yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
Copper wire yes wire - WORKS!!!

So you've got bad contacts. What can you do about it? You can clean them or risk bending the springs. What ever method the problem will return in time and neither of these gaurantees a good contact. Poor on you HTC:mad:

Try this (risky'ish method) to test your GPS is ok. Take the GPS antenna cover off. Easiet solution for me: take the battery out, put a thin allen key into the battery compartment so the bendy bit reach the cover, then twist with a pair of pliers and it just flicks out:) Be careful of course!!!! Did it 3 times and no problems so far.

Now take about 3/4 very thin copper wire strands and wrap them thru the spring to get a good contact. I used a tweezer and again be gentle. You want a good contact and about 1 inch of wire left hanging. Do this on the spring nearest to the camera lens. Leave the other spring so if you broke it you're ok;)

Now startup your GPS Test app and watch the satellites and see if that helped. It better! I went thru everything and someone on here has already said copper wire made the difference. I get about 3-5 sats on a weak signal but its useless cause I keep loosing the lock. With the wire in place and just hanging out no GPS cover on, I got 7-9 sats (sometimes 11)!!!! Fairly good signal for each too.

I tested the other spring and it did nothing. I'm no electrician except putting batteries in my kids toys:p

I also soldered the contacts on the GPS cover which helped but not as much as I would like. Anyway, the solder broke off and killed the antenna:D That cover is dead cheap on eBay so it was a calculated risk. I bet the guy has sold a few since this post:eek:

Next step is to go down town and get one of those techies to solder some wire on and route it to avoid touching any bits.

At least I know my HW is ok just bad contacts.
[Desire HD General] RoryUK:
I tried everything, including checking the contacts. The best it could do was 1 or 2 satellites after 20mins without a lock :-(

In the end it was the Antenna itself. As a few have posted i picked one up off eBay (I thought it was worth risking it for a fiver)

Now I'm a very happy poster as i get almost instantaneous fix (2-3 seconds) :-) !

P.S. I can see why some peeps have broken the spring contacts as I they are indeed fragile (I play around with basic pcb's etc) so be warned. Just a bit of care and gentle lifting and all should be good if it is a contact issue you are having.
[Desire HD General] XXX-X:
You r Just Awesome

thanks Man, Works like a charm...
[Desire HD General] sober13:
risky but working
[Desire HD General] dlads:
Took mine apart, just like the guide, didn't break the contacts and now i don't get any satellites at all ?

I've called orange and they're doing a swap, i need to get this piece of **** back to stock, all the threads are just confusing man.

Any help getting my phone back to stock would be grateful.
[Desire HD General] thunderroid:
Yap sober13 is Right, But Working
[Desire HD General] Malobestino:
During this time I made more tests, and I observed that I can get fixes in less than 2 - and sometimes 1 - minute, depending on how clear is the sky, how tall are the near buildings etc.

What I don't understand is why it takes so much to fix.

I mean, I can get from 8 to 11 sat showing on GPS status in about 20-30 sec, but then it takes a lot of time to fix these sats, even if their position is correct (I can tell that the position is correct because they don't change position in the GPS status "radar" even after I get the fix).

Is that the same problem you all are experiencing, or you can't even get the sats to show off?

Please someone give me some feddback, because this problem is driving me crazy.

Thanks again
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
Think you need to try an app called Fasterfix available in Market. Please report back if it helped.
[Desire HD General] Malobestino:
Thanks for the advice, but I've already tried it with no luck.

I've gone beyond that and I'm actually struggling with different gps.conf files.

For the moment the one that seems to work better is this one (sorry for the WOT):

Please feel free to post any further advice.

Also, can you please tell me if your (previosly) slow lock with GPS was due to taking to much time to find the sats or to lock them?

Thanks
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
I tried one of those long gpsconf files with lots of servers. Didn't make much diff really. my europe conf while I am in middle east works fine.first lock takes about 2 mins when I haven't used it for a while.when its fresh takes 30 secs to 1 min.

If you're getting lots of sats that's good. Just keep tweaking that file and refresh AGPS data.
[Desire HD General] elazari:
hmm..

worth a try, hope i wont break anything :rolleyes: ...
[Desire HD General] Sybregunne:
I tested this by pushing on the cover just below the flash leds. and it works like a charm. So I removed the cover (as per the guide) and bent the springy contacts a bit. Put the cover back in. and voila still the same problem.

