Database Users

3G stability issue on Android phones?

Any CDMA Android users(Eris/Hero) here facing issue with 3G not working despite being in a good 3G area while other Sprint or VZW users having full bars while on your phone it keeps fluctuating between bars or 1X and 3G?

Very reliable for me... coverage in hawaii is excellent

I don't think its coverage, I think is more of a software thing from Googleing around

Yes, i've noticed this the past couple of days. In the same spot in my apartment ill have a strong 3G signal for most of the night, then randomly it will switch to 1x for a while, then sometimes after a phone reboot or toggling mobile internet i'll get 3G back.
I thought it was just a coverage thing but it wouldn't make sense to be, i have 5 bar signal.

Your signal is greatly affected by the weather outside. When it is cold or wet you have the chance of receiving a weaker signal. But when it is warm the signal will extend. This is because when it gets cold the particles in the air move around more causing the air to be denser. When it is warm this is the opposite causing your signal to flow freer through the atmosphere. Hope this makes sense I wrote it on my phone and didn't prof.

So, even thought is sunny outside and the weather isn't too cold(HB got very nice weather right now), the fact that I am sitting down in my living room and the data on my phone went idle as I am searching market place is due to the the weather? Odd....

http://www.the-cell-phone-advisor.com/cell-phone-reception.html Found this to help you understand and in reading it I got mixed up I think in my explanation. Sorry. Also, You don't have to sound condescending when you talk to people about things you don't know about. Or haven't researched.

Thank you. As a note the Eris was having problems with 3G idling and switching between 1X and 3G. An update came out last week to fix that, but some say that update didn't fix the issue.

You think I should exchange my Eris for another one and see if things are better? Or is that not worth the effort?

I don't think it is worth it. If it is only a firmware issue wait till 2.x comes and see if it is fixed. But I wouldn't give up the Eris for any of the other crap Verizon offers at $99 or less
Edit: Who is saying that it didn't help? I am really just curious to read what they have to say not mocking you. Link(s) please.

No I was saying return it for another Eris as I like the phone a lot. Well I am getting the feeling maybe the update VZW brought out didn't fully fix that issue that is all.

I am reading that this maybe an Android issue as my friend with a Omnia on VZW gets better speeds and more bars than I do in the same place.

The eris is imo the best handset verizon offers right now. The moto droid is a close second.

We should call and email HTC complain to them about this issue, so they can have it checked pronto. Please I ask you.

Isnt this just what Hybrid mode does?
So is this fluctuating 3G not normal? My real issue is the data connection being lost all together, which does essentially cause my 3G to come in and out.

tdavis42 said:
Your signal is greatly affected by the weather outside. When it is cold or wet you have the chance of receiving a weaker signal. But when it is warm the signal will extend. This is because when it gets cold the particles in the air move around more causing the air to be denser. When it is warm this is the opposite causing your signal to flow freer through the atmosphere. Hope this makes sense I wrote it on my phone and didn't prof.
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I'd like to point out a fallacy in your post. What actually happens when something gets cold is the particles compact together, and when they get hot, the spread out. The exception to this is water, which expands when it freezes. This is why it's said you should run warm water over a cap you can't get off. Warm it up, expand the metal and there's more give.

[Q] Deathgrip?

Everytime if i hold my phone normally, the signal starts dropping. I managed to track it down to the bottom part of the phone, just beneath the battery cover.
As soon as my hand touches that part the signal starts dropping from 4bars to 1 or 2 bars.
Anyone else has this problem?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Yeah,easily reproduced here too.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

yea, i had to return mine because of it. every time i used the keyboard, the signal would drop or even die out. hopefully the next one i get won't have the same issue, or at least not as bad as the device i had before.

Hope youll have it sorted out. I have 1 or 2 levels of drop only. Its a common problem with recent smartphone models? Strange.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

The bottom of the phone is where the antenna is.

I mainly get one or two signal line drops when holding the phone with the keyboard open. Not a big problem.
But... WiFi seems to be a lot worse: if I don't touch the phone I get full bars, but if I hold it (keyboard open again) it sometimes can drop to one or no bars.
And I was laughing at the iPhone 4 users.

Might worth try to add isolation lol,like for iphones
I cannot yet reproduce the wifi thing tho when im further away it may indeed weaken.will test it further
-- sent from htc z using xda app

Wifi only drop one bar here. I'm 3m away from a n-router.
Isolation doesnt seem to work. It might just be a weak antenna.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Was able to reproduce a 1 bar drop from WiFi once, nothing since, and nothing from signal.

one bar drop. but no change in usage. iwould suggest ignoring the signal strength

Drops 1 bar here. Not big deal.

