yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Desire HD General] tomlad:
Wow. Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, WOW!

Your are a legend!

I was just about to buy a bluetooth gps receiver, as I'd given up on ever getting the built in receiver working.

I've gone from occasionally being able to get a bad fix, to a good fix in a matter of seconds. This thread needs to be made sticky.

I accessed the underneath of the cover, via the battery compartment as suggested, it seemed to open up pretty easily for me.

Its just a shame that I didn't know this a few weeks ago, when I found myself in a foreign country with no working GPS!

Thanks once again!
[Desire HD General] isotoper:
Hi guys, correct me if I wrong, but doesn't these 2 gold contacts belong to the flash ?

How does it influence the GPS ?!
[Desire HD General] ex23:
Hello,

It didn't work for me.

My phone's GPS used to work quite well, until a few weeks ago. Now it's not working at all. I cannot have a fix, even after one hour in totally clear outdoor space. And in GPS Status, I can see that my phone don't see any satellite, not even one.

So I followed this tutorial. I opened my phone's back cover, cleaned the contacts with a product made for that, I pushed up the two springs inside my phone, then put the cover back.

But after that, nothing has changed, I still can't see any satellite. :(

So I ordered a new flash-GPS cover on eBay. And I will try it as soon as I'd have received it. I will keep you informed ;)

++
[Desire HD General] Jerry_East:
Wooooo, pretty cool. Thanks a lot for sharing.
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
For the guys that messed up the springs there might be another fix.

It will hurt your warranty but by messing up the springs you've already done that anyway.

I've already ordered the spare part, just in case,

Basically GPS is broadcasted on 2 bands namingly 1.57GHz and 1.22GHz.

So making an antenna that resonates would be a 1/4 wave antenna (meaning ideal length in this phone) . Not to go further into calculations (one can pm me if they really want to go deep inside of the dark pit of calculations).

A antenna is no more than a piece of conductive thing, so any wire would bassicaly do. If you tear up an old radio you will probably see some wires that can be used. You would only need to have an isolated wire for this (color doesn't matter size does :-) )

Depending on the design it would be 1 wire that is approx 1.87 inch (4,75cm) and the other one 2.23 inch (5,66cm).

They do not have to be in a straight line but also not folded double.

Ok just checked it out with an Ohm meter. Both contacts on the removable parts measure 0 Ohm to each other.

That does not mean that the antenna outlets are short at all meaning for HF (high freq) it is all a bit different. In this case it is just talking about resonance.

If you look at the part on the outside I think you can actually see the antenna layout.

Should be simple to create the same thing with a wire and you don't have to install that plastic part to test.
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
same, after this procedure my dhd cannot find anything :mad:

interestingly why?
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
can you give a link for me, i will order too ...
[Desire HD General] Weasel-cz:
Did today and working for me! Also it solved my 2.50 GPS bug issue :)

Thanks for the guide
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
I had a couple of wires soldered to the board near base of springs. They worked awesome but as soon I put the cover back on no good. Tried a few times with different lengths but no good cover would always kill the signal. So we took the cover apart and noticed the antenna is actually exposed to daylight. The springs were then soldered solid with a new gps cover. They were too tall and a bit filing to make sure they had good contact and all is good now.

May be if I used the correct length as you say then the wires would have worked.
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
changed a flash cover to new?
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
Aha, now that you mention it. The cover is not the issue in that case, but the antenna inside of the cover is if you do it that way.

It will act as a deflector or will completely destroy the reception patern due to the metal in it.

Another option, The antenna doesn't break down, only the contacts towards the antenna.

you could also use wire wrap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire-wrap) and solder the antenna in that cover to the antenna points in the DHD. Only you would need to hold it that way that the wires are just long enough to solder them and not be like 5cm (2inches or so).

Or the way like you do it, that is absolutely perfect! Now the issue, where to find those springs ...

Antennas are a bit of science and become complex especially when they are build inside phones.

The sizes I gave you are the theoretical ones. In practical environments you have to concider that there is nothing in a certain distance of it, that it is straight etc etc.

