yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] zcata2008:
Hats off to you Leeno

This works just great

I tried the wire modfication first but the case had swolen because of the wire, so eventually i took down the wire, just used some solder on both of the GPS contacts and a little more on the other GPS contact on the back case (the larger square).

From not locking from my block, my SGS had 6 satelites with 5 locked (15 meter accuracy) in about 45-60 seconds (I used GPS TEST).

Will test more tomorow.

THANKS A LOT :highfive:

NOTE 1: THE PICTURES ARE FROM THE WIRE ATTEMPT

NOTE 2: I'm on HELLYBEAN 4.12 version 15.11.2012

Kernel Devil3 1.9.2
[Galaxy S I9000 General] zxseven:
may upload gps test picture? singal get over 40+?

---------- Post added at 05:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 AM ----------

4.1.2 cm10
[Galaxy S I9000 General] zcata2008:
I think i had over 40 signal points on street and at home, but I will test that later to have some proof.

However i jave some pics from the balcony of the offcie building i work in.

Note that before fix i could only see just one satelite, so the fix is definitely working.

I also think is best to have both GPS antennas be in good touch.

Will also test with CM10 after some backup
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ldoroni:
I thought that the other connection was for GPS :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] zcata2008:
Unfortunately no points over 40 so far. It was foggy outside, but i don't think this is the problem

Anyway it locks on satelites way faster than before fix.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LiverpoolFCfan:
Looks like the fog got into your phone too ! It's blocking out all the colours :laugh:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ripropp:
When I put finger on GPS antenna it gets signal so I decided for easiest fix: just to solder 1 mm on top of contact to make pressure on conductive gummy, as you can see at picture below. It works great.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alsheron:
I've had my beloved i9000 for about 2 years now and was considering a Nexus 4. Can't get hold of the Nexus 4 at present and my S1 always had severe GPS problems (unuseable) which was mostly the reason I was so fed up with it (couldn'y use Google Nav properly)

So I found this thread and went out to Maplin to get a battery powered soldering iron to do the job. I've literally never soldered before and so found some Youtube videos to give me some idea.

Anyway - very nervously I checked and checked again what I was meant to do and removed the unused contact from the bottom of the phone. I also removed the rubber "contact" (what was samsung thinking!??) from the upper part of the phone. I then got my soldering iron and attempted to solder the contact from the bottom to the now vacant spot where the conductive rubber was removed. And failed miserably.

No matter how hard i tried I just couldn't get it accurate enough to get them joined and level. Thankfully I was careful and fortunate enough to not get solder on anything else or do any damage - except when I decided to bend the contact up from the other side at the top and to my horror, it snapped off - they are quite fragile. So I decided to put a "blob" of solder on both the broken contact and the bit where I'd removed the rubber and pull it up when hot, like a peak. I then snipped off the top to make it just the right height and re-attached the back cover. I had to take the cover off again a couple of times and trim some more but........................................

Once all that was done, I fired up google maps and to my amazement - it really has made a huge difference. It's not perfect but it's now very useable and I can use my SGS1 as a "proper" phone for the first time since I got it.

So thanks to the OP for this post:

Be very careful while soldering.

You can use the solder itself as "blobs" to form peaks if you can't use it to attach the connector.

If you break any contacts - use a blob of solder!

Peace and thanks again!

Edit: Post above for TL : DR

etc: Now I've bought a new 2800mah battery from ebay so my phone is like new!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] magician369:
I just love this fix

View attachment 1542146
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alfredio:
I tried my own, soldering-less version of this fix: I made the rubber connector just a big taller by adding on top of it some aluminum foil (normally used in kitchenware) folded some couples of times. I just folded the aluminum and layered it on top of the rubber connector, then put the cover case on top: pressure is keeping the aluminum foil in place (be sure to make it thick enough).