Same here. Drops one bar. Sometimes two. But i had exactly the same thing with my Touch Pro. As long as I don't get dropped calls, i don't mind.

Problem also on desire HD
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

My Wifi drops all the way to zero when using my phone with keyboard.
Tho, this is when I'm couple meters away from the router (2nd floor). When I'm on the 1st floor the signal only drops 1 bar.

FFFFUUUUUU
I just noticed this. I'm currently in a low signal area. Phone sitting on table: -103dBm. Using keyboard: -113dBm. 2 bars to 0 bars and even no signal.
How can they do this? ****.

Never experienced none of those issues. Wow that's crazy.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk ~Obsidian V3 w/ Froyo Black theme.

Like the iPhone, it is only obvious in low signal areas. Go to settings about status and look at the numerical signal. It drops quite a bit.

I did a test and dropped from -99dbm (7asu) to -112dbm (1asu) by deathgripping my phone. It went from 2-3 bars to 0 bars.

philliman said:
Never experienced none of those issues. Wow that's crazy.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk ~Obsidian V3 w/ Froyo Black theme.
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I wonder if its related to being made of more metal than usual devices, alu alloy of htc z.
-- sent from htc z using xda app

I've noticed the death grip; 2-3 bars (!!) in some indoor areas
Maybe this is why I've noticed battery drains faster when leaving my phone face up than face down (poor signal = more power consumption to keep the link)

[Q] How's your Shift Signal Strength?

How is your Evo Shift Signal strength???
Just got my Shift two days ago and I generally like the size, speed, etc. Getting used to Android as I previously used a lot of WinMo and Blackberry devices.
The signal strength on this phone doesn't seem very good for me. My home has marginal Sprint coverage but Touch Pro2 seemed to have better signal strength and reception. It was rare that I ever missed an incoming call.
The shift gets a very weak signal and it sometimes drops to "no bars" for awhile.
I've also observed that the signal meter and my ability to initiate and maintain calls varies with how I hold it. I hold the phone with my right-hand, and have to hold it with my fingers near the top of the phone to get the best reception. Some other folks have posted similar problems. So I'm wondering if this is a general defect with the Shift or if my specific phone has issues.

geekdaddy said:
How is your Evo Shift Signal strength???
Just got my Shift two days ago and I generally like the size, speed, etc. Getting used to Android as I previously used a lot of WinMo and Blackberry devices.
The signal strength on this phone doesn't seem very good for me. My home has marginal Sprint coverage but Touch Pro2 seemed to have better signal strength and reception. It was rare that I ever missed an incoming call.
The shift gets a very weak signal and it sometimes drops to "no bars" for awhile.
I've also observed that the signal meter and my ability to initiate and maintain calls varies with how I hold it. I hold the phone with my right-hand, and have to hold it with my fingers near the top of the phone to get the best reception. Some other folks have posted similar problems. So I'm wondering if this is a general defect with the Shift or if my specific phone has issues.
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first of all, update your PRL and your Profile, just to be sure.
But yes, the antenna seems to be at the bottom of the phone, and holding your hand over that area will indeed have an effect on signal strength. But unless you're already at your signal strength limit for calls, I don't think it makes much of a difference. I don't think the bars are entirely accurate, since my signal strength currently says -101, but I have full bars.
I haven't had any issues getting signal in places I've always had signal, and I actually seem to get better service in areas I couldn't get any service with my Hero, so I think it's an improvement.

Signal strength is ok, but not as good as my Evo was.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

Its worse than my Hero, that's for sure.
Sent from my bathroom, with toilet paper.

Mine seems pretty bad so far. I seem to be roaming allot. Isn't that the triangle above the signal? I will go from one bar and then it will switch to roaming and 4 bars. Seems to go back and forth like that.
Sent from my PG06100 using Tapatalk

This:
EricSS619 said:
Signal strength is ok, but not as good as my Evo was.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App
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and this:
Heelfan71 said:
Mine seems pretty bad so far. I seem to be roaming allot. Isn't that the triangle above the signal? I will go from one bar and then it will switch to roaming and 4 bars. Seems to go back and forth like that.
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WTF mate, in places where i'd get sometimes full bars with my evo i'm now down to 1 or 2 or even roaming. very strange. In my bedroom on the evo i'd generally stay around 2-3 bars and now i find myself in roaming on occasion. Hoping a radio update helps.

johnnycross22 said:
This:
and this:
WTF mate, in places where i'd get sometimes full bars with my evo i'm now down to 1 or 2 or even roaming. very strange. In my bedroom on the evo i'd generally stay around 2-3 bars and now i find myself in roaming on occasion. Hoping a radio update helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indoors seem to be my biggest problem. Outside I get a good signal but if I am inside anywhere the bars go down drastically.

not to mention the GPS is total crap vs my Evo that I traded in!
Stilll worth the trade though =)

EricSS619 said:
not to mention the GPS is total crap vs my Evo that I traded in!
Stilll worth the trade though =)
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why did you not like the evo? just curious.