Guess I have to open the cover again and cross fingers that I won't break anything.
[Desire HD General] anxo79:
Thanks,work very good
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
I've had a wire soldered for sometime without the cover on. Its been working just fine.a As soon as you put the cover on the signal looses strength.

Last night I removed the wire and added some solder to make the springs very firm. In fact they were too firm so did some bending. Cover went back on and it is ridiculously good now. I'm now getting 9 up to 14 sats and usually accurate to 5 or less meters.

I bought another cover as I damaged the last one while soldering so I took apart the damaged one. The GPS antenna is visible outside. Notice the metal ring around the LEDs - thats it.

By the way, I switched back and fourth from north america and europe in fasterfix and it made no difference.
[Desire HD General] UpInTheAir:
By the way, did you actually reboot in between each test, as you should?
[Desire HD General] david2580:
Hey

one question:

My gps works nearly perfekt, but when i use google maps, my phone isn't located for 100%. The blue circle around my position is very small, maybe just 2 or barely 3 meters around me.

Shouldn't I have a perfect location with gps? Can I fix this problem with your fix?
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
Yes rebooted and I'm still on NA. Sometimes I get a lock in a few secs sometimes about 2 mins but each time I have loads of sats.

Would be nice to understand what the gps conf file really does. I've had a good fast lock sometimes with no SIM and even no reception.
[Desire HD General] lrm537:
Fix worked for me but i don't think i'll be going back in anytime soon as it is quite a delicate operation.

Don't try it if you're a bit ham-fisted.
[Desire HD General] lrm537:
I think most people would be more than happy with that kind of accuracy.

2 to 3 meters? I wouldn't try fixing anything if i were you.
[Desire HD General] MartinZs:
Dah! So long time checking, reading, flashing Radio versions, RILs and GPS.conf. And just now I find that thread!!!

And it works! I get my GPS back! Yippy!!!!!!!!!
[Desire HD General] UpInTheAir:
I'm pretty sure the config server settings are related to a-gps data, so a-gps data should be reset / downloaded again if you change the server in faster fix (after reboot).
[Desire HD General] HasC:
My gps was always crap from when I bought my DHD, so I thought I'll give the fix a try because I thought if it ain't working now, can't get any worse.

I wedged the cover up using the back of a teaspoon (I'm not endorsing this method, couldn't find anything else to do the job), I then lifted one corner and stuck in a plastic clock in card that I had from a job I used to do in the past, worked a treat, managed to get the cover off without damage. Upon close observation, the contacts on the cover looked brown or oxidised.

I thought this was strange so I scratched the contacts with a metal tool, can't remember if it was a screw driver or something else, blew off the dust and lifted the contacts on the phone slightly, once done, I closed back the cover and tested. The end result was zilch, it was exactly the same as before, could not get a lock, had about 3 satellites which kept dropping in strength. Nothing was damaged by me while doing all of the above but it all was a waste of time.

I then read some other responses to this thread and looked out for any further success stories and when I saw the link to the ebay site for a replacement cover, I thought I'll give it a shot as a fiver was not going to break the bank. The new cover I received today had white plastic for the flash whereas the old one was more yellow, the contacts on this were not bronze in colour and were golden, I again lifted the metal contacts on the phone ever so slightly and fitted the new cover, this time the fit was very flush and tight which was not the case with the old cover even when it was new.

I then made a little prayer and restarted the phone and tested from indoors using gps test and for the first time in my DHD's history, I saw about 7 satellites with a strong gps symbol and the accuracy was about 70 feet, I have just tried again and the accuracy was about 35 feet, this time I was further away from my window but the weirdest thing is, I managed to get 9 satellites.