Result: it works amazingly!!! And it's 100% reversible :)

I finally, for the first time have a working GPS on the phone. From almost never getting lock, or loosing lock very often, it now locks in seconds, and never looses it (except where under tunnels, of course, but then it gets it back very quickly, at any speed up to 130Km/h, tested in a car). It even locks in seconds without internet connection (travelling abroad), so without support from wi-fi or cellular network.

Very great patch Leeno! Congrats and thank you!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] knedlyk:
Leeno, I admire you! Wow! I used your method and now gps lock takes 35-55 sec vs 5-14 min as it was before!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] vijilKiwi:
I *thought* I'd need to do this fix, but it seems like moving to CM has fixed all my GPS problems. It's odd really - maybe not all i9001's were made equal?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] geko08:
I'm from Austria and only changed on my i9001 from europe to north-america.ntp.org. Only this - without any hardware-manipulation - made Gps-Connection really amazing.

See http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=27097091

Sry f m bad English

Sent from my SGS+ i9001

with GIGABREAD+ / FeaCore_Phoenix

using XDA premium
[Galaxy S I9000 General] knedlyk:
Come on, guys, if you don't have good enough connection between gps module and antena then none of the software manipulation will help you. It is obvious that all devices are different, some of them have good connection, others have weak connection (bad fabric build or damaged by owner). My suggestion is as follows: if software fix can't help you then problem is in hardware.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
No one antenna will never work attaching with glue :)

you have to solder it
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
this solution fix the good antenna contact, it work few time only because of reassembling
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
Tutorial updated
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
Just like the picture, they are taked from italian i9000

ciao form Naples :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
my solution is hardware fix, when software fix not work, anyway this solution give you faster and better signal because of conductivity rubber have low conductivity for gnd
[Galaxy S I9000 General] edin.gacan:
Is this tutorial valid for Galaxy S 4G T-Mobile version? I own this phone, and also GPS sucks. I'm thinking to give it a try... can somebody please tell me? Thanks!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
post your phone photo, mainboard and internal back cover (gps antenna and 4g antenna)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] BirthdayDog11:
I already sold my SGS, because it didnt' have GPS.

Now I wish I had it back to test this fix.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kentt1:
Is there something similar for i897
[Galaxy S I9000 General] saphirrot:
about second method :

where did you remove this contact from and what was it doing there ? Nothing ?

Youtube Video how to do that would be awesome !!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] mainecrab:
Would this work on Tmobile Vibrant as well? Or other Galaxy S phones? I just broke the GPS antenna and fixed it but the performance is less then stellar
[Galaxy S I9000 General] rizzy123:
Can someone please do a vid tutorial, would be very much appreciated.

Thanks
[Galaxy S I9000 General] chancsy:
I managed to remove the extra contact but I have problem removing the rubber. Please help! The rubber seems to be dissipating heat quite well? I need suggestion on the temperature of solder iron

Edit: After awhile (~5 minutes of poking), the rubber came off but not totally with some of the rubber sticking to the pad so strongly. I tried method 1 but failed:

1. It's indeed hard to solder the connector

2. The height of the connector was too high (because of the rubber leftover) and pushing the cover

3. Aim missed! - Failed to align to the pad at the casing

In the end, I changed to method 2 using a small wire to connect the GND. Result: IMPRESSIVE! I never know GPS can be so fast! Locked within 10s. And this time, it's the final ultimate solution. No more GPS headache for this old phone.

Thanks LEENO :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beowulf_pt:
Nice. The totally useless/non-existent GPS on the Galaxy S1 was one of the reasons I returned it and consider it a pretty bad unit. I knew it had to be hardware related.