Lets say that if you have fold an antenna double you will half it's wavelength meaning double it's resonance frequency.
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
Must admit I'm no electrical guru but you know the business. My springs are there but TBH they're not doing much. They were filled with solder and filed down. Sounds raw but my cousin did a good clean job. The GPS is so important to me I was happy to lose the phone if it didn't work. Seems like HTC gave that part of a phone to a trainee!
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
Haha, likewise. This DHD has made .... 3 phonecalls in it's life. For serious work I use my Nokia e71.

If GPS is important to you there is another alternative that also works out for other people here.

Buy a cheap BT GPS receiver on ebay. Most of them have a 5V USB connector to have them charged. Just leave that BT receiver in the car permanently. There are a couple of freeware tools that allow you to use the BT receiver with your navigation software.

I can assure you the reception and quality of output is better on the seperate receivers.

The only dissadvantage to some is that sometimes the time to fix will be longer (about 30sec or so) because it needs to download the data via the sats. For me personally I rather know which direction to head off than check on the GPS.
[Desire HD General] bbackzaa:
thank verymuch
[Desire HD General] FOZZER:
Well I ordered one of the replacement housings from eBay and I have sat looking at for the best part of a month, basically to scared to start prying parts of my phone off.

Anyway today I took the plunge and eased the casing off as per the video, but I used some nice plastic ( iPod ) prying tools.

I just took my time and once I removed the housing I left the two contacts inside the phone well alone ( I didnt want to break them ) replaced the new housing and powered up.

Woo Hoo I got GPS Lock in about 10 secs, instead of 10 minutes......

On one note the e bay seller has doubled the price of the housig I paid £5.99 and now they are £9.99 but a small price to pay I think.........
[Desire HD General] Kiwi_Dude:
I had terrible issues getting a GPS lock, most of the time it would just sit on "waiting for GPS". I ran GPS Status from the Market (downloading the A-GPS data), and that helped, but only for a day or so, then I was back to square one. Perhaps it was the fact that my DHD is from SG and it was locked to the server in Asia not Oceania...

Anyhow, I finally rooted the phone (something I had been meaning to do for a while), and still had the GPS issues. I decided to see what I could do before resorting to pulling my DHD to bits, so I ran Faster Fix, which allowed me to change the server to Oceania, and then ran GPS Status again, downloaded the A-GPS data, and now have fix in under 30 seconds that is accurate to within a couple of meters. That was several weeks ago, and still have very fast and accurate fixes. Perhaps another avenue for people to explore who don't want to pull their phone apart, or those who have and had very little, if any difference.
[Desire HD General] rakesh2002:
True, I too had the same experience. I had Hydrogenmod 1.8 and my GPS reception got worse, recently I flashed Honey3D 1.1 and woila! back to form.

Thanks Kiwi_dude, I will modify the post accordingly.

We could conclusively reckon that it is a joint effort by both hardware and software. this post might be helpful for the unrooted phones since we can be pretty much sure of the software conformity. Although when it comes to rooted phones, we have only fasterfix as a generic GPS clock synchronizer app, the kernel being in the hands of the rootkit chefs (well the chefs need not have good recipes all the time). So, be patient, try stable ROMs and keep this repairing technique as your final option (GPS receiver antenna casing on sale online is a good bet for everyone having GPS issues).

Also the A-GPS is a fancy feature for those having data plan, like I have mentioned in my post, Making our GPS work without any assistance other than the satellites, is the challenge.

Best wishes.
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
here is someone who has not worked GPS ... and after changing flash (gps) cover to a new one - began working??? :)
[Desire HD General] ukkopaha:
I had very poor GPS signal too. Before this fix. I didn't have second flash cover, but I cleaned the connections (there were a black spots) an pulled the pins a little. Now my DHD finds satellites very fast and works very well.
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
ukkopaha, i very carefully cleaned & assembled - and GPS stop working at all

was more best that I didn't so :(

ps: i ordered the new cover on ebay ... look
[Desire HD General] long-d:
juist tried it..

works perfectly... can only recomend... ;)
[Desire HD General] Weasel-cz:
Yes, I did..I actually wanted to try this guide before 2.50 patch but my GPS was working. 2.50 GPS bug forced me to try this solution :)
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
can anyone show the photo(s) with gps contact's position? please!

how they dished?
[Desire HD General] romaha:
It's amazing, works great. Thanks a lot!
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
i changed a flash cover to new - working!

but i do not wanna say that more best than before, i think the same in my case

ps: it's was problem with my old flash cover that at disassembling!, possibly, a contact of a gps antenna was damaged (micro-damage)

good luck!
[Desire HD General] Nathan4droid:
saved me

Wow thanks man I have tried everything. Except this fix and it worked great! I was about to run this thing over with my car every app I use needs gps.
[Desire HD General] julianobt:
yeaaaaaH!!!!

