Database Users

lousy RF?

Anyone else notice the lousy RF the XDA seems to have?
Now I am not referring to the signal meter, cause I know that it isn't very accurate anyway. But I can definately notice the RF fading in and out when in a call, plus the normal signs that the RF is flucuating.
There is VERY good signal throughout my area, and I use the phone from home mainly. My previous phone, which was a Samsung flipphone, the RF was fabulous and never had a problem with it.

chocodough said:
Anyone else notice the lousy RF the XDA seems to have?
Now I am not referring to the signal meter, cause I know that it isn't very accurate anyway. But I can definately notice the RF fading in and out when in a call, plus the normal signs that the RF is flucuating.
There is VERY good signal throughout my area, and I use the phone from home mainly. My previous phone, which was a Samsung flipphone, the RF was fabulous and never had a problem with it.
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Click to collapse
I'm having the same problem. When I first purchased the phone I had awsome reception, now it seems the reception is nowhere... This happened before the ROM upgrade also so I know it wasn't that.

I've got the exact same problem....
At first it was perfect but now it sometimes suddenly sounds mettalic....

I have lots of fading as well, also an inordinate number of disconnects, if I put my sim in another phone it works fine. Having said that, I can live with it.

I just updated my phone ROM to the latest, lets see if that solves the problem!

What makes call quality bad?

I've had consistently patchy call quality since day one on my UK T-Mobile Hermes. Recently it's been worse than ever. What I've noticed is that it has nothing to do with how many reception bars the phone is showing, but when I quit all the open apps it improves. It also fluctuates moment by moment in a call. Having a 3G connection online also seems to make it worse. This is shoddy of course, the phone should work independently of the rest of the system, but I'm not surprised. Just wondered if anyone else had noticed the effect of the PDA side of the device affecting the phone side in this way.

patp said:
I've had consistently patchy call quality since day one on my UK T-Mobile Hermes. Recently it's been worse than ever. What I've noticed is that it has nothing to do with how many reception bars the phone is showing, but when I quit all the open apps it improves. It also fluctuates moment by moment in a call. Having a 3G connection online also seems to make it worse. This is shoddy of course, the phone should work independently of the rest of the system, but I'm not surprised. Just wondered if anyone else had noticed the effect of the PDA side of the device affecting the phone side in this way.
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There are some things to try including upgrading the radio or Bandswitch or Commgrpro to force certain bands only:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1129677
Mike

[30/09/11] [Q] [DEV] Reception problems during movement and in general

Hello everyone,
Since the beginning of the Android period, I've been experiencing reception problems, as well as a few friends of mine. The phone is continually searching for signal and losses it quickly, jumps from HSDPA to other means, and also has the problem of regaining the signal after going through a tunnel etc.
I am not a developer myself, but was wondering if anyone else was experiencing the same problems and if there is anything to be done about it.
I know there was a slight fix introduced not too long ago in Tytungs kernel, but for me things still pretty suck.
If you have something to say about this, please do. Otherwise, a mod can handle the positioning of this thread. No need to start flaming if you have nothing to say.
All Hail XDA!!
Cheers,
Chovav

Thread reported to forum mod, Why don't you realise even after placing [Q] in the heading that you need the Q&A forums.
As for your concerned problem, i havn't faced that till now except for the fact i have data drops seldomly.

I have the same problem. I've tested several ROM, radios, Magldr clk...
I always use the *#*#4636#*#* trick. But I always have to return to 2G only.
I think that there must be different kind of hardware that avoid getting a decent signal level.
I tried the Probable Hardware Fix For HD2 Poor Signal too. I have better reception but no as solid as with 2G
I love the phone but when I use only 2G I want to cry (almost everytime).
Thanks in advance, Paco

Just something I would like to throw out there, I also have reception issues on ANY rom, but its occurrence seems to be like the original iPhone 4 came out, terrible reception if you squeeze the whole phone with your hand. I prove that theory by doing that in my room, if i dont touch the phone (just the screen) and browse the web, I do it with full bars. But as soon as I pick up the phone and browse, it will drop very quickly to 1 or no bars (from 4). See if you can trial this yourself, put phone down and browse web, and then hold the phone and try it. See if that makes a difference. Does for me.

There was a thread a while back about this and it showed a screen that you can get to that shows how long you have had signal and I remember looking at it in mine and it showed that I was without signal at least a third of the time the phone was powered on. I don't remember how to get to it any more or I would show you a screen shot of it. I have constant full bars of H where I am and even not moving the phone still shows this same behavior of dropping connection to the towers.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

HD2 weak wifi signal ALWAY!

I have tried this fix, it still doesn't work.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1190180
Raising the top right 2 flaps, according to this image. http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=668981&d=1311865226
Basically I raised everything.
Any idea what else I can try?
I am using 2.09 HSPL

do you have any objective measure of how weak your signal is?
mine isn't so great either; certainly less than a friend's iphone.
if you go into wifi/ advanced (in winMo), you get a signal quality bar. Mine only registers 100% when i'm literally within about 750cm of my router. beyond that, it drops to about 80% for another 2 metres, then drops to 60%.
i've done the same test on my old tytn II winMo phone and it's about the same, so maybe that's just how it is.
what this means, is that free wifi in bars/ hotels etc. mostly work OK but can be marginal where others are getting a good connection 100%.
i haven't tried taking off the back to bend the contacts up yet as I remember the royal pain it was the last time I had to open my HD2 (to clean a fingerprint off the inside of the lens cover left by a HD2 tech after an RMA).