I wonder if the Galaxy S2 would benefit from any hardware tweaks too. The GPS is a lot better, it actually works, but if I knew how to improve its antenna, I definitely would... sometimes it still loses lock and doesn't have very high signal.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] MoneyFace =p:
Hi TS, how did you remove the unused antenna? I tried to do it with a minus sign screwdriver but it seemed stuck there...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] LEENO:
you need iron solder
[Galaxy S I9000 General] idCyber:
You are a GOD ... I was kinda scared to remove the rubber and to "glue" wires around my phone and now because of you, for the first time since I have my i9000, the GPS finnaly worked.. and how ! :D I folded a piece of aluminium foil around the size of the rubber and I placed it on top of it and carefully fixed in place the case back on my phone. Placed the battery back in place and the back cover, turned the phone on and I went outside to test the experiment and my first reaction was a smile and a huge OMFG ! In a matter or seconds it found 10 satellites and connected to 8 of them instantly with 4 having the signal strength of 22-28 and the other 4 had the signal strength of 33-37 . I went for a walk for about 500m from my first location and I didn't loose the gps fix and the nr of satellites I was getting a fix alternated from 7 to 10 ... 10m accuracy.. Sir, I thank you so much, finally the GPS is fixed. Without this trick, my phone found 2 to 5 satellites in 2 minutes, fixed to 4 of them and I was loosing the gps fix after 10 meters of walking. I may sound excited and I really am :D Ty once again!

Edit: I've used FasterGPS to select my country's NTP server and maybe that made my phone to find the satellites extremely fast. I've used GPS Test to Clear and Update AGPS Data and to see the number of satellites, signal strength and accuracy.

Edit 2: I've attached some Screenshots I took today when standing still, walking and relaxed jogging and all I can say is ... AMAZING ! :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] BigBadBoy:
I tried this way and finally i have a working GPS.... Fix in a couple of seconds...

Amazing!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] maitokeul:
Glad that it worked !

Could you please show how you did it with a few pictures?

That would be very helpful, thanks :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lkjsoiuew:
Another success story

INCREDIBLE!

I did the thing of page one. Except that I placed the contact in the opposite direction. I thought this might fit the contact better,

Now I get 5 sats and fix in 20 sec. where I had to wait for 10 or more minutes to find 3 sats before.

Peel the rubber off with a sharp blade to get shining metal, put solder on it, then place the contact.

I didn't read the aluminum foil variant I was too impatient ;)

By the way, it seems to be a Samsung problem, I tried the Galaxy S Player 3.6 before, the GPS was similarly bad ...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] naitik333:
can some one please post or pm me the detailed video of aluminum foil trick.. i have never done soldering in my life and don't want to take risk.. so i will try aluminum foil method which sounds less risky and if it not works (I really hope it works :)) than i will think of trying soldering method... please give me the video link...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] anismail:
Thank you! :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] atif_amin:
occupation wardonc

finally my GPS will be restored like it was...going to try this....

Thanks...

also waiting for the aluminium foil method (easier than soldering)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Nemivsek:
toring

Can anyone make video how to do this :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lukesan:
I've done the contact trick but I guess with a bit of common sense it should be easy to do the aluminum foil thing.

Once you have the i9000 opened once it is easier to open the second time (to experiment). I would only take a very very small amount of foil since the contact itself is also small. Cut it a bit bigger than the top contact of the rubber.

I would check if you can bend it a bit over the rubber contact so it doesn't slide away when you attach the cover. Bend is a big word since we are talking about very small things here.

To make sure I would at least put the device flat on the screen and try to put the cover on so the foil won't shift.

Don't compare values here on the thread because SNR etc depends on day, time and location. Also ICS roms show less SNR value than the GB ones but no worries about that. Just do a before and after on your own spot (outside that is). If it is improved just put the screws back in and you are good to go.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] naitik333:
lukesan thanks for your reply...

For noobs like me and others who dont know E of Electronics, a detailed video will be highly appreciated..

Please take this into consideration...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] b1tt1:
Thanks alfredio!

Since my i9001 is still under warranty, I tried the aluminium foil fix so I can revert the fix if needed. Worked brilliantly, my GPS went up 7-9 points and can now get a fix in 10-20 seconds (before it often took 2 minutes).
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dagbdagb:
+1.

This did a ton of difference for me as well. on cm10.

Now I have flashed 10.1 (3012), and the gps performance is crap.

