Replacement GPS antennas/Flash covers? - HTC Inspire 4G

I'm asking this because my GPS is frankly awful and I accidentally broke the GPS cover by melting it when solder was being put on the existing contacts.
Does anyone know where to get the Inspire 4G GPS covers? The Desire HD ones are nearly identical, but they lack the hole for the noise canceling microphone.

When the Inspire first came out there were issues with the covers and HTC was shipping them out for free. Do a search in the forum. Contact HTC and tell them your covers are trashed.

I have no experience with this supplier...
http://www.all4cellular.com/htc-inspire-4g-battery-door-and-sim-cover.html

Picsman said:
I have no experience with this supplier...
http://www.all4cellular.com/htc-inspire-4g-battery-door-and-sim-cover.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those are different. The cover I'm looking for is where the LED flash is. You have to pop it out with a tool reaching into the battery compartment.
I bought a set of the 3 covers on the phone, hopefully the GPS cover is the right one and has the hole for a noise-cancelling mic.

Hunt3r.j2 said:
has the hole for a noise-cancelling mic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One word- dremel

try ebay you can get anything on there

kimtyson said:
One word- dremel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm frankly not even sure if the Desire HD variant of the GPS cover is made in such a way that permits this to be done.

Just did some looking around and some experimentation. I think this is going to be the best course of action for an OEM-looking hole:
1. Find a paper clip that will cleanly go through the existing noise canceling hole. It shouldn't be too thin, but just about right.
2. Straighten out the paperclip so you get a nice straight section to work with.
3. Get a lighter or a gas stove and heat up the paper clip for a few seconds to get the straight section heated up enough to let you punch through the plastic without melting it completely.
4. There's a hole in the clear plastic where the LED flash connects to the black plastic, where the Inspire has a hole that goes cleanly through for it's noise canceling mic. Try to drive the paper clip wire clear through the hole, and make it straight. Hopefully there's enough heat for you to get a clean, smooth hole that looks like OEM.
I've taken a look at the dremel tools I have, and they are all definitely way too big for making a hole like this.

Related

[Q] Loose Battery Cover?

