Database Users

WiFi dissapointing

Went into college today for the first time with my new HD. Two of the folks in my class have iPhones.
Anyway, from the start of the day, the colleges wifi was coming and going on my phone, the signal strength was barely registering and I could not browse at all. I went into WiFi advanced settings and set power to full, this made little difference.
Both my friends with iPhones were able to browse happily.
I'm now home and deciding to check out performance here. I've just gone back into WiFi - Advanced, made sure power was at "Best Performance". My battery is at about 70%. All I'm getting is 3 bars of signal strength, varying from about 50-60% signal.
Here's the problem, I'm only sitting literally 6 feet from the router. I'd call that f'n lousy.
My laptop shows a connection signal strength of 100% / Full Bars / 100%.
So WiFi signal strength is lousy at College and lousy here at home. Is there anything i can do ?

I experience exactly the same reception quality with my HD. But for what its worth, this is exactly the same performance I got with my Touch Pro and my TyTn II before that.

.....mmmm yes I had a tytn and it was bad compared to my great xda2i...
I wonder if it is something a radio update could solve? i'm getting my HD thursday!!

If you plug in your headphone, does the signal strength improve?

exe said:
If you plug in your headphone, does the signal strength improve?
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No, and I even tried connecting to external power. made no difference. I also notice that if I tilt the HD a bit this way and that the signal drops even further. I have had it here at 15-20% while sitting 6 feet from the Router.
This to me is a deal breaker, I dont think I can live with this. Its bloody awful, and I hate the way it kept dropping the wifi connection in college.

Hmm not sure of the problem, my Wifi signal strength is pretty much equal to my PCs, im 20 feet away and get 80%.

I've never been able to get reliable wifi on my Tytn. Sad to hear the problem persists in a handset I was considering moving up to.

I'm satisfied with the signal strength. Yes, it is weaker than on my netbook or my notebook, but I use the "Best Battery" mode and I get around 80% signal strength 15 feet away from my router.

Ugh say it ain't so.

I use the WiFi to listen to internet radio around the house.
I've not experienced any problems even when upstairs at the furthest distance from my cheap-n'-cheerful Netgear router. At this range, the signal will have to pass through several brick walls.
Having discovered the signal strength readout in the settings, I notice that it does not read very high, but this doesn't seem to adversely affect the performance.
As far as I am concerned, the WiFi is "fit for purpose" and doesn't seem to differ much from my laptop.

Maybe your wifi is defective... Mine works fine with walls between me and the router, my TyTN II also has no problems, my old TyTN used to drop the connection as soon as it connected, was useless for wifi.

Hmm
I'm sorry to say that my wifi on the HD works fantastic. It even picks up wifi networks my netbook deosn't. I use it all day long at home then connect when at work.
I don't care what the signal strength is in various rooms I just get on with it. Having said that its 3 or 4 bars in all the rooms so all good here.
What sort of Routers are you having problems with?
H

Hmm
I'm sorry to say that my wifi on the HD works fantastic. It even picks up wifi networks my netbook doesn't. I use it all day long at home then connect when at work.
I don't care what the signal strength is in various rooms I just get on with it. Having said that its 3 or 4 bars in all the rooms so all good here.
What sort of Routers are you having problems with?
H

I'd like to hear from ppl who have tested the device within a weak WiFi zone such as my room in college.
My experience was that it drops the network. Literally would drop it as soon as it had connected. I was nearly crying. In the same place, my laptop and my mates iPhones work grand. So maybe some of you could test it in weak zones.
To those of you defending it and saying its fit for purpose, please dont forget how much we paid for this thing. I would have expected decent WiFi. It clearly isnt! Another thing that dissapoints.
Regarding what kind or routers I'm usin, DLINK, Netgear and I aint got a clue what they run in college. But thats not the point, the point is that in my place of work, the only device that does not work at all is my VERY EXPENSIVE Touch HD. Everything else (laptops, iphones, other phones) works. That makes me kinda sick

I've had very good signal at home and at work where its a big building. I think something might be wrong with yours try to have it exchanged.

I don't have the device, but on my Artemis I can select how good the wifi works, either auto, battery optimized or full power. Whenever I select full power it gets a better signal. Maybe you have such an option on your device too?

