Database Users

EVO Wifi is terrible

There are big threads on this on the Andrioid Central and HTC user forums. Many folks are experiencing terrible wifi performance. My experience is typical; right next to my router I can pull 13Mbps+ (via speedtest), but if I go into the next room or anywhere else in the house my signal drops to one bar and thoroughput plummets to <1Mbps. Both my iPhone and iPad work great around the whole house.

No problems here. In fact, I've been very pleased with the wifi, 3G, and 4G coverage I have here compared with the wifi and 3G I had with my Hero. My speeds are also markedly better. I was pulling 1.9Mbps with 3G yesterday and at that point, I don't think I have any reason to complain about service.

No problems with mine either. Maybe Apple is trying to discredit other products while they are running... lol

i thought i was the only one seeing this, i walk a few steps away from my router and it drops to zero or just one bar. i guess it works best with a wireless N router

My Evo's wi-fi reception isn't as horrible as some claim it to be, but it is noticeably weaker than that of my Touch Pro. When I go downstairs, I drop down to one or two bars, where as my Touch Pro stays at a solid three bars.

Try and take your router out of dual/tripple band mode and run it on only G or N and see how it does.
I've noticed running with backwards compatibility messes a lot of phones up.

i'm having the same issues...
running a linksys 802.11/b/g/n router
seeing the same issues with my ipad, but not with my old iphone
can this be remedied with a simple hack to the os? or would it be totally hw related?

YoungAceAtlanta said:
i thought i was the only one seeing this, i walk a few steps away from my router and it drops to zero or just one bar. i guess it works best with a wireless N router
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Click to collapse
Same for me man, its terrible. Mine isnt rooted or custom rom'd yet though so well see whats up when they start hax0rin the phone a lil more.

Chriscic said:
There are big threads on this on the Andrioid Central and HTC user forums. Many folks are experiencing terrible wifi performance. My experience is typical; right next to my router I can pull 13Mbps+ (via speedtest), but if I go into the next room or anywhere else in the house my signal drops to one bar and thoroughput plummets to <1Mbps. Both my iPhone and iPad work great around the whole house.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
YoungAceAtlanta said:
i thought i was the only one seeing this, i walk a few steps away from my router and it drops to zero or just one bar. i guess it works best with a wireless N router
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Poor Wi-Fi performance would be a dealbreaker so how much of a reality:rumor is this?
I would have to take Sprint up on their 30-day Satisfaction Guarantee-return policy if this issue is not resolved..
BTW, N I've heard will not be supported until 2.2

YoungAceAtlanta said:
i thought i was the only one seeing this, i walk a few steps away from my router and it drops to zero or just one bar. i guess it works best with a wireless N router
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a wireless N router. Someone on one of the other forums says that Android 2.1 only runs G wireless anyway, although I'm not knowledgeable enough on that yet to confirm that it's true.

Mine is also bad i get 10 to 15ft away and it drops to nothing.

rickgomez2003 said:
Mine is also bad i get 10 to 15ft away and it drops to nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mine drops to * to 1 bar when I go around the house, but it's still working and never disconnects so I don't really care.
-edit- our router sucks too btw so I'm not surprised.

Evo wifi
I just got my Evo as we were heading to Mexico for vacation. My whole family has (including me) and iphone but I had my Evo with me when we went to a restaurant to eat. The restaurant had wifi coverage but we had to get a password to access. Accessing the wifi with the EVO is a bit more time consuming than the iphone but I didnt care about that. What i DID care was everyone else was saying..CONNECTED as my EVO was still searching. It did find the signal about 15 seconds later. Now the frustrating part. My signal kept dropping while my family, with iphones kept bragging about their signal never dropping. Finally the signal dropped totally from my EVO and I had to use my wifes iphone. I love the EVO and want this phone to work for me. Im not an Iphone fanboy either. I feel like this is something that will be fixed with an update.

