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[Q] help getting better network signal

hi!
since upgrading to ARHD 3.6.3 i almost never get a 4 bar network signal.
always 2-3 bars.
anyone encounter that problem? or know how to fix it so i have better signal from my network?
i always had perfect signal in my house.
thanks!

sorry for the bumping..
anyone can help?

You could flash a better radio for that.

i used the recommended radio for the ARHD which is the rom i use.

It may just be that the network signal doesn't 'appear' to be as strong as before due to some difference in the rom, best to try one of the signal strength apps from the Market to test the true reading.

ok, i will do that.
can you recommend one or two?
thanks

Try this one, there may be better apps that I'm not aware of though.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.staircase3.opensignal&feature=search_result

You know that the "bars" are a purely subjective representation from the ROM's point of view of the Phone/WIFI signal. Phone A on Rom 1 might physically have the same same signal as the same phone on a different ROM or even a different phone on the same ROM.
Phone/WIFI SIGNAL strength cannot be objectively equated to bars. TBH it's an indication but does not guarantee anything.
Does it work well enough to use is the proof. If not then explore other avenues.

Is it not easier to go into settings/about phone/ networks
that shows you the true signal strength in Db and ASU

HTC One S Signal Fix?

I have an unlocked HTC One S that has major signal issues. When the phone boots, there's no service for a few minutes before it decides to actually kick in. WiFi and everything seemed to not work but after putting it into "Best Wi-Fi Performance" mode it seems have resolved. But the cellular signal drops constantly. I've read that this is quite the common issue with these phones and am wondering how they are so popular if this is the case. Regardless, has anyone discovered the reason for the issue or some sort of jimmy rig to fix this issue?

Phenomin said:
I have an unlocked HTC One S that has major signal issues. When the phone boots, there's no service for a few minutes before it decides to actually kick in. WiFi and everything seemed to not work but after putting it into "Best Wi-Fi Performance" mode it seems have resolved. But the cellular signal drops constantly. I've read that this is quite the common issue with these phones and am wondering how they are so popular if this is the case. Regardless, has anyone discovered the reason for the issue or some sort of jimmy rig to fix this issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
please mention your hboot , radio , Rom.

I'm having a similar problem. Occasionally I get a signal strength of 2 billion dBm. (255 asu)
What seems to be alleviating a lot of it is a set of mods to build.prop.
ro.ril.fast.dormance.rule=1
ro.ril.gprsclass=1
ro.ril.hsdpa.category=1
ro.ril.hsupa.category=1
ro.ril.hsxpa=2
These settings are the absolute slowest possible, but they do seem to be improving the connection quality.

Same problem to me. I have a new S4 from 2 days, bought "refurbished" from aliexpress at a good price. It's new, looks great but signal and in call audio quality is weak.
Phone works good on "GSM only". If i set GSM/WCDMA, I lose signal and phone stops itself.
I started with stock 4.0.3, phone stops itself.
Updated to 4.0.4, phone doesn't stop but no signal with WCDMA enabled.
Then I unkocked, rooted and tried Miui V5 (4.1), same problems.
After installing Maximus HD, I had signal also with GSM/WCDMA, but immediately I installed newer firmware and signal was lost. (Works only on "GSM only").
Tried also Beanstalk, CM11, MagioRom, SourcE, Slim kat. No signal with GSM/WCDMA.
I don't know if works with Maximus with older firmware, or it was only a coincidence. Don't know what firmware was at that moment.

Went to a bigger city and 3g worked excellent.
Returned back to home, no signal with 3g enabled.
I guess my phone is weak at signal.

LTE signal indicator issues

I've realised that the signal strength in Phone Status (in dBm) does not seem to work correctly when on LTE. Very often, it'll show that my signal is -113 dBm, which is an extremely weak signal, while showing 2 or 3 signal bars. Something is obviously wrong as 3 out of 4 bars should NEVER be as weak a signal as -113 dBm. Is anyone else experiencing this?
G920F (bought from Germany) on 3 UK.

Japultra said:
I've realised that the signal strength in Phone Status (in dBm) does not seem to work correctly when on LTE. Very often, it'll show that my signal is -113 dBm, which is an extremely weak signal, while showing 2 or 3 signal bars. Something is obviously wrong as 3 out of 4 bars should NEVER be as weak a signal as -113 dBm. Is anyone else experiencing this?
G920F (bought from Germany) on 3 UK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LTE dBm are calculated differently. 113 is good around 140 is bad.