Funcionou perfeitamente depois do seu procedimento!!!!

It´s works perfectily after this!!!!!

thanks!!!

after

in side my house 20sec to fix!!!

before ....... no way

thanks!!!!!!!
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
after this the GPS Status fixing the medium signal for 4 secs

but before i didn't know, i didn't use this program and the Navitel Navigator fixed signal about 7-10 secs, sometimes for 3-5 secs, sometimes for 1 mins

but anyway thanks for this, now working fast & constantly
[Desire HD General] Andrbek:
the bug, sorry
[Desire HD General] jsm1970:
Fixed without dis-assembly

I had the GPS issue with no sats available since the latest update on my unbranded handset - driving me insane.

So Before succumbing to tearing it apart I used the free app GPS Status and the tools button in that app to re-calibrate the phones internal compass.

You can achieve this by entering the recalibrate mode then spinning the phone 360 degrees on X & then Y axis. Hit OK on the app after doing that and then guess what?

BAMMMMM instant lock onto 5 sats full strength!

To be sure I rebooted, and tried other apps that required GPS and they all work with getting a lock in less than 10 secs.
[Desire HD General] 112.bkt:
Don't disassemble your phone

DON'T DISASSEMBLE YOUR PHONE!! NOT YET!!

PLEASE TRY THIS AS I HAVE ENCOUNTERED THIS NO-FIX PROBLEM BEFORE AND HERE IS HOW I FIXED IT :)

1. Install Faster Fix from market place and set desired country (Free)

2. Install GPS Status & toolbox (Free)

3. Reboot Phone and try GPS Status & toolbox - (use mobile data as-well to download GPS assistance data IMPORTANT)

4. If still not working do as above post states and recalibrate GPS (IF NEEDED)

if it still does not work you may need to update your Radio and RIL files.

>>still not working then proceed at your own risk as you can damage your phone doing the procedure in the OP <<

Personally I could never get a fix until I updated my Radio and tried Faster Fix but the first two steps should help. NOW GPS IS FIXED WITHIN 5-10 SECONDS WITH ORIGINAL GPS ANTENNA :)
[Desire HD General] SudaDreamS:
Man you made my day ...

I can't thank you enough ... you are the man

FIXED .. after DAYS AND DAYS of searching online,changing radios, changing roms ...

I LOVE YOU MAN
[Desire HD General] endor2:
Works great, now locks super fast
[Desire HD General] wiiplayer94:
Good stuff
[Desire HD General] CarsonLee27:
Cool Man ~~

I should try it since i always need to search GPS for a long time ><
[Desire HD General] ineser:
Hmm a bit challeging to do it but it works great!
[Desire HD General] tuxxxer:
i never had a problem with gps. Fasterfix helped to speed up locking satellites a lot
[Desire HD General] ohadross:
hey, i just did as the method, and the GPS finally had worked, i had lock in few seconds,

but after about 2 weeks, my gps is not working again,

I check with GPS status and i get 9/9 Sats, but i can't get location..

I'm running Android revolution rom, and i tried FasterFix, but nothing helped.

any ideas?

thanks.
[Desire HD General] misterblue31:
Hello, I would like to clarify a few things about the replacement of the GPS antenna. I replaced mine in April 2011. Everything worked well for 2 months and reception problems have started. I bought two antennas, i replaced my antenna again and again worked perfectly.

I will report my experience to indicate that the manufacturing quality of these antennas is not good because at the time of assembly of the elements (cover and lens flash), a dot of glue to the two linked at a track and eventually make it break (vibration and other expansions).

HTC could fix this problem a long time!
[Desire HD General] dvsone79:
****! I wish I came across this thread a few weeks ago. I had an Inspire 4G that was having GPS issues, and none of the software fixes worked. Narrowed it down to hardware and got an exchange and sure enough, the new one is working. I would have liked to try this out first, though, just to see if it worked.