My battery cover is a little loose all of a sudden. at the bottom it now moves a little. When I squeeze (lightly, normal use amount) the phone at the bottom kinda clicks. Anyone else have this issue?
Yes. I called HTC and they're replacing it. But for now what you can do is put paper inside the case
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Yeah, several other people reported this problem on a Dutch forum. People should not open the backcover unless they really have to. After opening the cover a few times the cover is getting loose and starts to crack when you press it.
okay so I have the same problem, should I be worried or is it just the case with all sensation handsets ?
Take the cover off and press the battery. I think that's what it is...or maybe both.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
secano said:
Take the cover off and press the battery. I think that's what it is...or maybe both.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think that's it, the battery is fitted normally, and I've just tested it with battery removed, it does the same thing, I should mention that it isn't really that obvious, but it's an annoyance nonetheless, such an expensive phone to have a glitch like that.
can anybody confirm that it does loosen after some time of usage, I mean did it came like that out of the box or was it getting loose with time?
I just noticed this on mine this morning , will steal a new cover soon
****ttttt let me check mine lol
...same here, at the right bottom corner!!!!
...and I agree, tooooo expensive phone for such a glitch!
Spekko said:
I just noticed this on mine this morning , will steal a new cover soon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went to a tmobile store to see if they'll let me switch. The rep told me thy they can't switch cuz its an htc problem. Then he got curious and pulled out his sensation to see if his had it...
He looked so sad lol I just got off the phone with htc and my replacement cover is shipping soon and if the second one is defective then I have to send in my whole phone so they can check it out. You guys should call htc I'd you already haven't
I fixed mine by adding some paper to the back.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1215096
Hey first post here! Signed up just to have my say on this issue, just as i did with the android central forum.
Also posted this on the android central forums...
Got the creaking here also, definitely a design flaw. Being obsessive with my devices i couldnt live with it!
I do not recommend putting paper in the cover to fill the gap, as this is just expanding the cover further making it even MORE loose when the paper is not in there. Also i wouldn't recommend it because the paper pushes the back cover out a little more, you may loose a connection for the ground. Which is the little metal springy thing, half way up the right hand side. Obviously its not a good idea to 'push' the cover further away from this ground spot. I have heard that people have had issues with screen responsiveness due to a static build up from not grounding properly.
What i did to fix this problem was a bit of a kitbash of sorts.
Mine was creaking on the bottom right area, like most. The problem is there is too much play between the little black catches on the battery cover and the latch on the handset. Instead of filling up the gap between the phone and the cover (Ala paper, card in the cover) I closed it!
What you need to do is get some very thin plastic film. Like that on kids toy packaging etc. Not the thicker stuff though. This stuff would be under 1mm thick. It came as a viewing window in the box my new wallet came in. So you can sorta imagine what im talking about.
I cut a piece about 10mm long and as wide as one of the two little black catches. I applied a VERY thin coat of super glue to one end of the film. Just enough to cover the area under the catch. Then i carefully placed the film with the superglue on it under the catch, and then quickly applied some pressure to it with some tweezers. Then i carefully cut the excess off with a pair of finely tipped nail scissors.
The result is that it now PULLS the screen/phone INTO the cover more by making the little black catch thicker. Not the opposite (paper method), which pushes the cover out, creating a further problem of adding more paper under the cover over time as the cover expands/loosens to compensate. Not to mention a possible grounding loss and resulting damage.
Hope this helps some people that have had multiple replacements or could not be bothered replacing for such a cosmetic issue. (Like me). It definitely works, just got to get your surgeon on and be accurate with your placement of the film.
Apply this to what ever side creaks the most, and bam its gone. Nice. Solid phone... again.
If anyone wants more specific details etc, im all ears.
Regards,
Matt.
MrSoulSOng A video explaining this fix would be appreciated ^_^ cuz I didnt buy my phone from here and I still gotta wait for about a month to send it to the shop to fix or get a replacement
...just an update...after buying new back cover from no1tech (that was month and a half ago...) there's no loose spots, no creacking...!
Very satisfied now I am. Finally phone feels and looks like it should be - beast in compact housing!
I have the very same problem too. VERY annoying
well I had the same problem however what i did was that on the back cover inside of it I put some black electric tape on to the sides that creak (next to the sides and the clips) and when I put the cover back on there was no creaking at all. figured it wont interfere with the single because people put cases on the back all the time plus its electric tape meaning it'll prevent from short circuits and I don't think there should be any overheating issue as its a very small quantity.

Cases without proper holes cutouts..important?