The sats I see have a fairly good signal, though.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Bo0bz:
Try changing the GPS.conf for your country

Verstuurd van mijn Nexus 7 met Tapatalk
[Galaxy S I9000 General] a g bell:
Doesn't work GPS is bad on 4.2
[Galaxy S I9000 General] thETImo:
My GPS has always worked well. Even with 4.2.1. ;)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] a g bell:
My GPS has always worked well too without wrapping it in baking foil but after flashing several 4.2 ROMs and flashing back to 4.1 its clear 4.2 has poor GPS

Thankyou
[Galaxy S I9000 General] CatalystWon:
Everytime you flash or update your ROM you should update your GPS.conf file AND reset & update AGPS data. I always keep a copy of a good GPS.conf for this purpose.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Bo0bz:
Yeah that is so true. Most ROMs use another GPS.conf. when you for example flash CM10.1 nightly the pool will change back to north America

Tapatalked!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] galaxyms:
OK. I took the back off the phone to try this fix. I unsoldered the unused contact. One thing I was wondering about was why Samsung used this rubber pad instead of a proper contact. If you look at the size of this rubber thing its smaller than the contact that I had removed. I thought it would be hard to align this properly on a pad which is smaller than the contact and not designed for it. I got my meter out. There was a very good 0 ohm resistance between the conductive rubber and the circuit ground - easily with no pressure on the rubber at all with the meter!. So I can't see why in my case that removing this rubber thing would help. But after going through the hassle of removing the phone cover I decided to try and make sure the contact between the gps antenna and the rubber ground was as tight as possible if this seems to be the problem, so I tinned the GPS antenna ground (on the cover) with a mm or so of solder.

Found the power button which had somehow gone on the floor behind me and put the phone back together. I will test later in a car but so far the reception seems no better indoors 3 in view 0 in use.

EDIT: I've done a check on a short journey, it seems better. More testing required but early signs are good.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] joluis7:
Re GPS Fix S1 9000

If the contact from the antenna is made of rubber carbon you can clean it and the copper contact on the antenna probably will work again or put a copper spring between the receiver and the antenna instead of soldering (you can get a small spring from the watch spring bar) put a small hole on the rubber carbon enough for the spring to fit
[Galaxy S I9000 General] exxpecial:
great work
[Galaxy S I9000 General] madeffx:
GPS connector

Hey, I have the GT-I9000/rooted ICS.

I had no GPS connection whatsoever. So I opened this phone up, lifted the little connector upwards ( see photo ) and the GPS is working well so far.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Pilone92:
I will try this trick but now i'm very careful and i'm not sure that it improve mygps signal..Now my gps works well with 3g connection but somtimes the signal of gps laggy and this is very bad:mad:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] casaprocida:
I fix all my problem flashing it xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1563226 , tested by me with i9000 and i9001.

It add the AGPS function and need a data connection.

With it I have a GPS FIX in less than a minute.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kyriakos89:
Guys, I have the same GPS problem and want to try the fix described here.

The problem is that I tried all my precision kit screwdrivers and I do not have a philips screwdriver that is small enough.

So I have to buy one, but I do not want to try again and again to get the size right.

Can someone tell me the correct size for the i9001 screws?

Thanks a lot in advance!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ofer6483:
Thanks for the help
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kyriakos89:
Anyway, just in case someone else is looking for this piece of information in the future, the size is 00.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tamazawa:
i tried it and it works much much better :)

thanks for that !
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ionutz3d:
thanks

Yes it works for me:cowboy:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Barcors:
Yeah, I have tried the wire method and lost GPS at all. After investigating I come to same conclusion and have tried to lift that little hot connector. Guess what - I have it broken. After all I have found old mobile phone and took from its earpiece spring contacts and soldered these instead of wire and rubber contact. I will try to add picture and you can see I hope.

Now I must try my reborned GPS outside. But even now I can tell that it looks better.