I am making a link to this thread from the thread I started (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1203133) about this same topic, only for the Inspire 4G. Maybe other folks who search for Inspire GPS issues instead of Desire HD GPS issues will eventually find their way here.

Thanks, OP!
[Desire HD General] hsncool:
you are amazing!
[Desire HD General] saimon05:
i went out yesterday and my gps is very accurate :D:D
[Desire HD General] thoffland:
This made a complete difference in my phone. Before this fix I was able to get a fix now and then, sometimes after a reboot, sometimes after clearing the agps data, but nothing consistent to measure by. After doing the fix, I've rebooted, shut gps off, then on, just to see if it's a fluke, but I'm now getting a lock around 5 seconds each time.

For so long I've been annoyed and messing with radios and roms, and all along it was this. Thank you so much for sharing this.
[Desire HD General] Roupette:
Hello, same thing as above!! I was trying all sorts of softwares solution, until I see that pushing the LED case was allowing to give me a fix, and that I get no fix anymore when I released it.

After this I found this excellent topic, pulled the little springs up, and now I get an immediate fix outside, incredible!! 10/12 sattelites without a problem! I'm so happy, thank you very much!
[Desire HD General] c-prodigo:
I did it, it works like a charm, does exactly what it says, but with a case on the phone , have to remove it first, or touch the back of the phone for it to work, but its great works inside buildings, and it never did before, I flashed radios, installed gps fix from posts but only this really worked so thanks.
[Desire HD General] hasan.cancer:
Thanx mate!

I have ruined the cover a little but it was worth it!......it perfectly worked.....thnx mate!
[Desire HD General] gemini44:
No gps sats found

i applied in this thread method but before my phone found 5-6 sats in 5 minutes but now any sats. how can i solve?? or i broke my gps??

thanks.
[Desire HD General] chaosdoctor:
Guys i have the exact problem with my DHD : every time that i open it hardly finds 2-3 satelites but after i open the gps test programm it will find at least 8 satelites!but every time i restart my phone have to do the same to get it work properly!do you think that i should do the same and change it?oti this is a software problem? I have tried all kind of roms and still the same!For now i have Desense!

Thanks in advance!
[Desire HD General] xdati:
Thanks a lot for this fix, - it worked very well on my phone. Gone are the days of lugging around an external Bluetooth GPS are over. My phone worked fine for about two months after purchase, and then broke down on a trip south of Rio, where it caused us a lot of problems trying to find our hotel. I tried everything to fix it, and sometimes it would work for a while, but I could never trust it. I had really given up when I came across this post, and after hesitating a little bit, I decided to give it a try. I started by trying to solder on some tin to the contacts on the cover itself. It quickly melted the thin contact so this was not a good idea. To save the day, I ended up using tinfoil to make good contacts by squeezing it between the flashlight cover and the metal strip for the GPS antenna. I bent upwards the springs in the phone a little bit, put it together and voila, now I have a working GPS.

I am extremely disappointed in HTC - their build quality seem to be very poor.I had two failing Desires before the DHD.

Thanks again for posting this.While it is not for everyone, I think most people should at least be able to clean and bend the spring a little bit, and that may be just enough in most cases
[Desire HD General] stihl:
Thanks for your post. Yesterday I tried this fix, but sadly it didn't do much. Although now that I've read your post about putting some tinfoil in between sounds like a good idea. I'll try it later today.:)
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
Can you tell us in which program that it only shows 2-3 sats?

Does gps status say like 8/8 or like 2/8 or 3/8 because the last number says how many sats that can be received and the first numbers the ones locked onto.

In gps test from Chartcross it will also mention the strenght. Might also be worth mentioning that.
[Desire HD General] haminhle:
After a longtime ... I got GPS !!!!!!! Thanks a lot !!!
[Desire HD General] recyclebin2011:
I had this issue with GPS but I brought it back to the shop for repair under warranty.

THe HTC warranty is two years so I don't know why people are risking breaking their phones. This is an obvious design flaw by HTC so they should fix it for free.

