Related
The other day I dropped my phone from a few feet onto some hard concrete, afterwards I lost signal at work, and at home I only get 2-3 bars at best.
I doubt there's anything I can do for it but figured I could post and see if this has happened to anyone else. How is the antennas attached? Are they integrated directly into the main PCB? (If that's the case there's probably nothing to be done but replace the phone as it's already 3 years old)
(Seems strange that it still partially works, at roughly 50% strength)
It's a T-Mobile Wing (aka HTC Herald). (And not a firmware issue as I've tried a few with no effect)
I was messing around with my captivate and i was noticing it wasnt getting same amount of service that my old iphone 3g did. When i was in an area where service was quite sketchy , i would put it down and get two or three bars. When I picked it up in my hands it would drop for one bar or no service.
So the question is do we have to buy cases for these phones since service drops so much by having direct contact with the phone ?
no, cases are not necessary for reception.
If you are completely losing signal when its in your hands, you need to go to att and get a new sim card. If that doesnt work, have them replace your phone.
Note: if you are holding the phone by the bottom and losing bars but your signal is not dropping, this is perfectly normal. All phones do this to an extent since the antenna is located at the bottom. If you completely lose signal or drop calls because of it, you have a serious problem.
what i have noticed thats not just 3g reception its wifi too which is weird, i pick it up in my hand i lose a bar of wifi when i am in the same room as the cablemodem/router that doesnt seem right.
Usually when i pick up the phone it drops the three bars i hold it in my left hand usually. Another issue is i bought this phone thru amazon since it was 30 bucks cheaper for upgrade price, will att still allow for trade in or do i have to send back to amazon ?
I too have noticed this with my phone. Never really noticed until this iPhone 4 shiz came out. Guessing its par for the course.
areas where i used to get full bars i am not getting full anymore when i pick up the phone, it also happens with wifi which is really problematic.
Sitting in same room as router and cable modem and dropping below full wifi connection, and if i walk out of the room drops to one bar of wifi guess i will have to call att tomorrow and return my phone
Kind of off topic how thorougly do they check thier phones am i going to have to find an rom that has all the att bloatware stuff on it ?
This is a sad day really liked this phone , but appears i am going to have to return it , since this issue is a known issue so getting a new phone wont make these problems go away.
I was reading on another forum site that a lot of people having this same issue oh well i guess
wifi doesnt drop for me... thats really strange. in any case if you are only losing about 2 bars its normal and will happen with most phones. If you lose signal completly then its abnormal and ur phone/hardware is faulty.
yeah was reading about antennae issue on back part of phone where the battery cover is you cant touch it apparently. well i am going from 2 or 3 bars to zero bars pretty much.
An good example would be when i went into apple store which has 3g microcell tower in the store to hide the antennae problem with iphone 4 , i dont get full service and the iphones get full no matter how hard you grip them.
Going to give both samsung and att a call tomorrow morning to see what i can do i really dont think its fair to have to eat the upgrade and restock fee when phone cant perform normal functions
mongstradamus said:
yeah was reading about antennae issue on back part of phone where the battery cover is you cant touch it apparently. well i am going from 2 or 3 bars to zero bars pretty much.
An good example would be when i went into apple store which has 3g microcell tower in the store to hide the antennae problem with iphone 4 , i dont get full service and the iphones get full no matter how hard you grip them.
Going to give both samsung and att a call tomorrow morning to see what i can do i really dont think its fair to have to eat the upgrade and restock fee when phone cant perform normal functions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you got the phone from amazon and are returning it, then it is free to return with no restocking fee. At least thats what they told me. All you gotta do is call the number for returns so u can get a return shipping label from them. Did you ask if you could exchange for another captivate at a local At&t Warranty Center?
I will be calling att and samsung tomorrow when i wake up to see what they have to say. As far as returning it to att, if its a known issue then an replacement phone will have the same possible issues.
So i did an little experiment to test 3g and wifi. I walked across the room, which has the modem and router, and stood by the door. got no 3g service in my hand, and the wifi dropped from full bars to just 1 bar of wifi in the same room.
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I can touch the phone any which way and the bar fluctuates by a single bar, if even that. I get more fluctuation walking around in my house then I do holding it. The only time I've ever noticed a significant drop in reception has been literally covering the phone front and back with both hands. Maybe you guys are just in poor reception areas. Before you completely discount the phone and send it back, instead of relying on the bars, look at the actual db signal in the settings.
I have looked at those i get an big fat zero. the other issue i have is my wifi goes from full to 1 bar by just moving to other side of the room thats not good at all.