Heelfan71 said:
why did you not like the evo? just curious.
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Honestly I think mine was just messed up, it lagged terribly and I tried everything to fix it. After I saw my girlfriends lag free shift it was a no brainer for me.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

wow my Shift has great signal strength, way better than my Evo was.
i'm on my second Shift (first one had a bad ear piece speaker) and same experience with both. great reception so far

I was torn between getting an Evo and an Evo Shift. I played with them at my local Sprint store as they were side by side. When the phones were just sitting, both of them had 5 bars. When I picked the Evo up, it still had five bars and when I picked up the Evo Shift, the bars dropped to three. At that moment, I was going to get the Evo. After that, I kept hearing nothing but good reviews about the Evo Shift (amongst whiny minor complaints), saw that the Evo Shift's quadrants were pwning amongst non-rooted devices, and heard 1 too many complaints about the Evo's battery life; this pretty much sealed the deal for me. I had decided that I could live with the Evo Shift's apparent signal strength issues... Can HTC do something about the radio?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

I can't replicate the grip of death but sometimes I do notice my bars going from 0 or 1 to 5 or 6, it will just jump. I don't know why. But I haven't had any problems because of this so I don't really mind.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

i have cupped my shift in both hands and held it against my chest and my battery only dropped one bar. I think that is a good sign and will not bother me at all.

dnalevelc said:
i have cupped my shift in both hands and held it against my chest and my battery only dropped one bar. I think that is a good sign and will not bother me at all.
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Err, you mean the signal not the battery right? If your battery dropped that much from cupping the phone, you have issues, lol

dnalevelc said:
i have cupped my shift in both hands and held it against my chest and my battery only dropped one bar. I think that is a good sign and will not bother me at all.
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God I wish people didn't obsess over "bars" and were reasonable like you. Bars don't mean anything, really. Monitoring signal levels in db makes sense, but people who talk about bars remind me of those who smack their TVs for better reception!
If you can make and hold a call without problems, it doesn't matter how many bars you have. Or if your phone shows 7 bars but you can't make calls, is that a good thing? There are no clear guidelines or standards on bars, so people need to stop obsessing about them.

hammondnav said:
God I wish people didn't obsess over "bars" and were reasonable like you. Bars don't mean anything, really. Monitoring signal levels in db makes sense, but people who talk about bars remind me of those who smack their TVs for better reception!
If you can make and hold a call without problems, it doesn't matter how many bars you have. Or if your phone shows 7 bars but you can't make calls, is that a good thing? There are no clear guidelines or standards on bars, so people need to stop obsessing about them.
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Agreed, I honestly couldn't tell you what my bars were at any given time. Other than in the bathroom, I know it's 0-1 there.

wardfan220 said:
Agreed, I honestly couldn't tell you what my bars were at any given time. Other than in the bathroom, I know it's 0-1 there.
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That's odd because I get the best signal front Sprint in my house in the bathroom lol.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

Bars seem to make a difference to me when they go to zero and I lose my call. Now I know why this happens randomly with this phone.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

After exactly 14 days with my evo shift, i had the same symptoms with my phone yesterday. i woke up with my phone showing full bars, no bars, x, no bars, full bars, no bars, etc etc every 30-45 sec's. i figured possibly a tower down or something....then drove to work 20 miles away had the same issue in out and out service, texts not going through, browser timing out. i tried updating, resetting, battery pull, nothing fixed it.
I went into a sprint store and they were able to verify the problem as they watched the screen. i am officially the first warranty exchanged evo shift at that corporate store...according to the tech (who i know for the last several years, my phone failed the signal test of some sort. so if your phone sounds like mine more than likely its a defective radio/part inside and you should be able to get a exchange for it. hope that helps someone out in what to do.

Death grip issues?