wfhowell said:
I just got my Evo as we were heading to Mexico for vacation. My whole family has (including me) and iphone but I had my Evo with me when we went to a restaurant to eat. The restaurant had wifi coverage but we had to get a password to access. Accessing the wifi with the EVO is a bit more time consuming than the iphone but I didnt care about that. What i DID care was everyone else was saying..CONNECTED as my EVO was still searching. It did find the signal about 15 seconds later. Now the frustrating part. My signal kept dropping while my family, with iphones kept bragging about their signal never dropping. Finally the signal dropped totally from my EVO and I had to use my wifes iphone. I love the EVO and want this phone to work for me. Im not an Iphone fanboy either. I feel like this is something that will be fixed with an update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it isn't fixed I don't see how I can get-keep the EVO..please keep us updated on this issue..

SMARTPHONEPC said:
If it isn't fixed I don't see how I can get-keep the EVO..please keep us updated on this issue..
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Click to collapse
aww, see I came from an android phone without wifi, so i'm used to not being able to rely on it lol.

Mine's just OK. I do get coverage throughout the house, even 2 floors up (router in basement). But when I'm sitting right next to the router, literally 2 feet, I do not have full bars. (1 shy). Can't really complain too much, but I do wish it was better.
Speedtest
Next to router: 9438 down, 3996 up
1 floor up: 4492 down, 4102 up

Wifi reception for me is pretty awful, only the "dot" comes on with no circumferential bars when I'm at home and I get no signal at all when I'm at work (where both my laptop & iPhone 3G do fine). This is looking like a deal breaker for me.
Gary

Here in Puerto Rico the vast majority of houses are built in concrete... My EVO's WiFi seems to fare worse than my iPod touch's WiFi (which in turn fares worse than my netbook's). In the family room, with one room and one concrete wall in between me and the standard G router, I get a signal and it works fine.
With two concrete walls (one room and a bathroom) in between me and the router signal is borderline but it still seems to work, tho I'm often seeing just a dot. With three concrete walls in between me and the router (two rooms and a bathroom in between) I get no signal whatsoever.
Under those same conditions the iPod touch would ocasionally get a signal in certain corners of that room while the netbook's never had trouble getting a signal unless I go to the far end/corner of the room. I'm not terribly worried about it since I'd use the WiFi the most in the family room but it's a bit troublesome, hopefully it's improved w/an update.

I can confirm EVO wifi is much worse then my TP. I'm trying to move my router to a more central location now to accommodate it. :-\ hopefully we'll get N in 2.2 it's not a deal breaker, just an annoyance.

You can always make a directional antenna focuser out of a soda can too, it sounds ghetto but actually works... There was an article about it on MaxiumPC about a year ago.

Wifi seems to be the main weakness of the A500

I am a tad torn:
Things the A500 does well-
1. Build
2. USB host
3. Display (sans the extreme angles) holds up IMO to IPS displays for color and brightness.
4. Most of the apps are not shallow bloatware, compared to other devices.
5. Rooting is mega easy
6. UI and response of display
7. Battery life
8. Seems efficient in sleep mode
9. Great sound quality for a tablet
Still, the one major area for me is the wifi. Things the A500 does not do well:
1. Reception is the weakest of any of my devices except the sucktastic' Archos A5. My gTablet blows the A500 away for range and stability of connection.
2. No adhoc (why do OEMs keep screwing this up?) the only way to get it for now is risking hosing the device through modding. Most users would like it to work without that risk.
3. A brand new highly pushed device (most main retailers are going to carry it) Honeycomb tablet with no 5ghz support?!
4. The wifi seems to toggle with signal strength, since it will go from one to two bars and then disconnect and reconnect. I wonder if there is a kernel issue and screwed up power management?
It seems the other stuff on the A500 works so well, it makes the wifi stick out like a VERY sore thumb.
I have tested two routers with very good ratings for range and work well even with my weak N900 (another weak wifi radio device). My router is in my basement due to my office, but in an open and central area to upstairs. A PS3, 360, Wii, three laptops, gTablet, PSP, Droid 1, Incredible and iPod 4 all work fine and maintain connection upstairs. Upstairs, I have to be nearly above the router to get a good and stable signal with the A500.
added:
The A500 seems to need a mW level increase with the wifi radio.

