Awful signal - Galaxy S6 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm noticing my 4G signal is worse than my previous phone. People complains they can't call me.
How's your signal it is better or worse than your previous phone?

It's much worse compared to my previous device (nexus 5). -113 dB right now where I live.
Gesendet von meinem SM-G920F

my friend had an issue with the signal keeps disconnecting, T-Mobile (USA) replaced his phone and the new one is working fine

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[Q] Signal strenght

Hi,
I' ve just bought a 820 and I am up to now happy with it ...
However I have the impression that the signal reception is quite weak; do you have a similar problem?
is OK, compared to BB and Desire S at the same place-
Thanks...
In fact at some "difficult" places I get only one bar (or even no signal - but rarely) while with my old Samsung I had practically always enough signal.
I had issues with signal prior to the update that went out today for my phone from Tmobile , now I have a good signal everywhere in my house. Can sit on the couch and text,web surf, and whatever else at high speed.
Murali Krishna
I have Nokia 820 and I also face problem of the signal strength fading out - call getting dropped and after a few seconds the signal comes back. Is there a solution for this.

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.

Bad network signal / reception?

I was wondering how everyones experience with network signal is on their S6.
I upgraded from an S4 i9505 to the S6 SM-G920F and I notice that the signal to my network is about -5dBm worse on average. It means the phone isn't as good at keeping signal in a low signal area, and it drops from 4G to 3G much more often that the S4 in the same place.
Maybe my antenna is bad or does anyone else experience this?
Also, don't use the signal bars as a judge of your signal. Samsung has changed them, for example they now show 2 bars 4G when my S4 shows 1 bar. Both phones could have -105dBm and the S6 will show 2 bars but S4 1 bar. It makes it look as if the S6 signal is the same or better when in fact the true signal is worse on the S6.
If you want to see your true dBm signal on the S6, go to the dialer and type *#0011# and choose STACK 1. Your signal is the RSRP.
Screenshots attached of S4 and S6, you can see S6 shows 2 bars with -109dBm and S4 shows 1 bar with -106dBm. S4 has a better signal, so don't believe the bars.
Well, i have a couple of flagship cell phone, including 2 motorolas ( Turbo and X 2nd gen) , i thing it might have differences from region to region , but from my experience , Samsung and LG was the ones with bad reception from past experience, S3 , S4 and S5 they were always with a bar or two lower than other phones, and when motorola has only one bar , sammy was with no signal at all ,long time already .
Well, motorola are the best in signal strength for me, follow by HTC. This time sammy has improved, i guess it's the in-house chips or something. Still no Motorola tough .
I guess we notice those things because we live or work in a region that has weak signal so a little bit more or less makes huge difference.
Here is my screen shot right now. The signal bar seems to be accurate with the signal db.
Thanks for the screenshot Galinha1. That's interesting that you find Samsung has improved this time around. I notice that your screenshot has "Ant RSRP Diff" at a minus number (-26) but I've never seen mine in a minus, you can see mine is at 14. I don't know what Ant RSRP Diff means though, any ideas?
If you find that the S6 signal is better than the S4, maybe I have a faulty device?
mupet0000 said:
I upgraded from an S4 i9505 to the S6 SM-G920F and I notice that the signal to my network is about -5dBm worse on average. It means the phone isn't as good at keeping signal in a low signal area, and it drops from 4G to 3G much more often that the S4 in the same place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the exactly same experience. The S6 is more agressive drops to 3G. I'm coming from an HTC One M which in my everyday, according to OpenSignal, has 70-80% 4G connection 24/7, the rest 3G.
My S6 has around 30% 4G, 40% 3G and 30% Edge . Because of the great camera in the S6 I have decided to stick with it for now. Sadly. The great 4G signal in my area actually made me stay on 4G all day on the M8 and disregard wifi usage. On the S6 I've falled back to wifi which on my connection is a lot worse than 4G.