I have been to areas of my town where i know there is full 3g service, and i get maybe two or three bars. i was thinking maybe an case would mask that particular issue since i am not directly touching the phone. The fact that i really like this phone i would just do the case thing if that were a solution
asrrin29 said:
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I can touch the phone any which way and the bar fluctuates by a single bar, if even that. I get more fluctuation walking around in my house then I do holding it. The only time I've ever noticed a significant drop in reception has been literally covering the phone front and back with both hands. Maybe you guys are just in poor reception areas. Before you completely discount the phone and send it back, instead of relying on the bars, look at the actual db signal in the settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will admit the area where i live doesn't have the best reception in the world, but when i place the phone on an table or sofa, i get -105 dbm and 4 asu. once i pick it up drops to 0 dbm and 0 asu quite odd.
Just to make sure, I removed my phone from it's case, and plastered my hands all over it. With a solid 3 bars, I touched sides, with two fingers all the way to a two handed deathgrip. Not only did I not get a degradation of bars, at one point I got a bar increase! I palmed the back, front, cradled it my hands, held it to my body. I didn't get any change in bars.
Maybe it's the band of cell phone signal in your area. I know that either the 1900mhz or 850mhz is better than the other in terms of penetrating power, so if your signal is going over the weaker one, that may be the issue.
I am just going to give samsung a call , when i actually use phone i am not touching the back of the phone. I have taken it into area where usually you should get full service and i dont get it if i hold it in my hand.
I also did an comparison with my old 3g iphone and the 3g was getting two to three more bars...
The other major issue is my wifi signal dropping from full to one bar in the same room of the router that shouldnt be happening
well its like i said, this signal issue that you few are having isnt that wide spread. go get a replacement sim, if that doesnt work then simply have ur carrier replace your phone. you should be within the 30 day trial period anyway... dont bother talking directly with samsung, getting a phone replacement from att would be quicker.
well the only issue with returning the phone i dindt buy it directly from att , got it thru amazon so returning to get a new one may be a bit problematic i think.
The iPhone's issue is different - it has an external antenna, and one finger in the wrong place rendered no signal - one finger bridging the gap between antennas - creating an electrical conductive circuit.
The Captivate (and all other phones) have internal antennas covered with plastic (the phone's case) - so the antenna is already covered.
Apple tried to deflect criticism by talking about "The grip of death" killing signal on other phones. While this is true, it is not what plagues the iphone - although it can. All phones will show signal drop if you wrap your hand (or some other signal blocking material) around the phone.
The Problem with trying to measure the signal drop, is that signal bars are not very accurate - you need to be in the phone menus where it shows you actual signal strength in DB - I don't think you will get this for WiFi though. Then of course there are all kinds of external interference issues - Microwave ovens, cordless phones, etc.
So, unless you measure this stuff in a controlled environment, like consumer reports did, where you can control the transmitter and all eliminate all external influences, then most observations are not including all environmental factors.
My phone works great, regardless of what the bars say.
well i have seen my phones service go from -105 dbm 4 asu to nothing when i picked up the phone. and then i would get the nice blue circle with line thru it.
I did an speed test also with phone while holding it and when putting it on an table , the times i would actually get no bars on my phone while holding i would get 1/3 the dl speed of when it was sitting on a table.
I will have to wait till tues to get an replacement phone and hopefully i wont have the same issues
so are you getting the replacement from att or amazon?
I live in Manhattan, so my day consists of going underground for subway, and then back out at least 4 times per day. I have noticed several times that my radio never RE-grabs a signal when coming above ground it just sits with the bars and an X signifying no signal, in broad daylight...until i reboot the phone and it then promptly grabs signal. I have a buddy with a NS and he noticed this too...we also noticed it happens mostly when we are listening to something when emerging back above ground. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, or if it isjust cooincidence...however, has anyone else noticed their NS radio not grabbing a signal when back in range??? It is SO annoying to be walking around for 10-15min after coming above ground, to notice you have been cut off the whole time.
just instal the airplane mode on/off toggle
and hit it when you are back out on the surface
some times it's slow for the machine to grab signal
yes, i have noticed
like when i go into the basement, or server room, or other places with NO signal
and go back out to a place that I Know there is signal, yet it still in X mode
so, i just swap on/off airplane mode, and it works right away
mcosmi said:
I live in Manhattan, so my day consists of going underground for subway, and then back out at least 4 times per day. I have noticed several times that my radio never RE-grabs a signal when coming above ground it just sits with the bars and an X signifying no signal, in broad daylight...until i reboot the phone and it then promptly grabs signal. I have a buddy with a NS and he noticed this too...we also noticed it happens mostly when we are listening to something when emerging back above ground. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, or if it isjust cooincidence...however, has anyone else noticed their NS radio not grabbing a signal when back in range??? It is SO annoying to be walking around for 10-15min after coming above ground, to notice you have been cut off the whole time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also a metro north commuter and the same thing happens to me randomly as well. I can go days without it occurring once, however sometimes it'll happen twice in the same day. Attempting to cycle Airplane Mode just locks up the device as well, so rebooting is the only option to restore network connectivity.