Whoever says the cover does not affect gps, your wrong. I now have a fully working gps on my DHD and cannot thank the OP enough for this solution. Sorry for the long post but I am extremely happy right now even though I have not gone out for a drive yet, I am very positive that this solution has worked. Will update you all if there are any issues.
[Desire HD General] HasC:
Ok, took the car for a spin and the gps is working beautifully as expected.it did not drop signal at all, reminds me of the good old HD2 days, that handset had an awesome gps until I dropped in water.
[Desire HD General] sseibel:
thx, worked
[Desire HD General] alutastisch:
i freakin love you :D

thaaaanks. beautiful. now i need a fix for my proximity sensor.
[Desire HD General] pwraggcan:
Alutastisch:

There's an app made just for the dhd for that. Proximity sensor recalibrator. Look in the dhd themes and app thread or Goole it. Works perfectly.

Sent from my Motorola Startac running Atari 2600 software!
[Desire HD General] superss94:
than you!!!!!!!!!! to XDA members, now my gps works!!!!!! XDA the best forum!!!!!
[Desire HD General] zjmdp:
thanks~~~~~~~~
[Desire HD General] MACkjam:
!!!

Strange because I have not had a GPS issue from day one with my device.

When I update AGPS, I get an initial lock at about 1 or 2 minutes max. Thereafter I get a lock in 2-8 seconds every time!!! Oh, and this is while I am indoors!!!

I use GPS Status. Best app for this purpose imho.
[Desire HD General] magn3342:
it work for me

it work for me :)

inside I get about 10 meters of accuracy outside I get down to 1 meter accuracy
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
I was meant to upload this photo before. Its the GPS antenna all in bits. The metal ring is the actual antenna but we have a flimsy connection to it. After soldering my springs solid its worked awesome since.
[Desire HD General] superss94:
:( today in the morning i wanted to check again if GPS still works and do not.

I opened the dhd again and tried to lift the gold contact but i broke it
[Desire HD General] lennyirl:
good video thanks
[Desire HD General] amm009uk:
Yeh it will happen. I broke 1 of my springs but so what they are useless in my opinion. Get yourself someone who is skilled at soldering and turn both springs into a solid stand at the right height. It took my guy about 15 mins. Soldering and filing. I know it sounds crude but all you're looking for is a good connection from the board to the antenna.

No doubt this will kill any warranty!
[Desire HD General] fjdogar:
it worked

honestly i didnt believe this fix will work , and i accepted the fact that theres always a weak gps signal in pakistan. but then i thought why not give it a try , i did it and now i have a very good gps signal.

Thanks for the guide.

P.S putting lid back is more tricky than opening it. lol
[Desire HD General] rakesh2002:
congrats fjdogar.
[Desire HD General] binary010101:
Same here :(
[Desire HD General] cL0uD`:
Had the same problem, but i was a bit affraid to disassemble the phone myself, so i took it to the service centre. I came there twice but both times there were lines and they couldn't repair my phone instantly, the recomended me to come in the morning on weekend, so i did and they took my phone, replaced my back LED cover in 30 mins which i've spent fooling around with other demo phones. And now i'm again a happy user of GPS on DHD, works perfect =)

They also said this is a well-known stock problem of these phones, but after replacement in service centre, people usually don't come back with GPS problems.

So what i wanted to say is that the author of the original post is 100 % right, but if u'r affraid to damage your phone, better take it to service centre and try to speak the managers to repaid it instantly making the repair unrisky and not giving away your phone for few days =)
[Desire HD General] MACkjam:
I do not know what Desire HD some of you are talking about because I have had no problem with my gps at all. After initial lock of up to 2 minutes, it takes just 2-9 seconds for a gps lock indoors.
[Desire HD General] FireBlast:
I think it's issue affected only small part of the DHD devices.
[Desire HD General] J8ksCodeWerX:
possible "safer" way to do this.....

After reading through all the post about people breaking there contacts or this fix not being effective, i feel like i should share the way i fixed my inspire that had this problem. i always had hit or miss gps performance with this phone. when it would work, it worked great, when it didnt , it was pathetic. Since doing the following , it works 100 % of the time with great accuracy , HUGE DIFFERENCE.

