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Hello,
I just bought a GTab and am really excited about it. However, I am not particularly happy with the wi-fi range of the device. It goes to zero bars barely 15 feet away from the router. Did anyone else face similar problems? Let me know
Yup. I lose a bar just by turning my chair away from my router. No solution so far.
Thanks, How long have you had the device? Did you contact Customer Service?
Could be your router. I have no problem using my tab anywhere in the house and out on the patio with a crappy old D-link.
I don't get a full signal, but it is enough to stream my music and browse fine.
Google "cantenna" and you will find a cheap and easy way to extend your range.
This is actually one thing that amazed me about the g-tablet. I Took my g-tab to my mom's house and logged into their unsecured Linksys router. It worked fine, no issues whatsoever. My mother lives a block from the church where I serve as an elder (roughly 50-60 yards away...) I took my g-tablet to a meeting one evening, opened the case, and found that I was already connected to network. I hadn't had a chance to set up the church's network yet...the Tablet actually automatically connected to my mother's network. The signal isn't the strongest, but I hadn't expected ANY signal whatsoever. It works fine in every room of my house as well.
I ended up setting up the Church's network, but the g-tab still automatically connects to my mother's when I'm anywhere near there. My Pastor said that it's because the church's router is has protection and that typically linux based devices tend ot take the path of least resistence. I'd prefer if it checked for the strongest signal, first, though.
I agree it soundls like your router unless you got a leamon. My router is in m livingroom and my gTab drops only one bar when it is in the bedroom, meaning the wifi signal is going through the bathroom to get there, through 2 walls and maybe 15 feet, no line of sight.
When it is charging in the kitchen the signal goes 20 feet and through one wall, again no line of sight, and if I position the tablet just right I can get no bars dropped.
I have a wifi-g router, Westell I think (whatever wifi router Verizon sent me lol). I haven't tried the gTab outside yet, but my daughter's iPod tough can get a weak signal in the back yard and the router is in the livingroom at the front of the house.
mike_ekim said:
My router is in m livingroom and my gTab drops only one bar when it is in the bedroom, meaning the wifi signal is going through the bathroom to get there, through 2 walls and maybe 15 feet, no line of sight...
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Well, Mike, this is where the materials used in buiding construction might make a difference.
If sudeep_itbhu is here in India, then the WiFi signals have to pass through dense brick or stone walls to reach his gTablet. In the US, the signals might just have to pass through things like wood or plaster which won't absorb the signals as much. I've brought access points from the US to India only to have it fail miserably because of our brick walls.
sudeep_itbhu, you could try boosting the "Transmit Power" on your wireless router or AP. You can usually change that setting via a browser if you connect to the router.
Of course, my signal is going (from my mother's 100+ year old house to the 80 year old church lounge) through one interior wall, one exterior wall aluminum siding, 50 - 60 yards though a couple trees, power lines all around, through the brick exterior church wall, and through an old wood interior wall and I'll still have a signal. A weak signal, but still a signal.
mike_ekim said:
I have a wifi-g router, Westell I think (whatever wifi router Verizon sent me lol). I haven't tried the gTab outside yet, but my daughter's iPod tough can get a weak signal in the back yard and the router is in the livingroom at the front of the house.
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Click to collapse
I just went into my back yard and from about 65 feet away from the router (no line of sight) I was able to surf the web on wireless g. I get 3 or 4 bars everywhere inside on the same floor, 2 bars right outside the house, and it drops to 1 bar by the time I hit the trees. It's wet, I'm not going any further today.
It's just another data point to help you figure out if you have either a bad router signal or a bad tablet, because at 15 feet the gTab is able to get a great signal with an 'no frills' router. Everyone else seems to have similar experience.
@rajeevvp: Agreed. I got the impression he had a bad signal at 15 feet with a direct line of sight, but I may be mistaken.
mine works fine but the only problem that annoys me is that the wifi is always automatically turned off (especially when I turn the screen off and leave it idle). When I turn the screen back on, I need to go to settings and turn the wifi on. is there any ways to solve it?
wifi dropping
I am having the same problem with my wifi not automatically reconnecting after going to sleep. This happens if the tab is off for an extended period of time. I am running vegan 5.1.1. Any ideas???
thanks for your replies, I think I might go and get a replacement and check that out. The range of my device is about 15 yards through a couple of walls. I am in the US.
stolly23 said:
I am having the same problem with my wifi not automatically reconnecting after going to sleep. This happens if the tab is off for an extended period of time. I am running vegan 5.1.1. Any ideas???
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Set your "WiFi sleep policy" to "Never" in Settings > "Wireless & networks" > "Wi-Fi settings" > menu key > "Advanced", and see if that helps.
rajeevvp said:
Set your "WiFi sleep policy" to "Never" in Settings > "Wireless & networks" > "Wi-Fi settings" > menu key > "Advanced", and see if that helps.
