I just bought a used Z5p with broken rear cover. Cover is easy to change but it seems that this phone has some problems with signal quality also. First it got only 0 to 2 bars on 3G. No signal on 4G or GSM.
I changed the upper and lower corner antenna modules and the RF cable. Now it can get 1 to 2 bars of 4G. 3G is changing constatly between 0 and full signal. GSM still 0. All data still very slow. Galaxy A5 with same sim gets 8/1 from speedtest and Sony 1/0. Both show similar two bars 4G, -105 - 110 dBm.
Is there something to try still or should I just scrap it?
Related
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.
i have a pretty poor signal (3g and 4g) inside my apartment. 4g doesn't come in at all really, and 3g is about 3 bars at most, sometimes it briefly goes to 4 bars. i live on the ground floor of an old brick building, but i'm willing to try any tricks to get a 4g signal indoors (making a ledge for the phone up by the ceiling? by a window?). if i stand in front of my window on the sidewalk i get a fine 4g signal, but i don't want to set my phone on the sidewalk outside to wireless tether
has anyone experimented with any techniques to get a good signal? i heard 4g has a more difficult time penetrating through walls and insulated glass (i just have old windows with 1 single thin pane of glass). is there any way to position the phone to best get a signal (avoiding contact with certain parts of the phone? where is the 4g antenna specifically within the phone, at the top?)? can i somehow make an antenna somehow and place it outside my window and connect it to my phone in some way? are there sprint indoor antenna booster devices of some kind?
forgive me in advance if this has been covered... yes i did try searching but unfortunately when the device itself has "4g" in the name im getting a lot of invalid results
thanks!
I am not one who has run into the LOS just yet, and here's to hoping I don't.
However... I do have terrible signal pretty much inside anywhere. Outside or in the car I have had pretty decent signal everywhere I have gone. However whenever I am inside pretty much anywhere I get 0-1 bar at best, and often even roaming does not function.
Is anyone else experiencing anything like this?
Is there any development for fixes for improved signal/antenna? Is this even possible?
Thanks a lot for everyones time.
That sounds pretty bad. I did notice that the Epic 4G Touch's signal strength is often 1-2 bars lower than the Evo and Evo 3D. This does include inside locations, so I've resorted to using Google Voice for texting and Groove IP for phone calls when I have Wi-fi.
Maybe take the phone to a store that has the same phone in stock and compare signal strength?
I just got this phone a few days ago switched from Verizon and this thing is always roaming im outside at a dog park and its roaming this cant be sprints service im guessing horrible signal strength.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
thedeadletters said:
That sounds pretty bad. I did notice that the Epic 4G Touch's signal strength is often 1-2 bars lower than the Evo and Evo 3D. This does include inside locations, so I've resorted to using Google Voice for texting and Groove IP for phone calls when I have Wi-fi.
Maybe take the phone to a store that has the same phone in stock and compare signal strength?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bars are not a comparison of signal strength between phones you have to look at dbs
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2
I just got the phone a couple days ago and I was having the same issues inside my house. I could not even get the xda app to load. I took out the default proxies and it has helped, at least it feels like that to me.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
This is a well known issue that's been talked about since its release. Hopefully it will be on the list of things they try and fix in they first OTA update along with LOS and Android OS
Not saying this applies to everyone, but I figured out why the particular E4GT I was testing had such jumpy signal levels. I was doing side-by-side comparisons with an Optimus S using menu->settings->about phone->status.
It appears the E4GT has very little granularity with signal strength reporting. It only goes by increments of 5 dBm, whereas the Optimus reports signal levels at a granularity of 1 dBm.
For E4GT, -106 dBm = 0 bar, -101 dBm = 1 bar, -96 dBm = 2 bar, -91 dBm = 3 bar - 86 dBm = 4 bar, -81 dBm = 5 bar, and -76 dBm = 6 bar.
Problem in my main test area is the signal is somewhere between -93 dBm and -98 dBm according to the Optimus S. Whereas the Optimus S can react to small changes in dBm with equally small changes in reported signal strength and "# bars", the E4GT tends to like jumping from -91 dBm to - 101 dBm and back. It only reports certain discrete levels and it appears to be rounding up and down (based on side-by-side signal comparison to Optimus S) They both go up and down at roughly the same time, but Optimus S does it smoothly over time. E4GT just does the signal change reporting very abruptly with 5-10 dBm jumps.
Second thing I noticed is hand and phone positioning really affect the signal strength. The antennae/transmitter appear to be at the bottom hump on the phone. If I place my hands over that area holding the phone normally I can go from 3 bars (-86 dBm) down to 0 bars (-106 dBm). Data starts getting very iffy at -106 dBm but still kind of works, just real slow. If I hold the phone in the middle or near the top, I almost always get the same or better signal. I also found the phone gets the best signal when it is held flat, rather than perpendicular to the ground. In fact the best signal I get is when I'm not holding the phone at all, and instead lay it flat on the table.
Again, I'm not saying every phone behaves this way nor am I saying this explains everyones' signal issues. I'm just relaying my experiences.
BTW the signal levels when laid flat on a table side-by-side to the Optimus S is very comparable, almost the same (minus the lack of granularity). However when I'm holding both phones, the E4GT has generally 5 dBm worse signal, sometimes 10 dBm if I'm holding normally and covering the bottom of the phone.
That is very interesting sfhub.
I really hope the OTA has some bearing on these issues. I really wish it would come out sooner than later. I have another week or so to decide to keep this phone or not and really don't know regardless of if an OTA is released whether i will keep it or not.
There is a lot to like and a lot to drive you crazy about this phone.
I am using 4.0.2 stock version and wifi signals are pretty weak. Is there any tweak or some settings i can flash to get better wifi reception . . .
I am having the same problem. Out of 5 phones in the hotel lobby (HTC Desire, HTC Wildfire, Iphone 4 and Nokia N97) my Galaxy Nexus had the weakest signal, and sometime even lost the wlan.
I notice wifi signal drop when i cover the top part of my nexus with my hand
tested in speedtest, it also shows slightly lower signal bars, are you using a wireless N router?
Try flashing different basebands to see if signal improves. Also, I recommend franco's milestone 2 kernel since it has a setting to amplify your wi-fi signal (at the expense of lower battery life)
I don't have this problem in fact my wifi speeds are insane
Sent from my Samsung GNexus <3
koszor said:
I notice wifi signal drop when i cover the top part of my nexus with my hand
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The WLAN antenna is to the middle right of the phone when you look at the display in portait mode.
If I make sure that area is not covered by my hands the reception is quite ok with my Nexus.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung-Galaxy-Nexus-Teardown/7182/1
I took an old router and made it a repeater bridge, problem solved.
woultypt Sharpe
I find the radio on the phone is quite weak to begin with. iPhone lasts much longer out of town where I live.
Reception is poor my Sony Z5P. O barely get one bar 4G, where as using the same sim on my Nexus 5 gives me a solid 3 bars 4G.
Is my Z5P faulty or it has bad reception due to the metal casing or the is it the 4G bands? I'm on three(UK) network and my phone is the E6853 model.
I am having the same issues I get all bars in the house however outside of the house down to one bar very bad not sure what the problem is.
Sent from my E6853 using Tapatalk