I will take my phone apart tonight and post pix of exactly what this looks like to help anyone interested in trying this way. The whole part of this "fix" is just to ensure a good connection between the gps antenna contacts and the 2 spring contacts on the board. I found that for me just pulling the springs up a little didnt put sufficient pressure on the contact points to work any better. Instead of bending the springs even more and risking breaking the tabs off the board, i took a piece of foam tape of about 2 mm thick ( i had to cut it down with a razor blade ) and cut two small rectangles of the material preserving the side with the tape on it. I cut them just big enough to fit UNDER the spring tabs on the board so that there was a small amount of excess around the contact, and with a pair of tweezers and a toothpick i placed them on the board , tape side down , under the contacts. You may need to play with the thickness of the foam but the foam should be slightly compressed by the top of the spring contact without the cover even on it. this will ensure that when the cover is back in place the foam will push the contacts up alot firmer than the light spring pressure from a gold plated tin spring contact.

you may need to play with the type of foam and the thickness that you cut it but this method worked great for me and i had no worries of breaking the tabs from bending the springs up. Ill post some pix and maybe a video later today when i have a little time.

Hope this doesnt step on the toes of the OP of this thread i just thought i could share what i think is a slightly safer, and possibly more effective (????) way to do this.....
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
Been reading about this issue, since my desire HD will arrive today.

I used to do repairs (still personally) at a big well known company.

We used to use fiber erasers to clean contacts, pcb's and that worked wonders. They look like this http://www.conservationresources.com/Main/section_30/section30_11.htm

I don't think they are hard to get if you look around.

Only one advice if you use them not to touch the fibers with your skin because it itches like hell.
[Desire HD General] BBD:
Worked for me. Much faster fix and improved accuracy on 'GPS test'

Thanks
[Desire HD General] [Aek]:
My GPS reception used to be perfect when I first bought the phone, but has since deteriorated.

I attempted to fix the GPS with this method a few weeks ago, but it didn't improve the reception. My GPS antenna has these little dots, similar to what's shown on the youtube vid. Sanding didn't improve the situation either, to be honest I was probably a bit too eager with the sand paper too..

A replacement from eBay was ordered and the GPS is now working fine. GPS Test received signal from 6 satellites straight away where it used to struggle to get one after a 15minutes wait.

In case anybody is interested, I took a multimeter to both the original antenna and the replacement antenna. The resistance on the original antenna, with corrosion dots, is between 50-100Ohm depends on where the probe is placed. The resistance on the replacement antenna is less than 2Ohm. I think this is where the problem was in my case.
[Desire HD General] corruptjelly:
Works for me also.. thanks! :)
[Desire HD General] FiveInline:
Worked flawlessy here also! all i did was to open the LED Cover and cleaned it for dust and hair! and i CAREFULLY bent the contactpoint to the gps antenna up, and rasped att the two contactpoint on the LED cover.

so far, i get fix under 5 Seconds!
[Desire HD General] krifos:
Well I've had mixed success with this - I got it working for a little while, with good signals - aka quick fix, 10-12 satelites within 10-12 seconds - signals at around 20-40. Using GPS Test Plus to check this, and I've been comparing to my wife's brand new HTC Wildfire S.

However, this only seemed to work for a few hours at best, suddenly it was back to "normal", with several minutes for only 1-2 satelites with signal at around 10-20, and no fix at all. I've tried different roms, radios, rils, and all the tricks in the book to get the GPS working.

Anyways, as this method in this thread was the one who I had most success with, I figured I wanted to try to replace it with a new cover - so I found this on ebay. I figured it was worth risking 10£ to see if it actually would help replacing it.

And guess what - it did :D - As an added bonus, the new cover actually was much easier to get into place than the old one :P

Of course, I will need to test it for a few days to see if the problem comes back - but I never had as many satelites or such good signals and quick fix as I have now. I will reply back in a few days with an update, if it is still working :)
[Desire HD General] MACkjam:
Ummmmm......dust and hair under the LED cover???? Man, I'm not even going to ask......hehehehehehe.
[Desire HD General] HasC:
I did the same as you but only paid £5.50 for my replacement cover from one of the links somewhere on this thread. My gps never worked before I replaced the antenna/cover, now the gps works flawlessly.