I have a Netgear WNDR3700 and have very good signal .. router on 2nd fl and signal is good downstairs.. it's a more expenisve router but very good and you can load DD-WRT if you want, but the FW with it is very nice..

i don't get it.... i had a gtablet for 7 days and it's wifi sucked compared to my a500, which seems to be the opposite to what everyone else is saying.
granted, the gtab and iconia's wifi both suck compared to my archos 101's wifi, but i like the a500 so much better overall.

Wifi is GREAT here. I have a WRT610N.
Hmm. A few of us here so far aren't having problems. It's probably your unit.
In my case it's around the same power as the GTablet. I live in a 2k sq ft. apt and I get -1 bars at the farthest point from the router in my apt. The problem with increasing the transmit or receive power too much is that you get unnecessary drain on the battery...same thing with adding 5ghz support.
5ghz is also a pretty troublesome bandwidth. My phone is dual band and has trouble with SO many wifi n 5ghz networks. Even on mine as the only device using it currently, it works like night and day between 2 different firmware revisions, likely because of interference and overlaps with other people's wifi and how each fw. handled it.
People think wifi n 5 is better than 2.4 but in fact it's only better when there are very few people using it. Not only does it give you less range, but it's also more prone to interference than 2.4 or G. 2.4 N is a pretty strong balance and as long as you aren't forcing 300Mbps mode (channel bonding), I really don't understand why you're getting such a weak signal or disconnects. Wifi N is great for performance when it works how it's supposed to. It has a lower floor for noise and a wider spectrum but all in all, it's not worth the trouble (if you have any). 2.4 at least works in a more solid fashion, interference or not. I think this is why many suppliers just choose to stick with it vs. dual. Though I agree it's VERY nice to have the option. But necessary? Nah.
Try exchanging it. I don't think 'weak wifi' is general of the a500s.

No probs with wifi works all over the house no worries.
Personally my biggest gripe is the length of the power lead, shockingly short what would it have cost them to add 4 feet of wire to make it more usable. My vega has fantastic cable length...
________________________________________________________________________
ZTE Blade - Rooted OC 729mh - CM7 RC2 V/nice
Advent Vega - Rooted OC 1.4gh - Corvos5 rom gorgeous smoooth and qqquick
Iconia A500 - Rooted - HComb Sweet

i too have great wifi connection...my house is over 3,000 sqft and is made of concrete and brick. i use a cicso valet wireless n router and have at least two bars of signal when my tab is on one end of the house and router is on the other end. it has a better signal then my gtab, droidx, and the wifes new iphone 4. not sure why you are having issues as my tab has nevrr even lost connection once since the day i bought it. if you already have played with the settings on your router you might want to consider that you have a faulty wifi module in your tab.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

I have a linksys wrt610n in my basement. My wife gets very good wifi connection all through the house and even on the 2nd floor. On top of that she gets a good connection on the front porch and back patio outside.

Wifi is as good as my ipad and iphone with this device. It never drops and works all throughout the house and yard. Posting from from front porch right now. On wifi analyzer I am picking up networks several houses away.

So maybe a bum radio then?......

I have the Netgear WNR3500L router and, believe me, the A500 finds the signal everywhere in my 2500 sqft house. I actually had more trouble with my g tablet whenever it went to sleep. Wifi would disconnect and then reconnect constantly even if I set it to "Never Sleep" in the settings.

WiFi is great for me, too. I can go outside, across my yard with no apparent signal loss.

My first A500 must have had a wifi issue, since not having the problem with my second one. Strange.
I now have also moved my router to a more central location (out of basement) so all of my devices have a good signal. I was should have done this a long time ago. Apathy I tell ya!

Had the same problem with my Acer Netbook. Had to replace the card inside with one from eBay. I am not surprised this is an issue for some of us.
I wasn't too pleased with their customer service then and I don't expect this problem to be fixed with software.

