Develop Bugs

Can't pick up 3G signal on Tmo TP2 on TMO-US

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.

Desire POOR RECEPTION

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.

boosting signal - external connection?

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.

[Q] Boost signal..?

I don't have internet at my apartment and I don't have plans of getting it anytime soon. I get a free Cricket Crosswave with my job so I haven't really planned on getting real internet service.. I have crap for data when it comes to Sprint. It's a shame that I have to use Wifi on my Sprint phone and hook it to my Cricket wifi just to have data.
Anyway, I know that if I call Sprint and complain they will send me their booster thing for free, but I have heard of people buying similar devices that don't require an internet connection to boost signal. Does anyone know of a solution?

answer
I think I can help you
I have tried to signal booster all it is really is a repeater you put a antenna up REALLY high or at least as high as the cable they give you let you and as long as you are in range of the base you should get better signal this works in theory. I am not so sure it works in real life good way to find out before you buy see if with in a mile or so of your house you can get the signal you are looking for if not then I am not really sure I would waste my time with it I mean you could as long as you can return it. These things are really truly made to just pick up a good outside signal and bring it inside places that well are shielded there not directional antennas or anything that would be able to be aimed (which would work better imo) how ever putting it up high in the air will tend to improve your ability to pick up signal in you are in a low area they are powered which means the SHOULD be able to boost low signal but again SHOULD is the key. Bottom line it didn't work for me and I have what is suppose to be good coverage in my area but.........I don't BTW here is what i tried take it or leave it up to you hope this helped I am not really good at this hope explaining things deal.
http://www.amazon.com/zBoost-YX-510...XZ1K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337891426&sr=8-2

i'll probably have to give this a try some time soon.. thanks!

Can also try mounting on an old SAT dish, it can provide a huge gain of signal if you have one lying around, just point it in different directions till you get max bars. Show your signal in dBm if you can for more accuracy. The dish points in the direction of 45 degrees off the plane of the dish.

Remove the black tape that is on top of the actual antenna and you'll be left with a gold copper ribbon which is your real antenna. This help a lot because the black tape is blocking the radio wave that your antenna is trying to receive.

GPS Dropping

Does anyone else have this issue? My GPS loses connection to the satellites every couple minutes. And yes, I have the latest map update.

Must be the bug in update. Try to use 3rd party app! Just because i never updated mine, and is working like a charm
Sent from my LG-E988 using xda app-developers app

The GPS in my phone is not very accurate. Maybe its just this phone. I only get relatively good GPS reception at night.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk

Thanks guys. I'm starting to think it may just be this phone as well. The first map told me I was 3 miles away from my house....lol...and the second was accurate but keeps dropping the signal. I do have carhome. I'll try that and see what happens.

I also have this issue though the GPS (which is used a lot by me) was quite OK in the beginning after I bought my LG OG PRO.
I read in one of the Samsung NOTE forums that people mention the same problem claiming that the drops come when there is an "interruption" (which can be an incoming call or SMS or switching from 3G antenna to 3.5G for example). After reading this I realized that my GPS gets lost always after an incoming call plus I see at least a couple of places along my daily driving routine where GPS is lost exactly at the same place every day (making antenna switch assumption logical).
There were no any conclusions or suggested solutions in these forums, people even do not know if it is software or hardware related.
Anyone has such an issue too? Any recommendations for possible fix?

I can't believe but it seems I solved the problem with GPS - 15-20 seconds for GPS lock, no dropping and GPS test application shows very nice picture of 8-9 satellites constantly locked up while most of the signal bars are yellow (i.e. the signal strength is good).
I searched a lot as it really bothered me because I use my GPS very much plus I can say that beside this annoying thing I am very satisfied with my LG OG Pro, but nothing helped until I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBpNtWvY454 (it explains the solution for Nexus 5, but my problem is identical)
Basically, the problem is that there are special contacts on the motherboard connected to the GPS antenna which is part of the back cover and the contacts are not tightened well to the GPS antenna (look at the attached picture where I put the red arrows at the relevant places). Due to the bad touch between the contacts and the antenna, the GPS does not work properly. So, all you need to do is to remove your back cover, gently "un-glue" the GPS antenna end (the rectangle part on the back cover containing 2 golden dots), lift it up a little and put a piece of paper that will tighten the antenna and mother board contacts when the back cover is returned. Good luck.

It is NFC Antenna, you cant fix GPS this way.
I have same issue, but i think NFC and GPS antennas are different. I am disassemble the phone and pull up all golden springs - but gps still very weak(((
Any solution?

same GPS problem for my g pro.
GPS is weaker and weaker

I realigned all the pins inside the phone and fixed it for a bit, but the signal was still weak. I figured it was the modem. I installed a custom rom and it worked like a charm!