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Thanks for the idea, but I have already checked that. It was already set to never.
TJEvans said:
Of course, my signal is going (from my mother's 100+ year old house to the 80 year old church lounge) through one interior wall, one exterior wall aluminum siding, 50 - 60 yards though a couple trees, power lines all around, through the brick exterior church wall, and through an old wood interior wall and I'll still have a signal. A weak signal, but still a signal.
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The Wi-Fi signal would only have trouble with the brick wall, then.
As for range, the maximum values for 802.11g signals are ~38 m (125 ft) indoors and ~140 m (460 ft) outdoors. In practice, I've found that these maximums decrease considerably.
Using "Wi-Fi Analyzer" I saw a received signal power of ~ -75 dBm 20 ft indoors (through a few intervening brick walls) at the other end of my house. I got ~ -85 dBm ~100 ft away from the back of the house and outside (through the intervening exterior wall and the low garden wall). And, at that signal strength, which is at the very low threshold of the wireless received signal power range, I was only able to see my wireless router, but, I couldn't use it.
At the other end of the signal-strength range, 2 feet away from, and directly in sight of the wireless router, I see a signal strength of ~45 dBm. This means that there is a drop in signal strength of around 3 orders of magnitude (1000x) from one end of my house to the other.
TJEvans said:
I ended up setting up the Church's network, but the g-tab still automatically connects to my mother's when I'm anywhere near there. My Pastor said that it's because the church's router is has protection and that typically linux based devices tend ot take the path of least resistence. I'd prefer if it checked for the strongest signal, first, though.
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Nice--A tech-savvy pastor . But, he's wrong about Linux. Linux prefers to connect to the last access point you configured it to connect to (if it can see it). This is the correct behaviour--you wouldn't normally want the tablet to connect to some random access point or wireless router just because its signal strength was higher for some reason.
sudeep_itbhu said:
Hello,
I just bought a GTab and am really excited about it. However, I am not particularly happy with the wi-fi range of the device. It goes to zero bars barely 15 feet away from the router. Did anyone else face similar problems? Let me know
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This tablet, bought Nov 2010, is very good on reception. It picked up 15-20 signals around any communities as we traveled aboard Amtrak from Philadelphia to Denver and return. It also saw a half-dozen signals (other than the in-house networks) when I was in a hospital for 6 days. I like WiFi Analyzer to see what's available.
Router
I have a few different routers (types) running here (Primary and Clients) for different reasons.
It seems to be router dependent (at least in my case). All are N capable. One stays connected all the way around the block when I walk my dog (yes, I walk my G-Tablet with us). One fades out if I am one house down. The other somewhere in between.
--You can try to reposition your router
--You could get another router, use as a client, or get a range extender
--You could log into the admin panel of your router and determine if you can increase the broadcast power.
--If it doesn't have this option and you are somewhat tech savvy (and have a compatible router), you could flash your router's firmware with DD-WRT (google it) or other similar. It should allow you to increase the broadcast power. You can look up your router on the website to determine compatibility, then carefully follow the directions to flash (standard-if you brick it please do not blame me or them)
--Hope it helps. That is pretty much all I know about this issue. Not sure where you are but the ATT DSL Router (that they provide here in the Bay Area, Cali) does not seem to have a very strong signal and is not (last time i checked) compatible with DD-WRT.
So I use my TFP in my room and the wifi is very slow and constantly drops. The router is in my roommate's room not 5 meters away, but with several walls and closets in the way. I've ended up using my GN almost full time via bluetooth to get online.
My questions is: what affordable wireless router or access point should I purchase? Is it even worth it?
hyee said:
So I use my TFP in my room and the wifi is very slow and constantly drops. The router is in my roommate's room not 5 meters away, but with several walls and closets in the way. I've ended up using my GN almost full time via bluetooth to get online.
My questions is: what affordable wireless router or access point should I purchase? Is it even worth it?
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If you want to improve a signal from an already existing wifi there are these things called wifi repeaters. They take the signal from your roomys wifi and make it stronger.
Can't suggest a specific product though. Never used one.
I had the same problem as you do and my solution was to get a router that also had the access point and repeater functions built in to it. Right now I am using it as a repeater which gives me a solid connection anywhere in my three story house and on my back patio. I may start using it as an access point when the logistics of running a cable from my basement where my fios router is to my middle floor for the connection to the access point doesn't seem to much of a pain.The particular brand I got was Asus and it cost $45.00. You can find lots of them on Amazon starting at $40.00 on up.
How do you set wifi priority, so it'll stay on the one i want it to connect to, not the strongest, or first one it saw, etc etc. can i order the 'saved' networks in any kind of priority list?
anyone know?
If you look at wpa_supplicant.conf over /data/misc/wifi the networks have some kind of priority there.