I have connected to about 4 different WIFI routers without problems.
The furthest was about 50 meters away with solid walls... Perhaps there is a fault with your HD? Consider returning for a replacement and see if it's any better.

objective opinion
theoretically, Touch HD's (and most of the HTC's phones) should have weaker wifi performance than iphone. Performance = throughput and/or ability to lock onto signals and/or range.
reason: touch hd uses TI (Texas Instrument)'s wifi chip, lab testings shows about 12 mbps
iphone uses Marvel wifi chip, lab testing shows 18 mbps.
TI chip is much cheaper in price than marvels, that's the reason why HTC chose them.
that being said, i have seen weak wifi signals in my house, where it would see the AP, but can't associate (at certain spots). but for me, once it associates , it will lock on pretty well. wifi through put is definitely weaker than iphone, despite the CPU advantage -> 528 MHz, vs. iphone's downclocked 400 Mhz (from 667MHz)
also, your school would uses enterprise AP, so it's either cisco or aruba. but it should not make a difference. the immediate remedy for your HOME, is to go into the router's console and change the channel away from the default 1, 6 or 11. those three channels have the most interference, because most ppl don't bother change them, so your neighbor would be on those channel too.

Mine seems to work 'ok'...
I live in a 100+ year old house, so the walls are pretty thick!
If I'm in the bedroom furthest from my router, my laptop gets a weak signal - and my HD does too (just about enough to watch YouTube with only a very occasional break)
So it certainly seems no worse - and considering that HD have squeezed a laptop into the size of a flattened fag packet, I'm happy enough with that

gt112 said:
I'd like to hear from ppl who have tested the device within a weak WiFi zone such as my room in college.
My experience was that it drops the network. Literally would drop it as soon as it had connected. I was nearly crying. In the same place, my laptop and my mates iPhones work grand. So maybe some of you could test it in weak zones.
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I don't exactly have that situation but:
- I use a US Robotics access point
- When sitting 6ft away from it, I get near ~100% signal strength, as you would expect
- Through some walls I get only a very slight decrease in signal strength
- My phone often picks up access points that my laptop (macbook pro, has quite reliable wireless) in other homes which are separated by thick concrete walls and easily 30 to 60 feet away
- At the office I can use my wireless outside, if I'm at least close to the building
- So basically it works as efficient as the wireless on any decent notebook I've used, which usually have stronger and better powered receivers than phones
gt112 said:
To those of you defending it and saying its fit for purpose, please dont forget how much we paid for this thing. I would have expected decent WiFi. It clearly isnt! Another thing that dissapoints.
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True, you must expect nothing less than good performance, and as stated by many people, you can also expect the HD to offer that performance, it is simply there (well on the average HD). Something must not be working right, either the radio version, glitchy software, or in the worst case, the hardware is faulty, it happens on the best devices. If your wireless receiver has a hardware fault causing it to conflict you will see these drops as the device randomly disables en reenables all the time.
I'd suggest making use of your warranty while you still can.

reception sucks!

I hate to say it but I am having 3g issues. By that I mean no 3g and one to two bars. Usually I have perfect reception.
Sent from my ADR6300 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

i've noticed on the incredible that my displayed signal strength isn't as strong as it is on my droid. haven't noticed a difference in call reception or data speeds though...yet.

Eris users have noticed the same thing as you bzbz when compared to the Droid. Could be the cpu or something else HTC vs Motorola.

i've noticed on the incredible that my displayed signal strength isn't as strong as it is on my droid. haven't noticed a difference in call reception or data speeds though...yet.
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I noticed the same thing but my download/upload speeds are just as fast if not faster. I gave my Droid to my mom and took her upgrade so I have both side by side, off WiFi downloading a movie and the Incredible is actually 20-50kbs faster than my old Droid and yes the Droid is over clocked with petes 1ghz kernel.

I have had the Incredible for a couple of days, and I've noticed a lower displayed signal strength than I'd see on my Droid in the same locations.
But I've not experienced any reception issues, and my internet speed seems the same or faster.
This is what I expected. We all know that you can't count on those reception bars to compare different phones, and also that Moto tends to have better radios/reception than everyone else anyway. As long as you're phone's radio is close to Moto's in the ability to make/receive calls, then normally you're not doing bad.

well it's good to know that the signal strength concern may be more of a "cosmetic" issue than a legitimate performance issue.

daftlush said:
I hate to say it but I am having 3g issues. By that I mean no 3g and one to two bars. Usually I have perfect reception.
Sent from my ADR6300 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
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how is the quality on said reception? Other people's replies seem to indicate good quality even with less bars.

BzBz said:
well it's good to know that the signal strength concern may be more of a "cosmetic" issue than a legitimate performance issue.
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This...
It is definitely cosmetic, the newest radio i have installed on my eris does the same. The reception on my eris is better then my friends with the older radio, but he has more 3G bars.

designerfx said:
how is the quality on said reception? Other people's replies seem to indicate good quality even with less bars.
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It may just be the way HTC displays the signal. I know on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Pro, the signal indicator frequently shows incorrect (lower) signal strength but works fine.