I'm really hoping for this issue to be in the Modem/radio firmware and not in the psycially device.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s6/help/lte-signal-indicator-issues-t3083001
mupet0000 said:
Thanks for the screenshot Galinha1. That's interesting that you find Samsung has improved this time around. I notice that your screenshot has "Ant RSRP Diff" at a minus number (-26) but I've never seen mine in a minus, you can see mine is at 14. I don't know what Ant RSRP Diff means though, any ideas?
If you find that the S6 signal is better than the S4, maybe I have a faulty device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, i don't know for sure if it's better than S5, it's been around 7 to 8 months i last used my S5 . But i remember that it was a really bad device for signal and call quality. Looks like it's better or is the placebo effect from a shiny new toy . About yours been faulty , well, before last week i would say no for sure, i would assume a firmware or modem software issue, not hardware, but i bought my S6e 2 weeks ago, and i had a lot of drop calls, random reboots , freezes ,and people complaining that they call me and the phone rings once or twice and hung up , and in my end i never saw that attempt of calling, so i tried a new firmware, updated, downgraded it.. still having issues. So i went to my carrier and they didn't even let me finish my complains and handed me a new device. I went back home , thinking that couldn't be hardware issue and this new one would have the same problems. But now it works as it supposed to do . So i guess they might have a lot of faulty devices and software issues for those initial batches . Although i still have some drop calls, and 3g or 4g drops , is not that noticeable like it was before.
I have no idead what ANt RSRP Diff means.
I hope you solve your problem, anything i can help you let me know.
better than my old nexus 6 and m7. plus it holds onto lte much longer
I also have issues with cell reception. I'm on att, and although in areas where signal is strong there are no issues, I have serious issues maintaining a cellular connection when the signal is mediocre. I'm at my wits end with this. The phone seems to run fine, no issues besides the fact that I don't get signal in many areas that my old Nokia lumina 930 had no issue getting reception. Also, ive compared with a few friends iphone 6's and they have signal while my s6 will have nothing. I will be bringing the phone in tomorrow, but if anyone has any other suggestions to fix this besides factory reset, which I've already done, I'd appreciate the help.
I also had problems with cell reception. (no signal, drop calls)
As suggested on several forums I changed the network mode in settings to WCDMA/GSM and this seems to solve the reception problems. This way I am not be able to use 4G but at least I can make calls now XD
hnos said:
I also had problems with cell reception. (no signal, drop calls)
As suggested on several forums I changed the network mode in settings to WCDMA/GSM and this seems to solve the reception problems. This way I am not be able to use 4G but at least I can make calls now XD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well looks like it's many more of us than I thought... I am on EE and reception is a joke ( joke anyway on EE) but with S6 reception is much weaker than on any previous phones I've had. What firmware r u running
misiokicio said:
Well looks like it's many more of us than I thought... I am on EE and reception is a joke ( joke anyway on EE) but with S6 reception is much weaker than on any previous phones I've had. What firmware r u running
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am on stock 5.1.1 G925FXXU2BOFJ
I believe the version is the same for the G920F
Just came back to Verizon after being with T-Mobile for a year. Signal is pretty much the same at the house as I has always been.
click for larger image
Around town it is normally pretty good. At work, it is much better than T-Mobile ever was.
S4 has better 4G signal then S6
This seems to be a problem world wide. Looks like Galaxy S6 is having issues with 4G. I compared it with my old S4 and it's way worse.
Here are the results.
S4- 4G inside the house signal: -109dBm 31asu
S4 - 4G outside the house signal: -102dBm 35asu
S6 - 4G inside the house signal: NO SIGNAL
S6 - 4G outside the house signal: -113dBm 0asu
On my S4 I'm getting a better signal inside the house than what I get on the S6 outside the house.
Does anyone know the reason for this and is there a fix?
4G is calculated differently than a 3G signal
4G: (113 is good, 140 is bad)