Hello,
I want to buy a sensation case but it does not have the proper hole cutcuts on the back. The only cutouts the case has are the camera and the speaker.
if any of you are using a case with only these 2 cutouts, could you tell me if phone signal, 4g signal, mic, speaker, etc or anything else are affected?
greatly appreciated
i havent had a problem with them after on week of use, but just to be safe, i drilled holes where they should be
Solidus_n313 said:
i havent had a problem with them after on week of use, but just to be safe, i drilled holes where they should be
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply, but if you drilled the holes then your case does have all the cutouts
it does now, but for the first week, i didnt have any issues...
i just did it cuz i was bored, and more as a precaution just in case...
mind you i never used the gps or wifi w/o holes...but i bought the 2 pack, one black (drilled), one opaque white (stock)...if you want, i can check the performance, but as it stands, there was no difference...
ive heard that all cases w/o holes are going to be discontinued, but that may have just been verbal diareah in the sensation thread :/
The only sensible answer is it depends on the case material. For any given case the only way to know is to try it. If it works then fine. If not, then drill holes if they're covered.
HTC says the holes should be uncovered, but none of us know exactly why. For a mic it's pretty obvious. For the others who knows. But drilling is easy and cheap, so for most cases a fix shouldn't be a problem.
c19932 said:
Hello,
I want to buy a sensation case but it does not have the proper hole cutcuts on the back. The only cutouts the case has are the camera and the speaker.
if any of you are using a case with only these 2 cutouts, could you tell me if phone signal, 4g signal, mic, speaker, etc or anything else are affected?
greatly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anyone know what the holes actually do?
isharma said:
Does anyone know what the holes actually do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen a diagram showing the function of each one. Some are mics, either for input or noise cancellation. Others are likely antenna related. It's hard to imagine that HTC would go to the trouble of putting them there if they don't serve a useful purpose. Covering some or all may not cause big problems, but it's not likely to help either.
I have the official Tmobile silicone case and it doesn't have any cutout for the little holes...and it seems to be just fine.
govtcheez said:
I have the official Tmobile silicone case and it doesn't have any cutout for the little holes...and it seems to be just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I have the same case. Except mine does have one hole cutout above the camera.
Here's my observations that I posted in another thread:
moto211 said:
I've been noticing that most of the cases that are available only have the hole above the camera, even the ones sold by T-Mobile. So, it got me wondering, do the other holes serve any purpose? I took the back cover off and can immediately tell that the hole above the camera serves a purpose since it has a grommeted pass through in the inside housing. So, its good that every case I've seen has that hole cut out. The other four holes have no pass through and appear to only be there as rivet/mount points for the antenna contacts. So, after seeing that, I'm less concerned that even reputable manufacturers like otterbox are not including the other four holes that seemingly serve no active function.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
The hole above camera is noise cancelling mic,that is the only important hole,so I had to drill it on my Case Mate Tough.They were the first proper company with hard case for Sensation,so they rushed a little bit with design,others like Otterbox and Seidio are making cases with that hole only.
Guys, EM radiation passes through silicone and plastic. There should be no need for holes on those materials. If you had a case made of metal, then you would need MORE than a hole anyways as EM radiation doesnt radiate in rays...Go into your bathroom and close the door. Plenty of material to be in the way of the EM radiation that is your signal. Still can make calls?
Also, there is no noise cancellation mic. There is no noise cancellation at all on this phone. The second mic is for stereo sound recording. I know alot of you wont agree, but looking up the specs, I found no mention of noise cancellation. (Only stereo sound recording).
If there were noise cancellation, people wouldnt complain about me being in the wind while talking to them. ;-)
Matt
Hmm if i'm not mistaken, two of them are for ventilation, one for noise cancellation mic, and the rest are for the antennas, the one for antennas has no use though, its only there to fasten the connectors.