I don't know how this works, but just give it a try. Try to change the value from each network to find if it gives priority for the highest or lowest value.
---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:00 PM ----------
I have a issue with wifi too.
I have 4 routers at home with the same SSID to extend the wifi range.
The phone connects to the first router he see's but doesn't changes if I get closer to another router, it stays connected to the first one while it catches signal.
To change router I have to turn off wifi and then on again.
Sometimes I'm next to one router and the signal appears on minimum because it stays connected to the first router it saw.
Weird, ah??
mama_mia said:
If you look at wpa_supplicant.conf over /data/misc/wifi the networks have some kind of priority there.
I don't know how this works, but just give it a try. Try to change the value from each network to find if it gives priority for the highest or lowest value.
---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:00 PM ----------
I have a issue with wifi too.
I have 4 routers at home with the same SSID to extend the wifi range.
The phone connects to the first router he see's but doesn't changes if I get closer to another router, it stays connected to the first one while it catches signal.
To change router I have to turn off wifi and then on again.
Sometimes I'm next to one router and the signal appears on minimum because it stays connected to the first router it saw.
Weird, ah??
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Click to collapse
Wireless devices "roam" from AP to AP depending on how their wireless chipset tells it to roam. Some chipsets roam aggressively (like a wireless VoIP phone), while others do not roam so aggressively (most laptops/tablets). I've seen Samsung tablets stay locked to an AP at the opposite end of a warehouse instead of switching to any of 5 closer APs with FAR great signal strength. Very annoying when it doesn't do what you want, and the wireless chip doesn't allow any configuration. I've seen other devices wait until the signal is completely dropped before switching APs (which really sucks). I wouldn't think these phone would be very aggressive so it'll stay locked to the first router as long as it's not seeing dropped packets. Sometimes a stronger signal isn't enough reason for a client to roam. When you turn it off and back on, it has to reassociate, so it will generally pick the stronger signal.
I hate this. the wifi on this is just crap. roaming is terrible, like you explain. but priority should be basic. I have a weak router I can see when on the third floor, but as soon as I'm on first or second floor, can see the fast router. I don't care how weak it is, if I see it, it should connect to that, not stay connected to the weaker 3rd floor just cuz it was the one connected to
wlpywd said:
I hate this. the wifi on this is just crap. roaming is terrible, like you explain. but priority should be basic. I have a weak router I can see when on the third floor, but as soon as I'm on first or second floor, can see the fast router. I don't care how weak it is, if I see it, it should connect to that, not stay connected to the weaker 3rd floor just cuz it was the one connected to
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When you go downstairs just let the phone sit for a few minutes. If you're actively passing traffic maybe the chipset won't let it roam. Wait it out and maybe it'll realize it should switch to the consistently stronger network. When I was testing this in my house with a cheapo netbook I noticed that I was a little impatient during testing, but in real world usage the slow roaming wasn't actually an issue.
When I walk around my office building and/or in our warehouse (full coverage wireless with 50+ APs) mine phone roams just fine. I'm not sure if it roams to the strongest AP everytime, but I know I always have a signal no matter where I go.
its not just the stronger network issue. 3 rd floor is a separate internet over power line,5mb max, split across about 10 devices. iron rods plus lead painted ceiling of concrete (it was an addition to an old old building) make it unable to see 1 st floor internet, which is a fiber 100mb line. both are picked up on 2nd floor, but it will latch on to that 3rd floor wireless and hang on one dot seemingly for dear life. I've tried forgetting networks and re learning them in both orders, it just some reason prefers the slow ass connection unless I remember to manually change it, even when it still connected to one dot but no internet comes.
--
then at home, now I have to deal with the wifi phantom death, so I don't even know I'm not actually connected. I swear, they sourced this wifi chip from some guy's garage company instead of a manufacturing company!
that was harsh, I actually believe its a software issue and not the chip,as it doors seem quite strong and capable. I'm just getting angry at this thing
Is there any mod or fix or even any news at all on how to get wifi roaming working on the s3?
For anyone who doesn't know - if you have multiple routers/access points then when they overlap they do not transition correctly. You have to disconnect and reconnect to get onto the most appropriate router.
I have a router upstairs in the back of the house and downstairs at the front so I can get coverage in the garden etc... if I'm downstairs and move upstairs it'll hang onto the signal from downstairs even if low when the signal from the other router is much better. you have to disconnect and reconnect to get a better signal.
It's the only really annoying thing about this phone!
Edit spoke to samsung uk technical and they said they are aware and it should be fixed in the next firmware but tbh I think they were just bull****ing me.
nonumb said:
Is there any mod or fix or even any news at all on how to get wifi roaming working on the s3?
For anyone who doesn't know - if you have multiple routers/access points then when they overlap they do not transition correctly. You have to disconnect and reconnect to get onto the most appropriate router.