Noticed this as well when I'm in and out of subway stations. It hasn't been happening recently but sometimes playing around with the settings in the *#*#4636*#*# menu might help, like selecting GSM PRL or WCDMA preferred.
Anyway, I had the same problem with my Vibrant... never had the problem with my Nexus One or MyTouch 4G. Maybe HTC's hook onto networks better?
mcosmi said:
I live in Manhattan, so my day consists of going underground for subway, and then back out at least 4 times per day. I have noticed several times that my radio never RE-grabs a signal when coming above ground it just sits with the bars and an X signifying no signal, in broad daylight...until i reboot the phone and it then promptly grabs signal. I have a buddy with a NS and he noticed this too...we also noticed it happens mostly when we are listening to something when emerging back above ground. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, or if it isjust cooincidence...however, has anyone else noticed their NS radio not grabbing a signal when back in range??? It is SO annoying to be walking around for 10-15min after coming above ground, to notice you have been cut off the whole time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I normally loose signal completely when I am in the underground parking lot of my condo building. But as soon as I am outside it connects almost immediately.
brianbrain said:
I'm also a metro north commuter and the same thing happens to me randomly as well. I can go days without it occurring once, however sometimes it'll happen twice in the same day. Attempting to cycle Airplane Mode just locks up the device as well, so rebooting is the only option to restore network connectivity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got the exact same problem, not sure how to resolve it. Really wish they would push out an update and fix these annoying issues.
I've set my phone to WCDMA Only ( since and on boot up it doesnt connect to a network ) & WCDMA Perferred doesn't seem to want to stick.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=747f398a6c1bb2b9&hl=en
i have the same problem
Same problem with my Nexus S. Toggling airplane mode don't help. I have to power off/on my Nexus S then I get the signal again.
Hi all, please welcome me whom had bought the Optimus 3d just 2 days ago. I love this phone. Please do let me welcome you all to talk about a flaw, which I've found out right away with the new phone since 2 days ago! I've been with some others Android phones, so, I should say I've had good experience with Androids.
I realized that Optimus 3D has some kinda hardware Radio receiver flaw (I really don't know what should I really call it) similar to the famous iPhone 4 dilemma in the beginning. I found out that the "Radio receiver" is located somewhere at the bottom of the phone, where our hands most often holding the phone with. The hand will block out the signals and the signal bar will be reduced by a lot as much as to zero (if the signal strength itself is not strong in the 1st place!) Try find this yourself, have some experience by holding the phone at the bottom and let go and holding the phone and again let go, keep trying this you should see the signal strength that will drop and rise and drop and rise again. Or is this only my phone? But I've never experience this phenomenal with other Android phones!
Also, I don't know this has the directly link to the downloading issue or whenever browsing nets, the network data will drop very very often. I hardly got successful downloads from the market without few retries. Thank god at least at the moment I can temporarily fix it by turning off and on again with the data enabling shortcut in the pull down menu.
Please help me here and advice! Very much appreciated!
Since the famous iPhone 4 drama for a lot of phones these stories pop up once in a while. I know lots of people furiously believed the Samsung Galaxy S had the exact same problem but after a week or so nobody ever talked about it anymore.
I myself have absolutely no problem whatsoever with the signal, not even when I completely cover the entire phone with my hands leaving just a small spot to read the signal it never drops, not by one bar. I've never had a single download dropped with either 3G or wifi and I've downloaded my share of stuff from the market and other places.
I've tested this with my T-Mobile simcard (which has pretty horrible coverage here) and with my Vodafone simcard (which has great reception) and with both simcards the signal strength stays exactly the same according to the bars. Even when I go to the settings the dBm and asu values stay exactly the same, no matter how long and how bad I cover the phone.
So far you're the first and only person I've read about having these issues so I think it just could be an isolated incident, although that would be bad for you as that would mean you could have a defective phone
This problem is not something new and is not related with O3D.
All the phones have the same issue.
It is normal that if put your hand on the antenna the reception will drop.
The radio waves just work like this.
However the atenuation from your hand is most accentuated on higher frequencies like 2100Mhz.