I just noticed this today, after having my phone for over a week, but if I hold my phone along the bottom while its upright, the signal will drop significantly and wimax signal drops a bar or two. As soon as I hold it in landscape it goes back to normal. Not sure if this is because of a coincidence or not yet, so I'm looking to see if anyone else has noticed this.
My shift is stock perm rooted, so that could have something to do with it too, I'm going to play around with my phone and see if I can't figure it.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

Go here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=925371

This is a common issue with the EVO Shift 4g, and it is because of the placement of the Antenna.
http://member.america.htc.com/download/Web_materials/Manual/EVO_Shift/Evo_shift_UM.pdf
Take a look on Page 252 (264 in Adobe) and see what I mean...
It doesn't completely block any signal, but it does reduce it by a bar or two, but I've learned to deal with it by holding the phone in my left hand rather than my right when using data.

Death Grip on SGS2 - Wireless

Just discovered that there is a death grip for wireless on the device. if you hold at the bottom close to the usb port ur wireless signal becomes weak..
been testing this with 2 apps. if i put the phone on the table the signal is 60% as soon as i hold it in my hands it drops to around 30-40% .. thats a lot
test it out ur self ..i used wifi analyzer and network signal apps both free..

I get this only when I hold the phone from the front ie palm/fingers covering home button/usbport. But who holds the phone this way? lol

i just hold it .. the normal way everyone would..

every single phone ever made will have the signal drop when you cover the antenna, especially if you are in an area with low rf. bottom line is this, does it drop a call or completely lose connection to the network? if not, then who cares?
i live in a very low signal area and my phone might show 1 or zero bars at times but it has never dropped a call or disconnected from my provider

Before this thread spirals out of control, here's a link to a Danish website that used the SGS2 as a benchmark to prove the HTC Sensation suffers from a death grip issue. I'd think if the SGS2 had a similar problem it would have caught their attention and become obvious during their comparison.
http://www.nordichardware.se/testla...are-med-hoeg-upploesning.html?start=8#content

m not complaining..was just indicating what i have found out..i knw every device has the problem.. i just hoped this beast wud not
it only seems to affect wireless. cell signal seems to be fine (not like iphone)..
the last video on that link..dats how i hold my mobile..hehe i think thats normal.. lol

xinfinityoO said:
m not complaining..was just indicating what i have found out..i knw every device has the problem.. i just hoped this beast wud not
it only seems to affect wireless. cell signal seems to be fine (not like iphone)..
the last video on that link..dats how i hold my mobile..hehe i think thats normal.. lol
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With a thread title containing "Death Grip on SGS2," especially after what happened with the Sensation, didn't you expect some sort of rise out people?

BarryH_GEG said:
With a thread title containing "Death Grip on SGS2," especially after what happened with the Sensation, didn't you expect some sort of rise out people?
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Click to collapse
well couldnt find better words to describe it.. it is sort of a deathgrip.. not so bad compared to other mobiles ..but its there

I have this too, but I have had it on every single phone I've used. There is no deathgrip free phone. Like Steve Jobs said, just don't hold the phone that way.

Your holding it wrong.
Steve Jobbs
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

blickmanic said:
Your holding it wrong.
Steve Jobbs
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
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lol.. u dont want him to sue u now.

There's a death grip on almost every wifi capable phone out
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

blickmanic said:
Your holding it wrong.
Steve Jobbs
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
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+1
10 char

I believe apple patented the death grip for mobile phones so another lawsuit is coming to HTC and samsung and reads something like " Holding the phone in a specific manner causes signal loss " patent infraction.

After working in Tech Support for a major UK network and conducting in house tests on phones to determine "death grip", I can safely say that the SGSII (at least my unit) DOES NOT suffer from this. As stated earlier in the thread, all cellular/mobile phones show signal degradation when the antenna is covered, but only in extreme cases does this result in a signal drop so large that it can be considered detrimental to the phones operation.
Anyway, after the iPhone 4's well known issues with this so called 'Death Grip", manufacturers are extra vigilant when testing antenna placement. This makes HTC's Sensation (WiFi in Landscape) problem even more worrisome!
Anyway, just to reiterate, there is no death grip on the SGS2!!
If there was could you imagine the number and size of the threads reporting it?!
Regards.

Yeah, i also found this bug. i see the bars fade away if i turn the phone horizontal.

EarlZ said:
I believe apple patented the death grip for mobile phones so another lawsuit is coming to HTC and samsung and reads something like " Holding the phone in a specific manner causes signal loss " patent infraction.
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+1
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Holding it this way takes just one bar away, from 4 to 3. Wouldn't say its bad, since nobody actually even uses the phone like that - on normal use you won't see any difference. If it was like iPhone 4, then it could be an issue