Looking at the results of the xda-developers pool I decided to get an XPeria as it clearly out shined all other phones. I got X1i this Saturday and was shocked about the poor signal strength. I was so looking forward to using this phone and keeping it but was more inclined in sending it back. Now after a couple of days just browsing the developers site which I am used to as I had an artemis before this. I see this was not the last of the problems. There have been mentions of overheating and GPS lag as well as the WIFI being rubbish. I have found the following problems
1. Signals fluctuating and mostly no service when in hand even in some good reception areas. Normally on H when in the carry case but switches to G as soon as held in hand.
2. GPS is frustrating. My artemis used to lock within seconds while having an upto date ephermis file. But even with AGPS and recently downloaded ephermis file, I had to wait over a minute to move off. It locked and then it lost and then it locked again(This was when it was in my hand). Once locked it was stable. It was on Google maps by the way.
Right for these, I have found a temporary solution and we have to work on it to make it a standard solution for all X1. Apparently the signals definitely fluctuate when you touch the lower metallic part on the back which has SE logo on it . The opinion on the forums here is that it may block the signal. I think otherwise as I have covered that area without touching the panel with my hand and there has been no signal drop but as soon as you have the slightest bit of flesh on that area the signal drops at least two bars. This led me to believe that there is an electric conduction or possibly u earth the antennas as they seem to be touching that panel from inside as it has been pointed out before.
So simple test was to put a cling film on that part and then test so I did and walah!! There was no signal drop and it worked flawlessly. I think it’s the same problem with GPS as well.
Now I couldn’t carry on using my phone half mummified. I had to take the cling film off. This is possibly the solution to everyone’s problem but I need someone to suggest either a plastic cover for that area or some sort of coating which does not conduct electricity. I think that will definitely sort the problem.
I think you've got a faulty X1 there mate..
Can you take it back to a store and compare it against another one?
The signal is weak on this compared to some other devices, (it's not as bad as the vario though), however I've never noticed a drop in signal by holding it, so I suspect somethings awry with the one you've got..
GPS signal is very very good with the later radios, what version have you got?
I get a lock within 2 seconds (8 seconds from hard reset or flashed a new rom), and it's very very accurate when it does lock.
My GPS works very well (better than htc cruise) also with previous radio.
So I think you have a fault X1, like say by fards.
I'm with Fards on this, I don't get issues when holding the phone and GPS is snappy.
crabby
Thanks guys. I know it has been discussed a million times before but I have compared the phone with other XPerias and it is the same. There are atleast 4 threads pointing out the same. My X1 would have better signals than my artemis as long as i dont touch the back base. Have you all got silver X1is? If so then can you check if you touch the back panel which i mentioned, if there is any fluctuation in the signals(its not instant it takes about 10 seconds for the phone to show the loss of signals).
I have updated radio to 55 and tried the two new stock roms which are R2A for O2 and 010 generic. The phone still looses signals but not completely when i touch the back panel.
About GPS, it does get a lock very quickly but looses it for a short while when i touch the back.
Anyway if someone else comes accross the same problem then please write here as I am sure there is a solution to be found. I was looking at the following
Clear coating
Antistatic spray coating
I must have missed those threads then.
I have a black x1, and definitely don't get any of those issues.
gps is steady and strong.. monitoring it now... as I type. 6 birds locked standing next to window in house hdop 0.6m which I think is very very good
gsm signal on 2 bars and steady
I had the same issue just once. And even when X1 was in the Brodit car holder.
In my case the soft reset was sufficient to solve the problem. But I guess that you already did that.
fards and pelriog? did you experience any fluctuation when touching the panel?
These are the links to threads
Thread1
Thread2
Thread3
Thread4
Same here, touch back panel, hold for 10 secs and signal drops 1 bar. Currently on 3G network, going from 2 bars to 1.
(And yes, my W810i gets a way better signal in low coverage areas. However, usually not a problem, since I hardly encounter Vodafone low coverage areas in The Netherlands).
Tested 5 times. Dutch Vodafone X1i, R2 stock ROM & stock radio.
Ok I did the touch the panel thing and my bars increased by one... hmmm perhaps there is another faulty batch out there as I get great signal (touch wood) and my gps is very responsive and accurate...
Silver X1 here.. Been touching it up for about 15 mins now
It does seem to drop by 1 bar when touched, but also drops if i just put my hand really close to the back without actually touching. hmm..
what concerns me more is how it just drops the whole line randomly and gives an x then has to search again. Lost a good few calls from that..
well here ive got no problem at all with signal.