Only problem for my A500 was in my bedroom where I get 1 bar on my PCs and notebooks, and even my Droid has some issues. So I set up a range extender and have no issues anywhere in the house now.
At work and out on the road I've had no problems with hotspots anywhere.

I got online and foudn a guide on how to tweak my Dlinik router for best performance.
I changed the security to WPA2 and st it to the best channel according to the WiFi Analyzer app on the Market.
I then made sure that only N or N/G was set and allowed for a wider band (40/20 mhz?)
Don't choose channel 1 as it can interfere or be interfered with other wireless radios being too close to that channel.
Can't remembered if I did anything else but I now can have the tablet up two floors and I maintain the signal.
Looks like its a keeper after all.

decent wifi signal
I'm on mynsecond a500 after returning one due to a bad hdmi connector. Wifi has been okay on both. Mostly two and three bars and only down two one bar when outside and farthest away from the router.
In fact right now I have two bars and am connected and posting from the a500 in a hotel. It has the same signal strength as my laptop.

My problem was not the signal as much as the stability of it. If three to four bars, the connection was stable and did not lose connection. One to two bars was very unstable and would cut out about every five minutes or so, when tested with a few routers.
The second A500 is stable at low bar signals.

WiFi Drops out

Hey,
Ive just bought a acer Iconia a500 recently, every thing seemed ok until recently. Owned it about a week or so.
Basically my router (netgear wnr2000) is in my room upstairs, if im in that room everything is fine browsing etc.
However the minute I move away from that room the signal strength drops down, which is normal. But if i go downstairs to the living room, the connection is unusable, then it drops out takes a few mins to reconnect etc.
I've never had any problems before with any wireless devices ive got in that room, the xbox is in there currently and plays on Live fine etc. Ive got 3 laptops, HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy S, 2 iPod touches etc so I dont believe its a router issue.
Ive had a play round with the router settings just incase, put on unused channels etc
Anyone else had any similar experiences? Anyone found any fixes?
Thank

yes take it back. Mine did this out of the box on the living room i dint had any wifi i had to be near the router in my room to have any internet. Just to be sure of things get wifi eye or something like that from the market and watch the signal if it goes un and down like crazy its the A500

My first A500 did that and the second was a wake-up from sleep too much problem. The A500 is one update away from awesome, but would be nice if they patch the current issues now, rather than wait for a 3.1 update.
Some folks are not having any issues, which makes me wonder if bad batches.....

Maybe like the glue issues with iPad 2 Rush. Maybe it is bad batches...

cointel said:
Maybe like the glue issues with iPad 2 Rush. Maybe it is bad batches...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely makes more sense than a general firmware issue now, since more folks would be hollering if a general issue for all devices.

WiFi really poor?

Is it just me or do you find the wifi strength to be really poor?
My friend was at my house last night and his htc incredible said full signal and mine said 1 bar
Does software affect anything?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

Nope but the signal strength is poorly indicated bars mean little if you have no bars and full strength signal .
Use speedtest.net to measure .
jje

Yes I also noticed that when the signal is poor but the device is connected, the connection is blend but solid..
But the GS2 receiver is 1/3 than the receiver of the desire HD
I noticed some improvement with KF2 baseband imho the best receiver and the minor battery drainer for the device

for me its working fine. No issues

chaplu said:
for me its working fine. No issues
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't say "issue" but that i've noticed that the power of the GS2 wifi receiver is minor in confront of the DesireHD receiver
Imho it is the only sin of this fanstastic, strongest device

Yeah, I also have poor wi-fi signal, regularly 1 or 2 bars less than iphone 4 or even my old htc desire. Sometimes this will happen even if I stand barely 2 feet away from the router. But the connection is always solid, when it's there.

adem_7 said:
Yeah, I also have poor wi-fi signal, regularly 1 or 2 bars less than iphone 4 or even my old htc desire. Sometimes this will happen even if I stand barely 2 feet away from the router. But the connection is always solid, when it's there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right....if the connection start, don't worry is will be rock solid
But, often the problem is catch the connection when the signal is poor

Agree on this. Mine showing 2 bars but i cant browse or it is slow as hell. On desire no problem at all.
Nuked from Galaxy S II conquered by VillainROM v2.1.0

Well as long as it works (mine does, flawlessly), I really couldn't care less about how many bars are displayed.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

The wifi strenght sucks on my SGII too..
I was used to surf from my room , even with my iPod touch 3g (only B/G), but the SGII takes just one bar of signal and doesen't work, and that's strange considering that it supports B/G/N...