I could understand fixing it yourself if it was outside the warranty.
[Desire HD General] burnttoast87:
I used this fix in combo with the gps.conf patch (changed the servers to Australian ones though) and gps status guide, now I get super quick fixes. I scratched the case a a very tiny little bit (<1mm) but I have a cover on it all times so doesn't bother me. Not too hard to do.
[Desire HD General] scorpiopantera:
mine seems to be working ok.
[Desire HD General] h4mid:
TANX it worked for me

just remove &put cover
[Desire HD General] ed33:
This fix does work very well, it is the second time I've had to do it though. Seems like the contacts get worn.

So every few months you have to strip it down and clean the contacts and bend the springs up again.

Good tip, thanks.
[Desire HD General] Jam182:
It worked great for me
[Desire HD General] hakazvaka:
THANK YOU !!!

Got 12 satellites lock, before, I could not get 2-3... THANK YOU MAN !!!
[Desire HD General] fbw.sw:
does anyone tried this sucessfully with an uptodate radio?

after my try i had to restore my image because gps was totally broken
[Desire HD General] alexandruene:
After few weeks of trying to fix the gps believing that is a software problem i tried this method as well..U are the man. It works like no other gps device ever seen by me.Thank you very much..
[Desire HD General] jasopan:
hey guys I've realised if I push in my gps (the flash thing) i go from 50m accuracy and 6 satellites to 87m accuracy with 8 fixes INDOORS. This is a huge difference and I was wondering if it was possible to follow this guide and make the connection more you know, 'stuck together'. Without soldering (don't wanna get rid of warranty just yet).

So can i just follow the guide , not replace anything, clean and pull the psrings gently? Will this achieve the same as me just pushing the the gps/flash thing inwards?
[Desire HD General] arts.teun@gmail.com:
OMG (o my god)

I am an HTC Desire HD user suffering the GPS connection / fix issue.

Even though I hate those small marks / scratches that got in place while opening the LED cover, I Love This Posting because FOR SURE, It Solved the GPS connection issue!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much!!

I am having four of these devices and 3 suffered GPS connection.

It started after the update to Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread so I figured that would be the cause.

Contacted HTC Support a few times. Reset to Factory Defaults is the only answer they seem to be able to come up with.

Or else, so they say, send your phone in for repair...............

Shame On HTC Support, On HTC In General Because in my oppinion, This concerns a Serious Design Issue!!

HTC should call back devices with this issue and fix it.

Even in house and WITHOUT A-GPS (So WIFI OFF) it connects to 7 satelites within 30 seconds. Outside within 15 seconds.

SUPER, Many thanks again because I started to hate this phone and was looking for another device with GPS to use while running.

BRT
[Desire HD General] voltan:
Another one fixed from me - thank you!

However instead of bending pins and potentially breaking the spring contacts (which Ive done before !) I fashioned a new aerial out a small piece of braided wire (I tinned this with solder but didn't have to), hooked round each contact and made into a little loop like the standard aerial, and then insulated from the main board with a small piece of insulating tape.

I had tried everything never getting a fix in GPSstatus, only 1 or 2 satellites at a time could be seen. After applying this, boom - 10 satellites within 10 seconds and this was even indoors!!

Thanks Again.
[Desire HD General] technoplunk:
If possible I would love to see a picture of this.
[Desire HD General] leith51:
I'm must be still one of the lucky ones I've never had an issue with gps always accurate within 5-10 metres some times depending where I am its within 1 metre never had drop outs and locks in 5-10 seconds and my dhd is nearly a year old. But I'm still glad this thread is here just in case my gps finally does go like others have.

Great guide cheers for your work
[Desire HD General] krzych:
You are :)

I bet it is production line problem, so there's fat chance you'll never face this problem (and I wish you not to face :) )
[Desire HD General] anndrius:
:( didn't work for me. Tried 3 times and it was about the same or maybe worse... tried cleaning, bending springs, tried tinfoil, but no good. I get maybe 4/4, or 7/7 satellites or 10/10 in GPS Status, but it is still waiting for a fix. Tried all gps software fixes, but it is only working good the first day, and later I can't get a lock. Maybe i was doing it wrong... Getting the GPS antena out and putting it back was pretty easy, but without results :(

P.S what about other HTC phones, do they have GPS problems? Cuz i am looking for a new phone and what i really want is a good GPS performance :)