I have a router upstairs in the back of the house and downstairs at the front so I can get coverage in the garden etc... if I'm downstairs and move upstairs it'll hang onto the signal from downstairs even if low when the signal from the other router is much better. you have to disconnect and reconnect to get a better signal.
It's the only really annoying thing about this phone!
Edit spoke to samsung uk technical and they said they are aware and it should be fixed in the next firmware but tbh I think they were just bull****ing me.
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Click to collapse
I got the same problem. I got my S3 some weeks ago. All worked fine (or I did not realized the problem). But since the official Jelly Bean update I am also stuck in this problem at work. In our office there are several access points and as along as I stay connected to one of them all is fine. When I leave my desk and fetch a coffee at the meeting point, the S3 should switch to another AP.....So, staying at the meeting point with the coffee but no WiFi... After switching the WiFi off and on, it works again. Coming back to my desktop, I have to switch WiFi off and on again....really anoying bug....
Any solutions? Or maybe Custom ROMS?
Thanks
MausFan
Having issues with extremely slow wifi on my device. If I'm upstairs I can't even connect to my router. If I'm downstairs I connect but get horribly slow speeds. My other devices see like 8 wifi networks in my area, but I see only mine with the s4. If I try to enter the name of an open wifi network I know exists in my neighborhood, the S4 can't even see it.
I tested out disabling security on my router, and my speeds jumped up to normal if I was right next to the router. However moving to other locations in the house I still lose connection. If I turn on any kind of wireless security on the router, the speeds are super slow even right next to the router. In the 600Kb range (I have a 20Mb internet).
Almost sounds like a hardware issue to me. Tempted to bring it to Verizon, but who knows if they even have replacement devices at this point.
EDIT: So I managed to get the device to get fast wifi with security turned on by messing with security settings on my router. But if I do a speedtest right next to the router, I get great speeds. If I walk upstairs, and do another test, it's like I went back to 1997. Suddenly my ping is in the hundreds, and I'm getting 56K speeds. Walk downstairs again, and run it again, BAM fast pings and 20Mb downloads. The GNex gets 20Mb speeds throughout the entire house.
I have the device right next to my Galaxy Nexus right now. The GNex can see my network, and 5 others in my area. The S4 can only see my network.
Could very well be a hardware issue with the actual unit - I don't have any WiFi problems at all here - is this running on stock? If so I would recommend seeing if you get a replacement unit if it helps - if not then I would ask what settings are on your router? is it 5ghz (i have had problems with that on ALL devices)
Are you using a case or custom back cover? If so try it without the case/back cover.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using xda premium
I'm running stock rooted.
I'm using a case, I've tried it without and it makes no difference.
My router also does 2.4ghz and 5ghz, and I've tried both and it makes no difference. I generally use the 5ghz, because the signal is bit better.
The oddest thing to me is that this thing can't see a single other wifi network in my area. My other devices will see multiple wifi networks.
Go into your router and disable (uncheck) the WMM option. Odds are youre having the constant connect/disconnect from some routers, especially but not limited to DLink DIR-655 and DIR 855 models. The disconnects and reconnects are quick enough that you sometimes won't see the wifi icon disappear and reappear.
I had the issue (i have the DIR-655) and unchecking the WMM (Wifi MultiMedia) fixed the issue.
I have that option disabled.
I really think this is just the wifi radio being weak compared to my other devices. Not sure if its a defect, or just the way the verizon s4 is. The performance is fine in the same room as my router, or even in the room directly above it. In the furthest from it in the house, however, the S4 just can't get any connection over barely 1 bar, and the signal in wireless signal info is horrible. Not being able to see other wifi networks in my area is the most telling thing to me. Even if I walk around my neighborhood, I can't see any others. Maybe if I walked right up to someone's house I could, but I haven't wanted to look pervy, so I haven't tried that. :laugh: At this moment my Gnex can see 5 other networks sitting in the exact same spot as my S4. The S4 just sees my networks.
Yeah sounds like yours is defective. On mine I can see networks from all around my neighborhood. (~5 of them)
Sent from my SCH-I545 using xda premium
So today I finally came into work after being off for awhile, and brought my S4 in for the first time. We have open wifi at work everywhere with multiple access points per floor, so no matter where you are you should get 3-4 bars of wifi signal. From my desk where I usually get the full four bars on my GNex, my S4 gets 1 bar of wifi. Doing a speedtest, I get 2000kbps down, 872kbps up. My GNex gets 35Mb down, and around 25Mb up on the same wifi connection. So yea, there is something seriously wrong with this thing.
Damn I guess I need to flash back to stock and take it in.
I took took mine to Verizon and they swapped it out. This one gets a great wifi signal. The capper was when I was in the store and their display phones could see all the local wifi networks, and mine couldn't. Mine was barely able to connect to their instore wifi. New one works perfectly.