But GPS does suck even though most people everywhere say X1 GPS is awesome.maybe it is just my zone/country.. could that be possible?
uhm.. of course not, their satellytes afetr all.
I have disassembled my X1 myself and found that under lower part of backside (piece that have SE logo) is an antenna of some kind.
The antenna is a thick circuit that ran on top of another piece of plastic that cover the loud speaker.
The circuit only have 2 contacts to the main PCB.
My guess is that the reception site of either GSM or GPS is on that part.(may be bluetooth or WiFi too, but I think that's not it)
I wonder what SE/HTC engineer is thinking, putting antenna on this part of the phone! (covered with my hand everytime I use it!)
The solution is "use bluetooth headset" and "hold your phone upside down" and you will be fine.
Yeah, mine loses a bar when touching the metal case at the back, I've not lost any calls (that I know of) because of this though.
I had a look under the speaker section myself last week, and can confirm the antenna circuit over the speaker section. Underneath there's also what looks like a tiny external antenna socket... we could mod our experias to have a rubber duck aerial? Who's up for walkie talkie lookalike xperia?
lol @ walkie talki and upside down. I think the designers have done a very poor job as far as the antenna location is concerned.
Tumpin does your phone loose all signals when in your hand?
Taking this seriously as suggested in my first post has anyone tried putting a cling film on or to that matter anything to cover that area and holding the phone. I did it with the cling film and there was no drop in the signal. So i think it is just a matter of us using some kind of invisible coating or cover on that area so there is no static conductivity. Look at post #5
I would appreciate if everyone gives there suggestions as well how to deal with it. For the people who took the phone apart you could have put something on the inner side to block the static discharge.
I returned my xperia for the second time for signal problems. The problems started after it was repaired for the crack in my case. After that the signal was very poor. GPS was not working in 90%. I wait for 15 minutes for signal, but the only thing that happend was heating the battery. Also HSDPA have a weak signal. In most times I only can use GPRS. The first time I returned the phone for this problem nothing changed. And this time I had a new crack in my case, so I hope they send me a new one!
Im using a X1a and I find its GSM/3G reception is really poor, I already upgraded the radio to the latest but its still the same poor poor reception. Specially when Im using the metal case I frequently get drop calls on my device
kanthai said:
I have disassembled my X1 myself and found that under lower part of backside (piece that have SE logo) is an antenna of some kind.
The antenna is a thick circuit that ran on top of another piece of plastic that cover the loud speaker.
The circuit only have 2 contacts to the main PCB.....
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Click to collapse
Just curious! Any chance that you see what for are the two metal plates contacts from the metal cover of the phone? Those near the SE logo. These two and the other two towards the camera are there for... what? The metal cover is used for something as when you rig in the phone and all four contacts are "online" but what for? Thanks!
I have a black X1i and noticed that reception increased when using it with the keyboard opened in horizontal position.
Same here, I tought it was because I open my metal case that is why reception goes up.
stevencyc said:
I have a black X1i and noticed that reception increased when using it with the keyboard opened in horizontal position.
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Click to collapse
Hi,
Would like ask about your help.
My omnia has weaker signal than my wave and my girlfriends GT540 in same place about one bar less. When i keep omnia in left hand signal drop down a lot - sometimes to 0-1 bar. Is this normal for omnia 7? (for sure wave and lg has better signal). I live in good coverage area.
many thanks for your help.
Looks like bottom left corner is very sensitive for touch.....rubber case should solve a problem.
Still would like ask omnia owners if expierience same thing please.
Could one of the omnia users spare 30 seconds and see if omnia loosing signal when cover left bottom corner, please?
I need know if my phone if faulty as i still have few days to send it back for exchange...
many thanks
from 5 to zero in 4 seconds...
covering the bottom part of the phone with my hand results in a complete signal loss as well...
Which firmware are you using?
can confirm the signal drop of two bars when covering the left bottom area (without a rubber case)
if I put my omnia into a rubber case, the signal does NOT drop
weird, never noticed that before...
Thanks for your help.
I have try all firmwares from samfirmware.com - same thing. Have got rubber case and it help a bit. Still comparing to wave 8500 Omnia 7 has poor reception.
Hi I recently changed the screen on my G2, however I'm a bit paranoid because i feel as if my phone signal is not as good as it should be, perhaps due to incorrectly putting the phone back together. I am however on a new network (three uk) so I'm not sure how it was before (i bought the phone broken off ebay). That being said three do tend to have bad signal in my house. I wanna know if it may be due to a bad connection in the 3G attenna from bad repair or if the network is bad, normally get 0 or 1 bar 2 if if im lucky. Three if i go outside or near a window.