SmiLey497 said:
LTE dBm work different. 113 is good around 140 is bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read that signal drops off at -120, so -113 is pretty close to the edge, but either way, that signal indicator is wrong. If I go into the service menu (*#0011#) the RSRP (dBm) it shows fluctuates from -91 to -98, which seems to be the more appropriate dBm for 3 bars of signal. The dBm in my phone status still stays static at -113 (it doesn't fluctuate at all)

As per your request in the other topic here are my findings.
I live in Amsterdam and I work in the harbour area (a lot of open spaces). I work next to a 4 x 3 meter window. With every device I've owned I would get full reception. Though under settings > device > status it would always say -113. My reception bar is always near empty.
When I go outside, even in the middle of a park in the middle of the city with nobody around, I will still get the same result. In my apartmentbuilding, on the 7th floor outside on my balcony, same result.
I'm currently in the office so I thought I'd send a screenshot of what the *#0011# screen looks like.
(Apologies for the big image)
In my parking garage I would even get reception with my OnePlus One, which isn't really great when it comes to reception. It would be only a sliver, but at least I would get something. The S6 doesn't get anything. When I leave the bigger urban area I'm immediately knocked off 4G and 3G and I'm pretty much left to calling and texting. The Netherlands isn't really like the outback of Australia, I had expected better
I can live with not having reception in my parking garage, but I'm more concerned with the fact that I've never seen more reception than you can see in that screenshot and that I have close to no reception when I go out of town. I'm using T-Mobile which I know only uses the higher frequencies. In the Netherlands they use 900 MHz, 1800, 2600 MHz. I don't know if that comes into play much. I had a bit better reception when I was still at Vodafone, but that was a few years back. With a top of the line device like the S6 I had expected better. Much better.
Maybe I should have the device swapped?

Thijsvr said:
As per your request in the other topic here are my findings.
I live in Amsterdam and I work in the harbour area (a lot of open spaces). I work next to a 4 x 3 meter window. With every device I've owned I would get full reception. Though under settings > device > status it would always say -113. My reception bar is always near empty.
When I go outside, even in the middle of a park in the middle of the city with nobody around, I will still get the same result. In my apartmentbuilding, on the 7th floor outside on my balcony, same result.
I'm currently in the office so I thought I'd send a screenshot of what the *#0011# screen looks like.
(Apologies for the big image)
In my parking garage I would even get reception with my OnePlus One, which isn't really great when it comes to reception. It would be only a sliver, but at least I would get something. The S6 doesn't get anything. When I leave the bigger urban area I'm immediately knocked off 4G and 3G and I'm pretty much left to calling and texting. The Netherlands isn't really like the outback of Australia, I had expected better
I can live with not having reception in my parking garage, but I'm more concerned with the fact that I've never seen more reception than you can see in that screenshot and that I have close to no reception when I go out of town. I'm using T-Mobile which I know only uses the higher frequencies. In the Netherlands they use 900 MHz, 1800, 2600 MHz. I don't know if that comes into play much. I had a bit better reception when I was still at Vodafone, but that was a few years back. With a top of the line device like the S6 I had expected better. Much better.
Maybe I should have the device swapped?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see that your RSRP is the same as what it states in the phone status menu. Does this number ever change? For me, I (mostly) always see -113 (such as right now in my office) but my RSRP actually fluctuates. Screenshot of my RSRP attached.

Japultra said:
I see that your RSRP is the same as what it states in the phone status menu. Does this number ever change? For me, I (mostly) always see -113 (such as right now in my office) but my RSRP actually fluctuates. Screenshot of my RSRP attached.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my phone status window I've never seen it change. In the RSRP it does vary a little bit, from -115 to -110.
I actually just got it working properly for the first time. I went to the rooftop of my office, as far away from anything that could interfere and I got -77. Bars actually went up too which I haven't seen before. So I guess the device really does just have poor reception. Strange that not more people are reporting on this though.
Edit. These guys are also reporting on low signal stuff: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/08/samsung_galaxy_s6/

Thijsvr said:
In my phone status window I've never seen it change. In the RSRP it does vary a little bit, from -115 to -110.
I actually just got it working properly for the first time. I went to the rooftop of my office, as far away from anything that could interfere and I got -77. Bars actually went up too which I haven't seen before. So I guess the device really does just have poor reception. Strange that not more people are reporting on this though.
Edit. These guys are also reporting on low signal stuff: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/08/samsung_galaxy_s6/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I've noticed the same thing, though not nearly as bad as what The Register is experiencing. For me, it is only slightly worse than my G3.