Well,it's a little crappy compared to the Desire HD admitedly,but meh,whatever.The final result is the same.The Desire HD has had the best wifi receiver among all my phones by the way,so we aren't comparing the S2 with some ****ty phone.

It puzzles me everytime I see one of these threads. I find the WiFi reception on the device to be great, much better than my last handset, Desire HD. The DHD would struggle to hold a connection in the rear bedroom of my last house, which was at the opposite end of the house to the router. It was so bad I had to use Connectify.me as a bridge via my laptop! The SGS2 would hold a connection without issue, even going out into the rear garden, something my N1 could not achieve. I'm stumped as to why some people really struggle with the signal strength on WiFi.
Regards.

Most of the the time my SGS2 show 1 out of 4 bars, even when i'm very close to wi-fi access point, however i woudn't say that the connection is worse comparing to when I have 4 bars. Probably this is a software issue...

should hope dev improve this. my Desire still can get the signal even if i'm outside of my house, and while reversing the car going out through the gate, it still catch the signal. GS2 didnt get this kind of reception, but it is fast once it does get reception.

I used to have the same Wi-Fi problems with my Galaxy S2 having little or no reception while all my other devices were working fine.
I fixed the problem by setting my phone to use static IP at all times when connected to the wireless network.
To do this go to:
Wireless and network > Wi-Fi Settings > Advanced (menu button)
Then check "Use static IP" and fill in the network details.
Ever since I did that, I have been getting at least three bars signal at all times and had no problems getting a connection inside or outside the house. I reckon it's a bug with the android firmware itself (I'm using rooted stock 2.3.3 KF3 btw). That or it hates my D-Link router.

ADropBear said:
I used to have the same Wi-Fi problems with my Galaxy S2 having little or no reception while all my other devices were working fine.
I fixed the problem by setting my phone to use static IP at all times when connected to the wireless network.
To do this go to:
Wireless and network > Wi-Fi Settings > Advanced (menu button)
Then check "Use static IP" and fill in the network details.
Ever since I did that, I have been getting at least three bars signal at all times and had no problems getting a connection inside or outside the house. I reckon it's a bug with the android firmware itself (I'm using rooted stock 2.3.3 KF3 btw). That or it hates my D-Link router.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try this when I'm at home mate and I'll report back
Cheers
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

Just tested KG2 modem and its giving a much stronger signal at what was the extremes of range for other modems . Signal not wifi indicator .
jje

Im less than 2 meters away from the router and it indicates 2 bars of 3!! I had better indicators for the previos phones
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

JJEgan said:
Just tested KG2 modem and its giving a much stronger signal at what was the extremes of range for other modems . Signal not wifi indicator .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can confirm this JJe.
Also,lynxboy,something must have been wrong with your Desire HD.Currently,the S2 is the second best phone I've had in terms of connectivity,but my DHD is on a level of its own.It sometimes even beats my laptop and doesn't lose connection no matter how I hold it.I never believed that the S2's wifi is actually bad,but it's certainly not as good as the Desire HD's.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

The SGS2 doesn't like all routers equally. A couple of us with Netgear router's are getting great performance - better than with previous devices. It doesn't seem to like D-Link. D-Link's also cause its battery to drain faster. There's a thread started on that already.

[Q] What router are you using?

Not that this has that much to do with the nexus player but I'm looking to get a new router. I do a lot of streaming and have at least 12 devices connected minimum. I currently have a Netgear R6300 that I think is on the way out. Looking for suggestions and I don't really have any tech savy friends to ask that are in the same boat.