I recently bought used LG G2 with about 6 months warranty from provider. Network was locked so i used code to unlock it for all network (i dont think this has anything to do with my problem). After few days a noticed that my signal is very bad indoor, i dont even have signal in the middle of my apartment for exemple. I searched over internet if i can fix this problem so i found method with paper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfS4LpfcLfg . I wanted to try if this will help but i just realized that my battery door case is different from the case thats on this clip. On this link you have picture of my case, the black one is mine http://g01.s.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1HsScFVXXXXXcXVXXq6xXFXXXy/131174225/HTB1HsScFVXXXXXcXVXXq6xXFXXXy.jpg , i cannot place paper below those antennas because mine are fixed to the case.
Does anyone have solution for this with this type of back door case?
The Wi-Fi signal on my I9505 is terribly weak. Sitting at the same desk the router is on - full signal; Walk 3-4 meters away - signal drops to 1 line; Go to a different room - disconnects due to no signal. I can only see 3 networks at 1 signal line while on another phone I get 11 networks - all with signal at 2+ lines.
My router is perfectly fine (works as expected and has great coverage on other phones/laptops - it still gives off great signal if I go next door/above/below me).
Phone software side I'd say is fine too, but I'm not 100% sure:
Issue happens both on latest WizCyan (TW based) and on latest RR (CM14 based), both using different kernels.
Currently on XXUHPG1 bootloader and baseband. PDA version is XXUPPI1 (according to the "Phone INFO" app).
Hardware side, I've tried a few things - bent all of the golden springs I could find just a tiny bit upwards, tried to clean the gray contacts on the mid bezel as best as I could (dry microfiber) - they weren't dirty or anything, but they seem scratched/shiny where the spring would have come into contact, is that bad? (I can take pictures if necessary)
I even flipped the blue antenna wire around (though I think that one only affects cell signal).
I also have to note that there's something wrong with my Wi-Fi IC / mobo because sometimes it stops working altogether (won't turn back on), needing a reboot or physical intervention. I doubt that would affect signal strength, as long as it's actually turning on, I guess?
Edit:
SOLVED!
Well, this is probably a very unique/fringe case - I found out there was a crack in my motherboard, just below one of the antenna connectors. I also found out that pushing down on where the crack is relinks the motherboard connections and gives back the full Wi-Fi signal. So I "ghetto-rigged" a piece of plastic to push down on the crack when I put the mid-bezel back in, and it seems to be working for now. Hope it holds up and doesn't cause other issues.
Actually, it could affect signal strength. You might want to check your antenna wire running down the right side of the battery compartment and make sure it isn't broken or partly disconnected.
You should also note that some phones have better antennas, thus having better reception.
So comparing it to a different phone isn't really a good way to measure the effectiveness.
Took some pics, I've no idea if they're of any help. Maybe somebody can tell if there's something wrong.
Strephon Alkhalikoi said:
Actually, it could affect signal strength. You might want to check your antenna wire running down the right side of the battery compartment and make sure it isn't broken or partly disconnected.
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That's the wire I had flipped around. I even disconnected it to see if there's a difference, and it only weakened the cell signal. Full cell signal when I put it back. No change regarding Wi-Fi. If I run the phone with the mid bezel off, I only get 2 lines even next to the router, and it doesn't even connect - so I suppose the mid bezel antennas connect?
Pwnycorn said:
You should also note that some phones have better antennas, thus having better reception.
So comparing it to a different phone isn't really a good way to measure the effectiveness.
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True, still, from full signal to 1/0 lines as soon as I go from my desk (and router) to my bed 5m away isn't right. Wi-Fi reception used to be as good on my S4 as on the other phones. (I can't remember exactly when this started.)
I believe you have a radio chip issue. Something that software cannot fix.
Solved. Thank you for trying to help.
@cLick1338: Telling people you solved the issue without revealing the solution doesn't help anyone who may come across this thread in the future. So how did you solve it?
Strephon Alkhalikoi said:
@cLick1338: Telling people you solved the issue without revealing the solution doesn't help anyone who may come across this thread in the future. So how did you solve it?
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I had edited the first post. Figured it would be most visible for such people.
cLick1338 said:
I had edited the first post. Figured it would be most visible for such people.
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If you edited it yesterday I wouldn't have noticed it. The XDA app automatically drills down to the first unread post and I don't always think to scroll back up.
Sorry.