Japultra said:
Unfortunately, I've noticed the same thing, though not nearly as bad as what The Register is experiencing. For me, it is only slightly worse than my G3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The review sounds pretty accurate to me, but others are reporting their device has connectivity as good as HTC's M9. Luckily I've got an M9 lying around, so I'll put my sim in that and see if it too gives me poor reception.
---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------
Haha, I guess I have to blame T-Mobile and not Samsung. The M9 I have gets -112 dBm at the same location where the S6 has -113 dBm. Seems the problem is with the network and not with the device. Not sure yet if that's good news or not

Thijsvr said:
The review sounds pretty accurate to me, but others are reporting their device has connectivity as good as HTC's M9. Luckily I've got an M9 lying around, so I'll put my sim in that and see if it too gives me poor reception.
---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------
Haha, I guess I have to blame T-Mobile and not Samsung. The M9 I have gets -112 dBm at the same location where the S6 has -113 dBm. Seems the problem is with the network and not with the device. Not sure yet if that's good news or not
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's good that you know it's not your S6! I was actually walking along a street where I got horrible reception with the G3 (after I posted the last comment) and realised I was actually holding onto a signal when the G3 would lose signal completely. Guess it's not as bad as I thought!

Japultra said:
Well, it's good that you know it's not your S6! I was actually walking along a street where I got horrible reception with the G3 (after I posted the last comment) and realised I was actually holding onto a signal when the G3 would lose signal completely. Guess it's not as bad as I thought!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're just too critical Glad we got it solved, haha. Back to fully enjoying the device!

I have this issue also.
I had a nexus 5 before on EE and pretty much always had 3-4 bars if not full signal. On the GS6 still with EE i rarely see it go above 1 bar.
I am still within my 14 day return time but i am stuck now with what to do. Do i risk waiting to see if this is fixed with a software update or return it. If i wait and its not fixed them im stuck with a phone that gets very little signal. If i return it i have no idea what else i would get as i love this phone. I have also tried another GS6 in store but same issue so makes me wonder is this a software or hardware issue. Seems several people on varying networks have this issue.

I have the same experience. -113 dBm at home inside our house.
1 max 2 bars on the signal indicator. Lots of places where I had 4-5 bars on my One M8 I now have these -113 dBm on S6 4G, or only 3G connection (-79 dBm - 4 bars, the max on S6). Sitting here with my SIM card placed in my M8 I get -98 dBm 39 asu inside our house. Thats 4 out of 5 bars on the HTC indicator. It's the same with other 4G handsets we have in the house. I have a cheap company Nokia 4G phone that also have 4 bars inside the house. I've had a Z3 compact that also had great reception on 4G. I think I have data enough to conclude:
Conclusion: S6 have bad LTE/4G reception. Very very sorry about this. This is a real stepdown from what I otherwise think of the S6 handset. Other than that, I don't know wether this can be made better by software, but I doubt it..
EDIT: Just tried by wifes Samsung A5, which sees -97 dBm on my SIM card.

Different carrier roms seem to deal with the signal differently, but essentially it's a cosmetic issue. I'm using the Three UK (H3G) rom and my signal bars work fine but my dBm signal level in settings is always stuck at -113dBm.
I took these 2 screenshots at the same time standing in a great 4G signal area:
http://i.imgur.com/n6eUmaS.png
http://i.imgur.com/v5KsmgH.png
As you can see, the settings shows -113dBm but the service menu (*#0011# in dialer) shows -84dBm.

Maybe this thread is really about that - the signal interpretation internally. But nevertheless my S6 handset is 'downscaling' to 3G all the time (and staying there), hente twice the roundtrip and less bandwidth for me.

duckstardeluxe said:
Maybe this thread is really about that - the signal interpretation internally. But nevertheless my S6 handset is 'downscaling' to 3G all the time (and staying there), hente twice the roundtrip and less bandwidth for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you have a different issue. Have you tried checking what your signal is in the service menu using *#0011#?

I'm getting an error dialing the service menu (OSSD code) stating N/A.

duckstardeluxe said:
I'm getting an error dialing the service menu (OSSD code) stating N/A.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you typing it in exactly like this: *#0011# ?