Perhaps test a couple of the favourite radios & see if get any better wifi reception.
HD2 wifi is not the strongest but if hardware & firmware up to scratch it normally usable even on low registering signals.
My HD2 signal compares about same to a Desire, Topaz & Touch Pro.

my WiFi signal is about ok.. Though Network signal ain't that great.

I have bad wifi signal strength too My friend has 3/4 bars in his LG Optimus One P500 and downloads a torrent with 200kb/s and I can barely see the connection with 1/4 bars and keeps disappearing.
I haven't tried the antenna fix though.

Common issues and how to test for them?

Off the top of your head, what are some issues that are common with the Axon 7 and how can one test for these issues? I just ordered a new Axon 7 and I want to be sure to check for all issues before my 30 day return window ends. So far I know about signal strength issues, WiFi connectivity issues, slow charging issues and battery life issues.

Issues I have had (on two different Axon 7 devices):
1. microphone does not work at the start of a phone call, until you turn speakerphone on and off.
2. Videos you record (in just 4k on the first phone, but in all resolutions on the second one), have a clicking noise in the background, even in a very quiet room, even in different locations. It's some internal sound the phone generates and is present in recorded videos. I just checked, and it's also there on recorded audio. Basically, this phone has great speakers and total junk for microphones.

7th1rt3en said:
Off the top of your head, what are some issues that are common with the Axon 7 and how can ones test for these issues? I just ordered a new Axon 7 and I want to be sure to check for all issues before my 30 day return window ends. So far I know about signal strength issues, WiFi connectivity issues, slow charging issues and battery life issues.
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OIS, use the camera while moving the device a bit. If it does weird noises then return it

The capacitive buttons can be hard to trigger - they have a small hit box. Once I turned on "vibrate on touch" I was able to use them a lot better. Some people complain that they don't work at all though.
Android Pay might not work - you could get an error like:
Android Pay can't be used on this device. This may be because your device is rooted, has an unlocked bootloader, or is running a custom ROM. As a result, Google can't confirm that your device meets Android Pay's security standards.
I'm in the process of trying to update to the latest system version to see if that resolves the issue.

So far I have only tested for the OIS problem and the ticking in recorded video. No problem with OIS but it DOES have an occasional tick sound in recorded video. I suspect that this is the case with virtually all A7s and not worth doing an RMA over. Luckily it's not too bad and I never record video anyway.

trapezoidalrutebega said:
Android Pay might not work - you could get an error like:
Android Pay can't be used on this device. This may be because your device is rooted, has an unlocked bootloader, or is running a custom ROM. As a result, Google can't confirm that your device meets Android Pay's security standards.
I'm in the process of trying to update to the latest system version to see if that resolves the issue.
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Click to collapse
I was able to resolve the android pay issue by doing an sdcard update to bring my phone to the most current version - B25. Here's a link to the thread: https://forum.xda-developers.com/axon-7/help/stuck-a2017uv1-0-0b17-sd-card-update-to-t3624389

The reception results from my app have bee very odd, it's either -1 dbm or around -100 using network monitor at my house. Obviously this reading is erroneous. When I look at the KLWP live reading it tends to stay just below 100. I have 5 bars but -100 signal, it does make me think that they fudged the signal strength indicator to give a better impression. To be fair, my previous phone was consistently around -97 so the difference is minor, but at least it gave an indication that reception was low. The old phone also had the excuse of not picking up band 12 (T-Mobile). Time to witch providers for sure. I don't guess there are any ways to improve this? Oh, I also only received the N 7.1.1 B15, not sure what I can do about that.

7th1rt3en said:
The reception results from my app have bee very odd, it's either -1 dbm or around -100 using network monitor at my house. Obviously this reading is erroneous. When I look at the KLWP live reading it tends to stay just below 100. I have 5 bars but -100 signal, it does make me think that they fudged the signal strength indicator to give a better impression. To be fair, my previous phone was consistently around -97 so the difference is minor, but at least it gave an indication that reception was low. The old phone also had the excuse of not picking up band 12 (T-Mobile). Time to witch providers for sure. I don't guess there are any ways to improve this? Oh, I also only received the N 7.1.1 B15, not sure what I can do about that.
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Click to collapse
It's not like an RMA will magically fix the signal strength issue so that's not really something you should focus on. I usually get 70% LTE coverage on a daily 30km trip in the almost 3rd world country that I live in anyways...
To update, you have to download the official ZIP from the ZTE support page (search "zte usa support" on Google, select the axon 7 unlocked), download it, unzip it if there's another zip inside, put the zip on the root of the internal storage of your phone, go to settings --> Updates