On every phone even on the oldest phone with external antenna you will meet this phenomenon.
The difference between 4 bars and 1 bar is only around 10dBm which really isnt that massive a drop at all. Now that you've pointed this out i do see that the signal strength varies a little depending on how you hold the phone but its not enough to panic about i don't think. The iphone 4 problem was significantly greater in that the iss was that a user's hand would electeically short the mobile network antenna to the bluetooth and wifi antenna causing a total loss of signal. While 10dBm or so is a definite dip in signal strength, it's an acceptable level of attenuation and i dont see it causing any real world day to day network problems that you wouldn't experience with any other high end smartphone.
My workplace is in a giant tin hut of an industrial unit (read: faraday cage) and today while i had this phone there for the first time i saw no noticeable network coverage problems. The behaviour was as far as i can tell exactly tue same as my motorola milestone from which i upgraded.
Sent from my LG-P920 using XDA Premium App
As stated all phones can lose a bit of the reception when it's in your hand depending on how you hold it, the reason Iphone4 was such a big deal was that it was extremly sensitive when it came to left-handed people and they had a real problem with their antenna being totally blocked when holding the phone normally when speaking in it.
Later on media and uninformed people started fueling the flames as soon as they saw a bar drop when picking up the phone, radio waves are not magical rays or tachyons that can move though matter without interacting with it.
thanks for all the replies. Believe me or not, this is the 1st phone I realize this issue and it is so obvious, the bad news is, it is really bad for me that the antenna is located at the bottom, probably most others phones I've owned were at the top as a result i didn't got any problem before.
And another issue, I'm pretty stucked with the shipped rom now, really hope to see custom roms soon. I'm at the moment totally freak out with the inconsistent of data and the wifi, it keeps failing me, this really freak me off, what the hell is happening to me with this phone! I've never ever got any dropped data or wifi connections before. Arggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
I have no signal drop out no matter what hand positioning i use..
I'm in a very poor reception area. I do notice hand over phone a drop from 1 bar to none. Still not a red cross to indicate no signal but a drop of 1 bar all the same.
Just tested it.
Signal drops from 4 bars to 3 (1-2 in awkward positions) when hand-held. Not an real-life-usage impact though...
Thanks for all the test replies to support my findings. OK, now, I've realized that the hand holding issue has no direct impact to data drops. And the data drop is entirely due to the time issue which it does not lock down the data connection when swithcing data modes. And at the moment it can beasily over come to turn off with the data button in the pull down menu. I'm not sure though when in the situation when the signal strenght was so low, by holding with hands will give an direct effect of data drop or not. Will observe that
I'm pretty sure this is a network issue, however I have a couple of friends on 3 too that haven't experienced this problem.
The only thing that makes me ask the question here is that this is occurring in 3 different areas.
Since Saturday night at my home location (Bagshot, GU19) I lost all network connectivity. Thinking nothing of it as it will probably be resolved by morning, plus the fact that 3's customer support line was shut I went to bed expecting it to be up.
Sunday morning I woke up and still nothing. I went round to my partners which is in Bracknell (RG12) i had network but only 1/2 H+ not the usual 3/4 bars of 4G. Fluctuating like mad! So I rang them up after checking with my partner's sister as she is on 3 (she had no issues) i spoke to them about this issue and they said they were aware of an issue and it had been fixed 2 hours ago.
Again I left it and waited as they said they had fixed the issue. Service picked up to 3/4 bars of 4G like normal. Went home later that evening and my phone was fluctuating between no service and full 4 bars of 3G (H+) signal (there's no 4G in my area yet). Again I thought as they said it was fixed it may still be throwing a bit of a fit and will be fine in the morning.
Woke up this morning to no service whatsoever. A bit pissed off I drove to work (Farnborough, GU14) and i still have no service. Now I don't know if there is an issue with my phone or not but again a colleague has a 3 sim and his is fine. This is what leads me to think there may be an issue with my Nexus 5.
Any ideas of what I should do ?
Edit 18/08/14 @ 13:30 - Went outside of my work for lunch across the road to the shops, funnily enough got signal while outdoors and then lost again when indoors. Looking more like a network issue ?
I live in Manchester, and I'm working in Macclesfield right now, experiencing the same issue, same carrier as well. I think it might be a network issue, but I've started using the Nexus 5 two days ago, so I'm not sure.
So after one of my colleagues let me put my sim in his phone and vice versa we discovered that for no reason my phone now won't pick up the 3 network and my sim is indeed functioning properly.
Looks like my 1st RMA on Nexus 5.
Oh and to top the bad news off I lost my wallet....