HTC for repair (voided by an "unofficial repair center" after the screen got smashed by dropping it from like 1m... - it's very possible that the fall or their repair broke something else, but the repair was already 2 weeks ago)
Thanks for your help!
First thing I'd ask is are you rooted? Have you been playing with radios recently?
If not, the next thing I'd look at is trying to find someone else with a micro-sim, and asking to borrow it. If they still get a good signal on their network on your phone, it might be your sim card. I had a faulty one once which just started dropping network like you describe. It can happen.
If their sim card also shows poor reception, you might have an aerial issue caused by the unofficial repair centre opening the phone up. (Although from the feedback on the WiFi issue thread HTC have worrying repair standards too).
If you can't find another micro-sim, just try finding someone on the same network. This phone (when working) has excellent network reception (better than my previous Desire S) so if a side-by-side comparison shows a big difference in signal strength, again I'd think about getting the sim replaced.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.telnet&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImRlLmFuZHJvaWQudGVsbmV0Il0.
If your replacement sim still has the same problem, then I'd consider opening the phone up as per the video guide in the WiFi Issue thread in the general section. Seems to be quite easy if you are careful. It is unlikely that the same aerial for the WiFi is also the 3G one, but I've looked at the tear down pictures, and can't read chinese! If i find out which one it is, I'll update this post. If not, just check all the connections.
Hi,
I have also been having this network drop issue but only near my office. The reason I think is that my office is between two towers and every now and then it tries to balance the traffic on the networks and hence keeps disconnecting devices from one to connect to the other one... However, I have cut out my normal sim into a micro sim and that was done by the guys at the shop from where I bought the device and they had said that if there are any issues, then please order a proper micro sim and use it....
I think that might also be the problem.....
levtrp savans
All,
After checking that my SIM card wasn't in cause (used a friend's HTC One X to test my SIM card and test with his), I broke open the case and saw the problem.
The problem is the damn design of those antenna contact! I saw probably around 10 of those small metal piece that are supposed to be a bit "up" and somehow touch the contact area on the back cover.
I found that 2 of them (in two different pairs, they all seem to be in pair to create a closed circuit I suppose) were a little bit lower than their counterpart, so with a flat screwdriver, put them upright, closed the case and voila, I am enjoying network with full bars since yesterday.
If the issue comes back (and it probabl will, if they got bent the first time it probably means that the metal already was bent beyond its elastic deformation area), I'll probably end up buying a soldering iron a add some patch of silver to increase the height of the contact zones. That's .... just lame I am sure they had a good reason to do that, but seriously!?
Guillaume
Glad you got to the bottom of it. Yeah I think the design choice is forced from having the main body of the phone slide in at an angle into the outer case. If the two parts just clamped together like a more traditional phone build, then they perhaps could have used a different approach.
I'm putting off opening mine up (I have the dreaded WiFi drop issue) as my current case puts just enough pressure on the screen to act like a permanent squeeze, halting my problem.
Would be interested to know if the problem reoccurs like you said it might. Keep us posted.
hi i do a lot of driving and more often than not im having times where im losing signal for over an hour which in my opinion is unsafe. my question is will changing the baseband of my phone help to increase or at least offer me an opportunity to decrease these dead-spot areas? im currently (as of 3 days ago) running cm12.1 with baseband n900tuvucnb4. if so can someone point me in the right direction as to where i can find a solution
When I got my new-to-me N3 it had terrible reception - around 10dBm worse than my N3. I had a hardware problem. You may too. If you're on warranty, just bring it in. Otherwise, the antenna signal wire in the phone sometimes goes wrong (usually because someone mashed it down on its connector off-center). It's under the antenna plane (or whatever you call the inner cover beneath the battery door). Undo the tiny Philips head screws, pop the cover off, pull the old cable off (straight up from the connectors) with needle nose pliers or tweezers. Pop the new one on (make sure connectors are lined up exactly. Reassemble. Done. Signal still not as good as my trusty old N2, but only 2 to 4 dBm down (which is quite a bit) which I attribute to our not-that-great antenna. But it now works OK.
Failing this, there's a Wilson in-car signal booster which works quite well. but the phone has to stay in the car dock (there's an antenna coupler that works a bit the way wireless charging works).