GPS losing signal - Fascinate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

GPS losing signal everytime I have to use gps now. It's terrible. It never did this before. Any ideas?

I am having the same problem. Navigating through Google Maps, I lost GPS signal about 5 times over a 1.5 hour trip. Didn't do this before I installed the Community rom.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

This just started happening for me as well. I drove from Orlando to Ft. Lauderdale over the weekend and it seemed to only happen driving around the Ft. Lauderdale area. It was dropping out a lot when it happened. Seemed much better on the trip home though.

GPS Booster is your friend

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[Q] Whats the GPS on Atrix like

Considering buying an ATRIX but I need good GPS, whats locking speed and accuracy like and is it fast even with Data connection off?
I consider it great....but I always have connection on....
Enviado desde mi MB860 usando Tapatalk
Not sure about with data off, but in regular use its great, and is one of the main reasons I switched from the iPhone. It also seems to calculate real time traffic into your ETA.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
keep mobile data off 85% of the time. almost never use the gps. connects within seconds indoors without downloading data. ive had a g1, droid, and acer iconia tab. this blows them away gps wise.
I was shocked at how fast it connected and started navigating. Last week I tried my g/f's inspire. Took like over 5 mins to lock. My Atrix takes seconds.
The Atrix has a fantastic gps. Even better than my son's low-end Garmin. I used it for a 600-mile trip to Spokane and it never missed a beat. I loaded my route before leaving, and it cached all the maps. Hence, it worked well even in areas without data service. I was so impressed that I bought the car dock when I arrived in Spokane just to have better access to the gps features in the car.
Best GPS on any phone. I have ever used.
mobileweasel said:
Best GPS on any phone. I have ever used.
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same here. but i used to own a galaxy s so really anything is an improvement. locking is super fast & accurate - perfect for all of those golf apps.
The Balvenie said:
same here. but i used to own a galaxy s so really anything is an improvement. locking is super fast & accurate - perfect for all of those golf apps.
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Rofl seriously my captivate gps would have me driving a mile away through houses, driving in one direction while pointing in another direction, and tell me I was accurate to 30m all at the same time. Atrix gps is awesome.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Agreed, i'm very happy with the gps. It didnt occur to me to test without data before but i just tried it.
I went into airplane mode, went into Gps Test app and turned gps on. It immediately located the first satellite and others, and ~6-7 seconds later it had full lock. This is from my 3rd floor office of a 4 floor building.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
GPS is awesome on these phones. I don't know about with the data off though, you have to get maps from somewhere. With Google maps, you can set it to cache your route and that helps if you're in poor service areas. I use mine almost everyday, and all day long, it never misses a step.
I came from the Captivate and I can tell you it's excellent. I get an approximate location within 2-3 seconds, and an accurate location within about 7-8 seconds. And by accurate within 5 feet or about 1.5M. I was surprised how fast and accurate the GPS was on my phone. This was while indoors, I'm sure if you went outside you could lock on a few seconds faster.
I think you have your answer OP.
Keep in mind Google Maps will use the cell towers to get location. Google will even work if you disable the GSP. I use Navigon. I like having the maps on my phone just in case. I also use BackCountry Navigator. Both these programs will only use the GPS. The Atrix GPS is great. I has always lock in 10 12 seconds or less. If you use GPS Status to download the A-GPS XTRA Data, it will lock in 1 to 3 seconds. The Atrix GPS seems to be very accurate also.
I found it to be awesome on froyo and real iffy on gingerbread.

Youtube slow streaming?