I compared signal strength between my BB Curve 8330 and my new Incredible.
In spite of the indicated signal strength being lower on the Incredible, the dBm was the same. It's only one location and one user, but I suspect it's not an actual signal strength issue.

i used my incredible all day. i work in a downtown area with many tall building surrounded and i still got a good 3g signal and speed.
from Boston.

the 3G speeds on my incredible are slower that my 2G G1 running on AT&T. i get les than 200 kbps downstream. My friend with a droid standing in the same room will get aound 1100 Kbps. What gives??

if you are haveing a tough time with a signal.. I update my roaming towers... I had an issue today where I couldn't get much.. I did *228 option 2 and it updated my roaming towers and have had no problems since... sometimes you need to do that with a new phone so it knows exactly what towers to look for

tried the *228 to update. Update was successful but no improvment. still have very slow data speeds and terrible call quality. reception stays about around -100 dBm

I'm also noticing what appears to be poor reception. I was getting better reception with my Droid than I am with Incredible. I've tried the *228 last night and this morning but that hasn't helped. Hopefully there will eventually be some kind of software fix for this. I'm seeing other threads on other sites with the same kind of complaints so I don't think it's a select few who are experiencing this issue.

hoop762 said:
the 3G speeds on my incredible are slower that my 2G G1 running on AT&T. i get les than 200 kbps downstream. My friend with a droid standing in the same room will get aound 1100 Kbps. What gives??
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Your speed will depend on what tower your connected to. on my Eris, I've gone from 1mbps/0.70mbps in New York, NY to 2mbps/2mbps in West Haven, CT. It's not the phone. The newer radio on the Incredible will show less bars, but your signal strength will be fine .(dBm)

My phone keeps dropping 3G my droid never has done this in the location the incredible is. I will go into airplane mode then back out and I will have 3g again

Over at Androidforums there is a thread going regarding reception issues. On page 2 is some help in running a debug on the phone that will give you dbm levels and some other info. I'm not sure how to use the info the debug gives but perhaps it may be of some use to someone here.
The link is http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/70223-weak-signal-strength.html

rckeystone said:
Over at Androidforums there is a thread going regarding reception issues. On page 2 is some help in running a debug on the phone that will give you dbm levels and some other info. I'm not sure how to use the info the debug gives but perhaps it may be of some use to someone here.
The link is http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/70223-weak-signal-strength.html
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You don't need to go into field test mode like this guy said, all you need to do is from the home screen > menu > setting > about phone > network.
Here you will see signal strength (typical between -100 to -80dBm) the closer to 0 you are the better your signal is (ie: 80dBm > 90dBm)
Hope that clears up some confusion. I've tested both the motodroid and the incredible side by side in a location with low signal and can say that my incredible gets better signal than the droid, even though the "bars" don't indicate as such.

my signal always stays at -81, is that a good thing?
im a new android and 3g user

WI-FI Survey

Hi, just trying to get an some idea wide spread an issue is with Wifi, is your wifi:
A: fine, no problems at all, I get a strong signal near the router which does not immediately degrade once I move 2-5 metres away (test using "wi-fi analyser" from the market). Download and performance are excellent next to the router and remains so even up to 5 metres way.
B: fine, but the signal quickly degrades to less than 60 % of original signal when standing 5 metres away. Download and performance is excellent next to the router and average to poor 2-5 metres or more away.
C: fine, but the signal quickly degrades to less than 60 % of original signal when standing 5 metres away. Download and performance is excellent next to the router but poor when I move more than 5 metres away.

B for me, only fault with the phone

Hmm don't know what to answer here to be honest, it's either A or B.
I get -22dBm next to the router, -50dBm 5 meters away and -70dBm 10-12 meters away.
When testing with the Speedtest.net app I get 14mbps upload both right next to the router, 5 meters away and 10 meters away. Download was only 6mbps because of the crappy Speedtest servers. 60/60 connection btw.
So the signal may degrade, but download/upload doesn't.

wow only 6 people with wf-fi issues, clearly not a problem then...think I will put the latest update on and take it back

Same for me as SGS1 regarding WiFi .
But the signal indicator is not reliable tending to show low to no strength when still a decent connection.
jje

JJEgan said:
Same for me as SGS1 regarding WiFi .
But the signal indicator is not reliable tending to show low to no strength when still a decent connection.
jje
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Sounds like the same conclusion as in a danish review/test of the fone, thats its the indication of the signal strength on the fone thats reporting wrongly a low signal and not the actually signal that is weak.

Not so good for me either, someone posted a link to a samsungblog in korean where they stated they are aware of the problem
edit
here it is: http://www.samsungtomorrow.com/1211

I dont think that is the case as if it were it would always report week even if you were stood next to the router, the problem here is that the signal is strong next to the router but degrades quickly when you move away, far too quickly suggesting the phone has a very limited wifi range.

good wifi reception, a bit better than sgs1 for me.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

[XOOM 2] Xoom 2 wifi strength/performance ?