Cellular strength and throughput

We know how much you like to stream, ahem, "videos", and so cellular data is mega-important. Rate this thread to express how you think the OnePlus 2's LTE performs. A higher rating indicates that it's fantastic: throughput is excellent and signal strength is top-notch.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add.
As a dual sim user I'm severely disappointed. If you're using a single sim the phone works fairly well. If you use dual sims whichever one is not set as the data sim will be lucky to receive calls and when you do it is garbled and unusable. This is my only issue with this phone.
WiFi or data seems like stopping transfers(delay or pause)
Phone becomes a bit warm when using cellular data not so on Wi-Fi. Nothing alarming though
This is going to be an area I will be paying close attention to, I spend a lot of time in remote areas so I will be keeping my old faithful s5 in my vehicle just in case it doesn't perform like I hope it will
I used to have an iPhone 6 and I am weekly in an area where I can only get one bar with LTE. With nothing going on I regularly stream movies/anime. I have since went from the iPhone to zenfone 2, I could get a signal but only 4g and barely. So I returned it and I've now had the OP2 for a few months and at first it will pick the(stronger but not faster) 4g connection but by manually changing to "LTE only" in the hidden menu I get the same connection as the iPhone. Just need to change it back when done or else no phone calls.
Overall it's satisfactory as I am able to do what I want to do, would just be nice not to go through the extra hoops to do so.
For a phone I was quite worried about it's doing well so far, usually in my living room I'm at 1 bar LTE signal, the OPT is sitting on 3 bars.
Will still need to see how it performs in remote areas.
If you use this phone outside major cities in Australia, you will definitely need to be on Telstra.
Can't get any mobile data what so ever with any network other than telstra, even in major regional towns.
Not really a surprising discovery, telstra are the only real choice outside the capital cities in Australia.
muqtaliff said:
Phone becomes a bit warm when using cellular data not so on Wi-Fi. Nothing alarming though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem I am facing same problem but difference in only it is heating up too much on Cellualr Data and Wifi both.
bad signal strength on oneplus 2
compared with my htc butterfly 2 and another low-end android, one plus 2 running latest Oxygen OS has serious connectivity issues. I compared the signals strength using same sim card in same location (including being connected to the same tower) and One Plus 2 keeps dropping the connection and has really poor signal strength. I have tried the *#*#4636#*#* and tried different network modes, but none of them are helping. Its a real disappointment that the basic feature of this phone is screwed up.
I have tried with CM13 as well. Any ideas if this is a modem version issue?
Phone probably due to metal frame have worse signal, for sure it has worse than my previous phone that already wasn't good on it.
Is there a work around to fix the poor network signal receiver of this phone? This is the great let down of oneplus 2.
Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
brainscollector said:
Phone probably due to metal frame have worse signal, for sure it has worse than my previous phone that already wasn't good on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oneplus one too has weak signal, though it has no metal frame. Something is seriously wrong with oneplus phone signal receiver! The company should fix this issue once and for all instead of rolling out one software after another which didn't resolve the problem at all.

WiFi signal low?

Did anyone else notice how this phone seems to get much lower WiFi signal than others? I can't from a 6T, and compared to that, the 7 Pro just seems to get a weaker WiFi signal! I hope this is addressed in an update soon!
I get much better signal compared to Galaxy S9.
Sent from my GM1913 using Tapatalk
H4X0R46 said:
Did anyone else notice how this phone seems to get much lower WiFi signal than others? I can't from a 6T, and compared to that, the 7 Pro just seems to get a weaker WiFi signal! I hope this is addressed in an update soon!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah same here, previous 5T was much much faster on WiFi
It sure connects at the same speed (866mb here) but the transfer rates are about half, at the most.
Pfeffernuss said:
Yeah same here, previous 5T was much much faster on WiFi
It sure connects at the same speed (866mb here) but the transfer rates are about half, at the most.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this! Yeah my 6T was better about keeping a strong WiFi connection. It keeps WiFi calling from kicking on usually and I rely on that in my house, my reception is bad where I live [emoji17] Hopefully the next software update!
I have not seen this. The handoff doesn't seem as clean though. My apps tend to notice the switch more than my 5t.

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