[FIX] Annoying creaking noise

I just started developing this odd creaking noise near the bottom and sides of my S4G. Even with a Seidio Active case wrapped around it, the creaking can be felt and heard when hitting the bottom buttons.
The fix is pretty easy. You just need to decrease the amount of movement the back cover has.
I had some .010 mil fiber (fish) paper laying around so I cut a small square that covers the sim card and microsd card area. You can probably use something else, but hey, why not use some insulated paper if you have it.
Lay the paper on top of the area and then slowly place the back cover back on. No holes are in that area above the sim and microsd, so no worries there. You should see an immediate improvement
I needed more than that to stop the creaking/screen movement.
Pathetic we have to go to these lengths
jlevy73 said:
I needed more than that to stop the creaking/screen movement.
Pathetic we have to go to these lengths
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What did you have to do?
I tried used two squares of paper, but that made the back bulge out a little too much to my liking.
GideonX said:
What did you have to do?
I tried used two squares of paper, but that made the back bulge out a little too much to my liking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took a post-it and folded it twice. Then placed it on the bottom right area and closed up the cover. For me when I press down on the bottom right side of the screen the whole screen sort of depresses a bit. Only way I could get rid of that was to place the paper in that region. Problem solved.
Post it would have been my backup method
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G
buy another battery, i recently got an anker also had the creaking problems, noticed the anker is a TINY bit thicker than the stock battery and it removed that problem completely. and that anker battery was DIRT cheap
I just lined the case with some scotch tape. from the bottom to about 3/4 of the way up. I just went around the antenna nubs and the usb hole.
Posted this in another thread, but felt it was valuable here too...
Got the creaking here also, definitely a design flaw. Being obsessive with my devices i couldnt live with it!
I do not recommend putting paper in the cover to fill the gap, as this is just expanding the cover further making it even MORE loose when the paper is not in there. Also i wouldn't recommend it because the paper pushes the back cover out a little more, you may loose a connection for the ground. Which is the little metal springy thing, half way up the right hand side. Obviously its not a good idea to 'push' the cover further away from this ground spot. I have heard that people have had issues with screen responsiveness due to a static build up from not grounding properly.
What i did to fix this problem was a bit of a kitbash of sorts.
Mine was creaking on the bottom right area, like most. The problem is there is too much play between the little black catches on the battery cover and the latch on the handset. Instead of filling up the gap between the phone and the cover (Ala paper, card in the cover) I closed it!
What you need to do is get some very thin plastic film. Like that on kids toy packaging etc. Not the thicker stuff though. This stuff would be under 1mm thick. It came as a viewing window in the box my new wallet came in. So you can sorta imagine what im talking about.
I cut a piece about 10mm long and as wide as one of the two little black catches. I applied a VERY thin coat of super glue to one end of the film. Just enough to cover the area under the catch. Then i carefully placed the film with the superglue on it under the catch, and then quickly applied some pressure to it with some tweezers. Then i carefully cut the excess off with a pair of finely tipped nail scissors.
The result is that it now PULLS the screen/phone INTO the cover more by making the little black catch thicker. Not the opposite (paper method), which pushes the cover out, creating a further problem of adding more paper under the cover over time as the cover expands/loosens to compensate. Not to mention a possible grounding loss and resulting damage.
Hope this helps some people that have had multiple replacements or could not be bothered replacing for such a cosmetic issue. (Like me). It definitely works, just got to get your surgeon on and be accurate with your placement of the film.
Apply this to what ever side creaks the most, and bam its gone. Nice. Solid phone... again.
If anyone wants more specific details etc, im all ears.
Regards,
Matt.
will try it with an double side film ...
i mean a film that hold back cover and phone together ;-) i think doing paper in there will do damage with time
I contacted HTC and they sent me another/new one. No more creaking!
RaptorRVL said:
I contacted HTC and they sent me another/new one. No more creaking!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Back cover or whole phone?
I have the same problem too. And it just seems to get more and more "cracking"

How stupid would it be to remove the metal covering status led?

Not all of it, just a little so that I could actually SEE the light blinking? Could dirt be getting to important parts in this case? and damage the phone?
So dust is always a problem. I didn`t do a tear down of my sensation yet.
But to minimize the risk:
1. Do it in your bathroom
2. Close the windows and turn for about 10min your shower on hot (depens on the size of your bath)
3. work with High presure spray in case of dust problems
Hope it helps you. Just in case, you wanna do it. But i can`t give you a guarantee that there isn`t dust anywhere.
xperiaforme said:
Not all of it, just a little so that I could actually SEE the light blinking? Could dirt be getting to important parts in this case? and damage the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just a mesh to allow visibility of the LED and to not muffle the front speaker.
Take the back cover off the phone and you'll see the mesh is part of it.
In theory you could remove the entire mesh, in practice you may have to do that rather than removing just a section.
Would be easy to take a section out with a dremel tool or one of those small electric screwdrivers on low speed. Doing it by hand could get ugly.
Sent from my Cyanogenmod loaded Htc Sensation 4g
reload0815 said:
So dust is always a problem. I didn`t do a tear down of my sensation yet.
But to minimize the risk:
1. Do it in your bathroom
2. Close the windows and turn for about 10min your shower on hot (depens on the size of your bath)
3. work with High presure spray in case of dust problems
Hope it helps you. Just in case, you wanna do it. But i can`t give you a guarantee that there isn`t dust anywhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol, I think you meant to post this in the "how to apply a screen protector" thread. He's just taking off the back case and trimming the grill on the ear piece and not going to tear the phone apart. I'd recommend not exposing your phone to this extreme humidity in any situation and especially not if you were really going to rip open the guts of the phone. A few specs of dust won't kill a motherboard (there's most likely already dust or lint inside the phone anyway) but humid conditions can.
So you guys don't think I am being unreasonable? Lol. I'm a bit afraid to remove entire grill but it is true, removing just part of it appears dificult. Did anyone dare to do this yet?
xperiaforme said:
So you guys don't think I am being unreasonable? Lol. I'm a bit afraid to remove entire grill but it is true, removing just part of it appears dificult. Did anyone dare to do this yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had no need too, the bright notification LED is clearly visible through it.
just from an EE point of view that mesh could have been placed there for a reason (maybe a block from EMF) and if u do take it out you could cause the speaker to not function correctly.... if u had an old nokia phone and u replaced the screen with one of the aftermarket ones with out the mesh you'll know what i'm talking about.... but that may not be the case here... that could literrally just be a casing i'm not sure