I have practically been using gps everyday for the last few weeks since changing the cover and have not had any problems since.
[Desire HD General] steffenb4711:
just wow, my phone was always trying hard to find gps and always looses the

signal pretty fast ... i gave that method a try and afterwards it found 6 sats in like a sec. and that in my room, + realy ****ty weather ... big up for this nice tip !
[Desire HD General] fazi78:
i just done this and my fix was working fine but yesterday I got update for my phone and now I can't find any satellites.

anyone know what happen?

please
[Desire HD General] FiveInline:
Yup, i was suprised to :p
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
Hey guys, weird Q.

I have a brandnew DHD and when I check GPS reception with any program I get something which I did not have with other phones.

The easiest to check this seems GPS status which gives you a nice overview.

I get a lock in a couple of seconds but the number of sats changes quickly even when the DHD is not moving at all. Sometimes I have a lock on 9 sats and suddenly it drops to 4 and after a couple of seconds back to 8 or 9.

Am I the only one that has this?
[Desire HD General] Simba501:
I think that's typical. I see the same thing on my Inspire. I think the device needs more satellites for the initial lock, but not as many to hold onto it. The number of satellites increasing may be the device locking on to different satellites, or the same ones again. Either way, I think it's normal.
[Desire HD General] guliavikas47:
Thanks

wow ... i hope i can dare to do that some day :p
[Desire HD General] lukesan:
Never had that behaviour on my gps devices. My current ZTE blade, ex-HD2 etc all showed a steady gps reception. I agree that it can fluctuate 1 or max 2 sats but sometimes a drop of 5 sats is strange.

I might give it a videorecording and put it on youtube.
[Desire HD General] karakalem:
i want to do this so badly because i also can not get a gps lock. but i dont have the guts to do this to my beloved DHD. i'm scared :confused:
[Desire HD General] volvo940seturbo:
OK I too had the GPS issue, I tried the said fix, and at first it seemed to work, but then it went back to not getting a fix. Ordered a new cover off ebay, fitted new cover and all seemed well for a day or two, then the same again, took off cover only to find one of the copper fingers had broken, sent phone off to HTC, who I have to say were remarkably quick in fixing it. Phone was collected on the Tuesday morning around 11am, and was returned Friday the same week fully working and fixed, with a note saying a security sticker had been fitted ( basically saying, we know you were in there tampering, but we have fixed it FOC) and now it has never been soo good. I now get a fix from cold in less than 30 secs everytime, from hot in less than 6 secs, never have less than 10 sats, and accurate to less than 20 feet at worst.

Full faith back in HTC and have fell in love with my DHD all over again.
[Desire HD General] zombie.raised:
Ya worked like a charm , I know it has nothing to do with ginger bread update but just coincidence
[Desire HD General] alain57:
i nearly ****ed my DHD...

first of all i did not had the tool used in the video, but i hqve a very thin screwdrivers that did the work (but it also remove a little paint. so i have a little mark now, but i can deal with it... othe people let there DHD fall and have a lot more marks on it)

i first add some a thin layer of solder on the pads of the cover (the peace you dismount)

i mount it back and i tested it => no difference

then i noticed when i press the cover harder on the DHD, by magic i had a LOT of sats in less than a second... if i release it i loose them...

so i open it again and checked what i could do... i saw that the inner pad are moving (when you press them, they go a little down)

and i also saw that one of both was lower than the other, so i tried to push it out, but i used to much strong and the pad flew in the room .... :eek:

i tried to fix it again with the solder, but that was near impossible (i did it, but it goes away after remouting the cover ...

so i put a BIG amount of solder and replaced the pad with it (i throught => ok you ****ed it up, your going to sell a DHD without GPS not working on ebay)

i go out run gps test and for the first time i had a lock with an accurary of 8meters in about 5seconds

the best i ever had before was a lock in about 2 min with an accuraty of 20-30meters...

in GPS test i also noticed that before that, the found GPS where all weak (under 20), there was maybe one or two sat that was at 22-23)

now i have nearly all sats over 20 and some of them over 30 ..

DON'T play with the inner pads, they can flew out of the DHD very easily !!!
[Desire HD General] buttie:
The crucial thing are those plastic sheets, if you lift the cover a little to put them under it's quite easy to take it off. The problem is that cleaning will last for few weeks only. Soldering the antenna connectors is a must (cover side, not he motherboard - see post above ;) ).

I'm afraid that HTC f...ed up the design a little bit and every user will have problems eventually.