am i the only one having such slow speeds, that watching a youtube video is not possible unless wifi is enabled?
i can browse the web just fine, but anything youtube related and it falls on its face.
that and my battery lasting a mere 6 hours and i'm beginning to hate this phone. (yes, syncs are turned off, and no live wallpaper exists)
The only fix for this I have found is to return the phone for a refund...
Sad but very true.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
wakdady said:
am i the only one having such slow speeds, that watching a youtube video is not possible unless wifi is enabled?
i can browse the web just fine, but anything youtube related and it falls on its face.
that and my battery lasting a mere 6 hours and i'm beginning to hate this phone. (yes, syncs are turned off, and no live wallpaper exists)
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Well, if you did the Proxy removing trick and you called Sprint to have a "data reset for slow data speeds" and you are positive it isn't just the coverage/local tower saturation. From the sounds of your 6-hour battery you are probably in a low signal area and tower hopping and probably even roaming more than you should. I know mine does that. Mine does all of that even though I usually get decent enough speeds for everything except youtube, which I can stream it just takes an extra 5-10 seconds to buffer.
I'm on my 3rd phone, I've done all of those tricks and they have helped greatly, but, every bit of help it gets just masks the fact that to some of us this phone has terrible signal strength and tower locking and an absurdly low roaming threshold...roaming data is so slow that it's nearly useless for anything but simple web pages.
The only solution I've been able to come up with comes out on Friday I did love this phone, but, I've been in denial for a while now. I wish you better luck than I had.
Sprint 3G is horrible. If you are not on Wi-Fi or 4G watching anything on youtube is impossible. I love how Sprint has the only true unlimited data, but it comes at the price of piss-poor 3G speeds.
Your lucky to get 6 hours of battery use. I can get 6 if I lower my screen brightness to almost 0, turn off gps and sync, and not make any phone calls.
fmedina2 said:
Sprint 3G is horrible. If you are not on Wi-Fi or 4G watching anything on youtube is impossible. I love how Sprint has the only true unlimited data, but it comes at the price of piss-poor 3G speeds.
Your lucky to get 6 hours of battery use. I can get 6 if I lower my screen brightness to almost 0, turn off gps and sync, and not make any phone calls.
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Piss poor 3G speeds? I always use 3G since there is no 4G where I live, and even if I get around 1 bar, the 3G is amazing. It is incredibly fast. Also, the battery life should last about 12-15 hours with moderate (~3 hours screen on, some calls, medium data/streaming) usage. You might need to get your phone replaced.
But yeah, 3G, WiFi or 4G, the youtube buffering was always really slow on my phone and previous phones.
OP: If you have bad signal and cut in and out of roaming, that could be the battery drain problem. The Photon 4G is great with signal and should get around an extra 3 bars of signal than the Evo 3d does. (I have a friend with it and he gets 5 bars where I get around 1-3 bars) If you really need something for signal, you could sell your Evo for around 200 dollars on craigslist and get an around 200 dollar photon from craigslist.
Do the proxy thing. It won't speed up your data persay but for me if i have the proxy in YouTube doesn't work if I take it out it does. I've done it multiple times. It's really easy.
boom!! from my shooter
yousefak said:
Piss poor 3G speeds? I always use 3G since there is no 4G where I live, and even if I get around 1 bar, the 3G is amazing. It is incredibly fast. Also, the battery life should last about 12-15 hours with moderate (~3 hours screen on, some calls, medium data/streaming) usage. You might need to get your phone replaced.
But yeah, 3G, WiFi or 4G, the youtube buffering was always really slow on my phone and previous phones.
OP: If you have bad signal and cut in and out of roaming, that could be the battery drain problem. The Photon 4G is great with signal and should get around an extra 3 bars of signal than the Evo 3d does. (I have a friend with it and he gets 5 bars where I get around 1-3 bars) If you really need something for signal, you could sell your Evo for around 200 dollars on craigslist and get an around 200 dollar photon from craigslist.
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Agreed. Having owned an evo (currently using), photon, and a 3d ill have to say that the reception issue was definitely the phone (3d) and NOT the network.
At work with my evo 4g and I can buffer a HQ youtube video fairly quickly with just one bar of reception. Yet on the 3D I can even buffer a non hq youtube video at ALL. even on wifi it couldn't stream a vid. Piss poor. The mopho was excellent. On par or better than my evo.
I shouldn't have to do all these tweaks to my phone to make it work AS A PHONE. that is the one of the main things on my list that MUST work out of the box.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
yousefak said:
Piss poor 3G speeds? I always use 3G since there is no 4G where I live, and even if I get around 1 bar, the 3G is amazing. It is incredibly fast. Also, the battery life should last about 12-15 hours with moderate (~3 hours screen on, some calls, medium data/streaming) usage. You might need to get your phone replaced.
But yeah, 3G, WiFi or 4G, the youtube buffering was always really slow on my phone and previous phones.
OP: If you have bad signal and cut in and out of roaming, that could be the battery drain problem. The Photon 4G is great with signal and should get around an extra 3 bars of signal than the Evo 3d does. (I have a friend with it and he gets 5 bars where I get around 1-3 bars) If you really need something for signal, you could sell your Evo for around 200 dollars on craigslist and get an around 200 dollar photon from craigslist.
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Then you are lucky. Many of us live in areas with good sprint coverage...I always get 4 or higher bars but download speeds of 50 kps..around there. I only get 200 plus in the late hours..2 am and such. You tube lags and the rest of slow download headaches. Not everybody has good speeds like you and I am not a betting man, but I would think the majority of us get ****ty speeds. Hell, my cricket phone before I went sprint had faster speeds, but service was awful. Not flaming, just stating the truth. Sprint has ****ty speeds, period. Some of us, the majority...have much, much slower speeds then you
I have to agree with everyone else. I get good coverage and I'm connected to sprint's 3G network not 1x and I consistantly get below 100kbs. My phone is basically unusable without wifi connected. Once in a while I'll get like 500kbs and it feels like 4G! So Lame. It's a good thing Sprint doesn't throttle data! LMAO If they did the speeds would be like 10kbs!
maybe the problem is not on the phone but on the carrier.. i have the Evo in Portugal and the youtube speed is normal over mobile data (and not wifi) and my battery always lasts about 48 hours..
i live in the San Francisco Bay area and we have very good 3G and 4G in many areas. but it still sucks. it wasnt this bad when i first got the phone.
can someone send me a link or how-to on the proxy thingy?
what other phone options do i have that either meet or excel in the specs compared to a evo3d?
wakdady said:
i live in the San Francisco Bay area and we have very good 3G and 4G in many areas. but it still sucks. it wasnt this bad when i first got the phone.
can someone send me a link or how-to on the proxy thingy?
what other phone options do i have that either meet or excel in the specs compared to a evo3d?
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The Photon. And in a week or two from Friday check the epic touch 4g forums to see how their reception is
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
I have trouble streaming youtube on 3G too. Usually I use 4G.....but yeah its kinda annoying
I haven't had any issues on my Evo...but I know youtube themselves, (streaming from a desktop with 60 megs down...has been painfully slow...and it's only youtube.