Before

After

How it looks like

View attachment 1773441
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sklaes:
Thanks - works well.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] albertocastillo2001:
Hello

According to this image

Isn't it possible to add some sheet paper behind the antenna where the contacts are to make some pressure and push against the connectors?

That would be reversible and solderless

What do you think?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] the.igorr:
Odp: [FIX] i9000 i9001 gps final fix

Being so much tired of constant signal loss, I've decided to upgrade my gps by moving third, unused contact and replacing that damn rubber. Now I'm golden: no more gps problems, quick fix and 5-15 meters accurancy. Signal levels in GPS Test didn't change a lot (going from max 30-32 to about 36-38), but now I've got stable lock on 6-9 sats out of 11 visible, and absolutely no signal loses.

Thanks LEENO!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] neozengar:
I have done the mod by add a piece of aluminum foil on top of the rubber. I really appreciated everyone's advice on this thread! Now, it locks fast but it is not very accurate, which is around 20-30 meters. For those who are getting accuracy of less than 10 meters, can you please tell me what rom/kernel you are using? I am current using the latest slimbean with semaphore kernel. Could this be why it is not as accurate? Thank you in advance!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] CesarSan:
GPS Fix

Guys, I found this topic when I was searching how to fix the GPS from my SGS but in my case, I had a physical problem with the GPS Antenna and I had to adapt and antenna like the procedure number 2 of the following topic:

http://www.htcmania.com/showthread.php?t=399922

To guarantee the connectivity I decided to remove the connector from the board and solder the wire (antenna) directly to the main board of the phone but the problem is that when I was trying to place the wire correctly behind the cellular wire antenna, the GPS wire released with the solder and ripped the metallic connector (island) from the main board!

It was equivalent to what happened in the following post but with the main connector and not with the GND:

http://xdaforums.com/show...&postcount=186

Is there somewhere else in the board I can get this same connection or the only solution is to replace the board?

Thank you very much!

Cesar
[Galaxy S I9000 General] bodzik155:
I'm gonna try it out ASAP. Then I will write results ;d.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] urim225:
i have broken my gps antenna ,can someone tell how can i repair the antenna ???
[Galaxy S I9000 General] zaptac:
AW: [FIX] i9000 i9001 gps final fix

If you don't describe how you broke it: no.

Send by me.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Barcors:
Photo please, and be not in a hurry! Second link is not working so it is not very clear what hapened to you.

I believe you need rework and be careful with overheating.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] CesarSan:
Thanks for the answer and sorry if I didn´t make myself clear with my explanation of what happened! My phone is assembled right now and I didn´t take any picture of the problem, but I am attaching the picture of the second link that isn´t working.

This picture shows the problem of another member of the forum (mcmanuf) but the problem that he had was with the ground connector and mine with the main connector of the antenna (marked with an arrow in the picture). I don´t know if it is clear in the picture but the conductive island of the board was removed, probably because of overheating as you said.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Barcors:
OK that's bad. It couldn't be bad if it would be ground connector - you could try use other ground but now it is bad. You must try to find out if there are any conductive left on the board. If you will find any clear surroundings of it carefully with sharp tweezers or scalpel. After that you will see if it is still possible to solder it and try again being careful about overheating. If you are not sure about that you can find in an electronic store conductive glue (f.e.: www.ebay.com/itm/0-3ML-New-Silver-C...Electronics-Repair-Applications-/251064615634 ) and try to make connection with that.

If you will not success in finding of any conductive left on the board - there is no any other way to restore. In this way i would use an external Bluetooth GPS dongle.

And at the end - might be it is time for new device :)

I hope you will be success.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] CesarSan:
Thanks a lot! I didn´t know this conductive glue and I will try it out but I think that was the incentive that was missing for me to buy a S3!!!

BR,

Cesar
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Barcors:
Ha ha this is what I am thinking about myself. :laugh: Because this hardware fix helped me not so much. So wait for 14 of March and Samsung will present SGS4 and you will likely want that one ;)