Here in Italy very bad signal with TIM also with 3g. Where my Iphone and Note 4 get full signal only 2 bars on my GS6. What the hell Samsung always release buggy phone!!!

I forgot to mention that I was running the Lite version of the stock rom found here on XDA. The service code don't work on that rom, which made me downgrade to my backup of the stock rom.
I'm getting RSRP:-98 RSRQ:-6 RSSI:-71

duckstardeluxe said:
I forgot to mention that I was running the Lite version of the stock rom found here on XDA. The service code don't work on that rom, which made me downgrade to my backup of the stock rom.
I'm getting RSRP:-98 RSRQ:-6 RSSI:-71
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That matches your M8.

Custom ROMs change quality of mobile signal?

Anyone else face this issue? I live in an area with little to no signal, but my phone still captures around 1-2 bars of signal. However, when I install ANY custom ROM (CyanogenMod, Optimized ROMs, etc...) , I go down to no bars visible unless I change my data to 3G. This also brings my standby time after unplugging the charger from 3 days to about 22 hours or less. The kernel installed doesn't make a difference. I don't know why a custom ROM would even change how much signal my phone captures, but stock just seems the best. Perhaps one more incentive for Motorola to provide official Nougat, though that likely won't happen sadly.

i also face the same and this gave me same doubt STOCK rom will be giving us Good Signals , but CM14 is not giving me proper signals when using LTE

same issue here

In theory, it shouldn't matter the ROM because the stock radio firmware is the same regardless of the ROM... what is different is how the signal level is interpreted and displayed to you. Remember that "bars" means nothing, it is just to comfort your mind and soul, and is often purposely exaggerated by OEMs over the recommendations by AOSP.
To really tell your signal level, use an app like Network Signal Info or LTE Discovery to see your true signal strength in decibel-milliwatts (dbm) and/or Arbitrary Strength Unit (ASU), but make sure you do some reading and understand these values because they mean different things on different network types (2G, 3G, LTE, etc). A good place to start understanding them is here.

acejavelin said:
In theory, it shouldn't matter the ROM because the stock radio firmware is the same regardless of the ROM... what is different is how the signal level is interpreted and displayed to you. Remember that "bars" means nothing, it is just to comfort your mind and soul, and is often purposely exaggerated by OEMs over the recommendations by AOSP.
To really tell your signal level, use an app like Network Signal Info or LTE Discovery to see your true signal strength in decibel-milliwatts (dbm) and/or Arbitrary Strength Unit (ASU), but make sure you do some reading and understand these values because they mean different things on different network types (2G, 3G, LTE, etc). A good place to start understanding them is here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ur rocking
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

Fake signal bars (too high)

Hi!
Did anyone notice that the phone will display at least 2 signal bars at all times, even when the signal is so weak that calling and browsing is not possible?
The attached screenshot was made in an elevator: the phone displays 3 bars but the app shows the real measurement (0 bars).

Other apps might show something different.
Maybe OP thinks 125dba is good signal and they set the ui to 3 bars. While the app developers don't think it's good... My point being if I make an app, I could set it to 250dba being 0 bars :s
P. S also no, I don't share the same issue as you. if I go down to 1 or 2 bars I can still surf and make calls.

Oneplus 3T & 6 owner here - yep, did notice it as well.
These devices do not shine for signal reception, in my opinion.

Yeah. Sometimes my phone shows 2 signal bars in my basement, but no calls can actually be made.
Any other phone shows "no signal" sign in here.

Problem known since 3T I think. Custom roms on 3T shows correct amount of bars, where OOS shows 2-3 bars more.
On 6 i have OOS at the moment and I can't browse Internet when I have ~2 bars.
OnePlus 6 @ Tapatalk

Maybe OnePlus is yet another victim of antenna gate-related bad publicity, and they want to pump up the signal reading...

thenext1 said:
Maybe OnePlus is yet another victim of antenna gate-related bad publicity, and they want to pump up the signal reading...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always have a signal reading app in my status bar. This allows me to accurately measure signal performance.
They have some build.prop added in to *enable signal cheating*, maybe remove that line and see if it changes anything.

Ascertion said:
I always have a signal reading app in my status bar. This allows me to accurately measure signal performance.
They have some build.prop added in to *enable signal cheating*, maybe remove that line and see if it changes anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, is that the build.prop from stock OP6?
How did they get that far?
I am not rooted, and don't want to get root, so no dice for me, right?