Fix your antennas!

After taking apart the GPS antenna module(led flash cover), cleaning the antenna contacts on the cover and spring clips on phone, and SLIGHTLY bending the spring clips out for improved contact with the cover the GPS lock was back to being less than 10 seconds for initial fix and instant refix.
With such an improvement I decided to do the same procedure to the other 2. The antenna under the battery cover(clean and bend spring contacts out alittle), and the one under the sim/sd card cover(clean and bend spring contacts out a little). My WiFi signal is definitely much better at distance! Bluetooth is better as well!
It is not difficult to do at all, and the results are immediate and VERY noticeable.
Search YouTube for desire hd/inspire 4g GPS antenna cover removal so you don't f it up. Hardest thing is getting GPS cover off, and it takes all of 5-10 minutes!
Good luck all.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA
Thanks. This actually increased the speed of my stock inspire and battery life.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA
GPS FIXED!
I wanted to bump this thread, as I ended up finding this solution on another forum. I have almost always had issues getting my GPS to lock. I tried all the software based fixes, but none of them seemed to really work. I opened my antennae, cleaned/bent the pins, and now I get INSTANT GPS lock (without any software fixes installed). I strongly urge anyone with issues to try this.
Another alternative is to solder a new antennae:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1318892
yes it is a good thing to clean the contacts and rebend them for additional contact force. That ghetto wire solder job that the person did in your link is only a hair above trying to get a gps signal while hopping on one foot. There is quite a bit of calculations that have to be done to choose antenna length and thickness in respect to the frequency it operates on. What this user did was just pick a random length of wire and connect it, and poorly soldered at that (they probably have a coat hanger coming out of their tv). This type of modification is a TERRIBLE idea and should be avoided at all costs.
But as I said, what the OP did in this thread with the cleaning, this is a good idea.
what did u clean it with?
Im looking at the silver led cover and im like how the hell you take that off I know like something needle nose pliers.
I basically just scraped the metal until it was shiny. A fine steel wool would work, or even sand paper. You just want to get any gray stuff off.
CYRAXDroid said:
Im looking at the silver led cover and im like how the hell you take that off I know like something needle nose pliers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do it from the inside .
Summary: You are going to remove the battery and then It should reach back to where the plastic cover is. From there you can push (from the inside) the plastic peach and then slide something under it to keep it propped open.
1) Remove your battery
2) You need to prop the plastic piece up from the inside of the case. You could bend the tip of a knife, or whatever.
3) You slide the "prop" inside the battery slot and you want to line it up under the plastic piece around the light.
4) From there you can "push" it up and slide something under the edge to keep it lifted (I used guitar pics). You probably want to use a couple to work your way around.
5) Remove it from the battery facing side first.
Once you have it off it should be obvious where the metal pins are. Bend them upwards, and scrape/clean them off if there is any discoloration.
Putting it back together is a little tricky. Be careful to not break any of the snaps .
Thank me if this helps!
Well I didn't do it but still thank you for posting that info
Sent from my HTC Inspire 4G using xda premium

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