Huge battery drops when moving between network coverage areas?

Today I took a journey to the coast. I checked my battery on the ride there and it was around 34%. I was listening to music via poweramp. Around 20 mins later, I checked my phone and it was down to 19%! I had turned off data, GPS etc. all the usual things. What could cause a massive battery drain in such a small space of time? I assume it must be jumping from signal to (weak) signal.
I never have this problem at work or home, only when I travel to certain areas.
Anyone ever had this happen to them?

does using 3g noticeably kill the battery?

check out the pic. notice when i went to 3g when i went out for a bit, my battery just dropped... i didn't use the phone that much when I was out, and it still drained that much. hmm.
actually right now I can't upload a pic. anyone else having that issue from the app?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
No problems on my end bro!
VZW has had problems with their data system for the last 3 or 4 months. Your issues are probably related to to the problems all 4G phones are experiencing these days. You will see people in all the 4G forums complaining of losing data and low signals killing batteries. Saturday I was in a low signal area and kept losing 4G down to 1X and that also heated up my battery for the first time since I got the phone.
Sent from my HTC
LTE 4G Rezound
i just have nothing to compare it to, because everywhere i go, i use wifi all the time lol....i haven't used just 3g in SO damn long, so i don't have a basis to compare with the rezound
Idling on 3G doesn't seem to hurt me too bad (I usually let juice defender keep it off to mitigate the risk), but actually using it is way more draining than wifi. I can sit online all night at home on wifi, but only get about two hours of solid use when I'm out and about.
Going to a 4G city this weekend for the first time. Bringing backup batteries.
I think what may be happening is that once it drops to 3g or 1x it tries hard to get back to 4g and that is what hurts more than anything.
Try forcing it to 3g only and see if you have the same drop in battery under preferably the same conditions.
NilsP said:
I think what may be happening is that once it drops to 3g or 1x it tries hard to get back to 4g and that is what hurts more than anything.
Try forcing it to 3g only and see if you have the same drop in battery under preferably the same conditions.
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Yes,that is what happened to me Saturday,it dropped to 1X and overheated trying to get back to 4G.
I did force it to 3G and it still stayed hot. But I had that happen once with my Thunderbolt, so I feel it is the vzw data signal not the phone.
3G kills battery compared to wifi.
i shut off 4g the day i got it lol...yeah, i think 3g just uses noticably more battery tahn wifi
staticx57 said:
3G kills battery compared to wifi.
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definately. i can sit at home, connected to my wifi, and i can get like 2 or 3 days out of the battery. with light usage that is. on 3g though, with light usage, i'm lucky if i can get a full day.
3g actually saves my battery, somehow 4g and WiFi take more battery for me
Sent from my HTC Rezound (Beast phone) Using XDA Premium
lmao, awesome username.

(poll) where are you if you have problems with the leak

Normally I live in the NE area but I recently went to Florida for a few days. Normally my phone rarely gets above 120, maybe it's hit it 2 times since launch day. When I was in Florida though it was hitting it almost daily. I know it makes sense because it's so much warmer but I'm wondering if that is what is causing all the problems.
I live in SC and this winter & spring we have had weather in the 70s & 80s.
Regardless , my phone overheated only twice when our 3G & 4G went down at the same time and we were on 1X.
jbh00jh said:
I live in SC and this winter & spring we have had weather in the 70s & 80s.
Regardless , my phone overheated only twice when our 3G & 4G went down at the same time and we were on 1X.
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In Florida it was high 80s and I never had my phone reboot because of heat. It just started blinking. I was also always doing something on it like netflix or playing a game when it heated up. I even had no problem listening to pandora on the beach with the phone on the sun even though I could feel the heat.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA
SC is actually hotter most of the time than FL in the warmer months.
I'm in Florida, and that could be related. But I think it would have more to do with coverage than with ambient temperatures.
cpurick said:
I'm in Florida, and that could be related. But I think it would have more to do with coverage than with ambient temperatures.
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i was getting very good coverage though and had 4g the entire time

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