I am an early adopter and love the cisco/linksys/belkin line of routers. i always get the newest model as they are announced/released. have been on board with linksys exclusively for decades using their brand of routers.
im currently using a linksys EA9200 which is an AC3200 router. has one 2.4 side and two 5ghz sides. the router senses the slower traffic and places it on the proper side whereas faster devices will be steered to another one. does this all automatically. has more features but that is a nice setup about this router.
I also have a hub and use 9 machines (wired and wireless) with this unit.
the next best router for a bit less bread is the wrt 1900 also from linksys. its built like a tank and has the ability to load up custom firmware.
http://store.linksys.com/products/linksys_stcVVcatId551966VVviewcat.htm
lots of opinions will abound this thread so have fun sifting through them all.

marctronixx said:
I am an early adopter and love the cisco/linksys/belkin line of routers. i always get the newest model as they are announced/released. have been on board with linksys exclusively for decades using their brand of routers.
im currently using a linksys EA9200 which is an AC3200 router. has one 2.4 side and two 5ghz sides. the router senses the slower traffic and places it on the proper side whereas faster devices will be steered to another one. does this all automatically. has more features but that is a nice setup about this router.
I also have a hub and use 9 machines (wired and wireless) with this unit.
the next best router for a bit less bread is the wrt 1900 also from linksys. its built like a tank and has the ability to load up custom firmware.
http://store.linksys.com/products/linksys_stcVVcatId551966VVviewcat.htm
lots of opinions will abound this thread so have fun sifting through them all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. The tri band setup seems pretty sweet. Didn't even notice this one. I've been looking at Asus and netgear pretty much so far.

I got the Linksys EA6900 for Christmas and hated it.
Internet connection kept dropping, wifi kept dropping, USB printer connection "thing" didn't work with my MF printer.
Took it back and paid an extra $50 and got the Neatgear Nighthawk R8000. Also a tri-band (1 x 2.4 and 2 x 5 ghz) with auto sensing.
I love it. Everything works as expected out of the box.
In the house I have 2 smart phones, 3 tablets, Nexus Player, Wii all using Wifi and 3 PC's, 1 TV and 2 PS3's all hard wired.

I have an Asus AC66U. So far I'm happy with it. Nice features and speed and range are great. They say they are compatible with DD-WRT but when I loaded it up it was spotty at best and my data rates were about half of what I got on the stock firmware. I reverted back because I would rather take speed and stability over features. My media server uses an ASUS PCE-AC68 card and I get pretty much gigabit speeds. Link shows 1300mbps and throughput tests are consistently around 450-475mbps from about 30 feet away and through 1 wall. The NP gets about 230-250mbps. at the same distance.

Munkee915 said:
I have an Asus AC66U. So far I'm happy with it. Nice features and speed and range are great. They say they are compatible with DD-WRT but when I loaded it up it was spotty at best and my data rates were about half of what I got on the stock firmware. I reverted back because I would rather take speed and stability over features. My media server uses an ASUS PCE-AC68 card and I get pretty much gigabit speeds. Link shows 1300mbps and throughput tests are consistently around 450-475mbps from about 30 feet away and through 1 wall. The NP gets about 230-250mbps. at the same distance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also have AC66U which I run merlin wrt on (pretty close to stock firmware). Works great with NP and all other connected devices.

Konstigt said:
I also have AC66U which I run merlin wrt on (pretty close to stock firmware). Works great with NP and all other connected devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had some TP-Links, Belkins and even Linksys routers but this one is most stable one - not to mention the transfer speeds, Merlin firmware is updated daily.

I just have an airport extreme.

So far I tried a Nighthawk R8000. First one was junk out of the box. Tried a second one and I like it. I tried the Linksys AC3200. I thought the range was terrible so I went back to the Nighthawk. I have a ASUS RT-AC87U on order. I'll try this but so far I'm pretty happy with the R8000