I'm considering the Xoom 2 3g version (i prefer it over Samsung Galaxy Tab).
As i will use it for traveling one very important thing for me is Wifi strength as usually hotels tend to have not-so-strong wifi signals.
Anyone can give me any feedback on how does Wifi perform on your Xoom2 compared to your laptops, phones, etc. ?
Thanks!

Performs very well, no complaints here at all! Sometimes it has trouble connecting automatically when the tablet comes out of sleep, but a simple toggle of the wifi on/ off brings it right back!
Sent from my Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 with Verizon 4G LTE

Expect signal strength closer to a phone than a laptop. Some hotels with a very weak signal have been borderline for me, though so far I have always between able to get a connection.
Sent from my Android phone

I haven't any problems here , very good wifi and great gps . Probably wifi is not as good as a wifi of a good laptop but better than a phone's wifi for sure .

Have just done a fairly unscientific test of signal strength in my hotel room this evening -- I get a pretty poor wireless signal in this room, so it should be considered a basic look at behaviour when quite a way from the access point:
Dell Latitude E6510: -65 dBm
Samsung Galaxy S2: -86 dBm
Motorola Xoom 2 ME: -83 dBm
All measurements were taken with the devices a few inches from one another, and are averaged out over a few measurements. On the Android devices, the values were measured using Wifi Analyzer; on the notebook I used the iwconfig command (Linux).
As I said, not very scientific, but should give a rough idea of what to expect. Unfortunately I don't have any other tablets here against which to compare.

gerasalus said:
I'm considering the Xoom 2 3g version (i prefer it over Samsung Galaxy Tab).
As i will use it for traveling one very important thing for me is Wifi strength as usually hotels tend to have not-so-strong wifi signals.
Anyone can give me any feedback on how does Wifi perform on your Xoom2 compared to your laptops, phones, etc. ?
Thanks!
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Click to collapse
Signal strength is the least of your concerns when using hotel wifi. You are going to be lucky to get 56k down at 90% of any hotel you stay at.
4g wifi tether through your phone, even Sprint 3g will be faster every time. That's coming from a road warrior.

Nexus 4 Signal Strength Fluxuations

Does anyone have a problem with their Nexus 4 signal strength?
I have Bell Canada, which is supposedly has the best coverage in Canada, I live in the suburbs of a relatively large city and I often see no bars at all. I'm sitting on my couch right now and the signal strength is ranging from -97 dBm to -110 dBm.
Do 2.4 Ghz band devices interfere at all? I have bunch of portable phones and 2 routers, so maybe this is related?

Nexus 4 on T-Mobile
I am in Portland OR in an area of good signal according to T-MO but my nexus rarely shows any signal bars inside my house. This is my 3rd N-4. T-Mo says they have great signal in my area.... so what gives with this signal thing?

My reception has been wonky ever since the 4.2.2 and baseband update.

ccgabe said:
I am in Portland OR in an area of good signal according to T-MO but my nexus rarely shows any signal bars inside my house. This is my 3rd N-4. T-Mo says they have great signal in my area.... so what gives with this signal thing?
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Click to collapse
I get 1-2 bars in my house usually between 95-105 db, outside I get low 80's and full or near full at all times. Even though my bars inside top out at 2 I have still managed to pull up to 13 Mbps but thats on a sunny day. Didn't see any results above 9 Mbps today. I live on the outskirts of a not so major city so I can't really complain. One minute I'm pulling 10 Mbps and the other I'm only getting like 200 Kbps though, but it's all good enough for what I need it for and I can't complain since its only $30/month. I just transferred from Virgin Mobile after their "upgrade" resulted in me and many other of their customers losing data for the last 3 weeks and to this date its still not fixed! Their "3G" speeds were atrocious, I've pulled higher speeds off of T-Mobiles 2G network.
I hear a lot of us who are on 4.2.2 and baseband .48 have had issues so I'm thinking its either a major software issue with the radio firmware that hasn't been addressed yet in any revision or it could be a major hardware issue as well as I flashed .27, .33, and .48 and noticed no differences. I had to set my phone to WCDMA Only to get it to maintain a good connection, otherwise HSPA/HSPA+ would just cut out after 2 minutes of use and revert to 2G or have no data at all for 5-10 minutes. After switching to WCDMA Only this problem went away completely and I haven't lost a signal since. For whatever reason it picks up more adjacent towers as well on this setting.

I have that kind of problem also though I notice it only when the signal is weak.
It goes from -99dbm to -111dbm with no reason. My other phone (Defy) keeps a good -97 at the same spot without any fluctuation.
I will try to switch to wcdma only.