yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kenwood96:
i can confirm this works a 100%!!!

Had lousy, almost unuseable reception, now my phone hits the spot in no time!

I did the wire mod...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Plantaman:
Success as well

I can verify that the fix works like a charm. Took some sweating, but after completely screwing up soldering the extra pin, I managed to make a little "spike" out of solder, that contacts with the antenna.

Now I have fixes in 3 seconds, 5-10 metre accuracy.

KUDOS, Leeno!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] BumRush:
Anyone know if this can be applied to the captivate as well?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] reaper1412:
Done! and my GPS seems to be better.

Need a through test. Got 30+ SNR but never touch 40.

Did the 2nd method.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] babai93:
Can you please share a video tutorial on that!!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] no driver:
I would also like to know. I looked at some tear down photos from ifixit and it looks like the PCB layouts are different between the I9000 and Captivate. I don't know enough to figure out whether a similar technique could be used in our case or not. Hopefully someone who does can chime in.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] myrddral:
My GPS never locked before, now I've soldered a thin copper wire to the connectors (as shown in 1st method) but still no luck getting a fix. The wire doesn't touch any other metal part of the board. The phone finds 5-9 satellites, but never locks on them. The signal strenght is about 25-40 at the first few moments of initialization then drops to around 10 in a second or two. Then sometimes it goes up again and drops.

Any ideas what can cause this?

Ps.: The board's connection to the antenna should be ok, I can see the connector leaving mark on the small plate of the antenna.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] xyron_2k:
Working like a charm , thank you very very much, this fixed my useless gps. I used the first, wire method.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] gimli29:
Thank you for this gps fix. My gps is finally accurate to 5 or 10 meters. Before it was totally useless.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] phees:
Brilliant! Thanks a lot!

This fix saved my day!

I went for the proper solution, unsoldering and reusing the spare connector. Lovely idea!

Samsung should be sued for producing such a bad connectivity and not accepting it as a warranty claim. The rubber connector is the worst idea ever, especially with such a low signal technology as GPS! Especially since they are using proper connectors everywhere else and even "deliver" a spare part :)

The only reason I can think of is using the rubber connector as a resistor, maybe to dampen the antenna. But choosing an badly defined rubber resistor would also be a very poor choice. So, probably they just forgot and then threw in the rubber thingy as a bad workaround.

Anyway, I never had such a good GPS signal on my SGS and can recommend the solution to everyone who has a bit of experience with a soldering iron and knows how to (a) not overheat a circuit he is working on and (b) has a some fine motor skills.

Cheers!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] phees:
You should measure the resistance between the two connector pads (board and antenna), maybe the connection is not as good as it looks.

Also you could have damaged the plastic antenna by overheating it while soldering.

If possible, use the second solution. When soldering, be sure you have a proper soldering iron with either a very small tip or one meant for SMD soldering. Don't overheat and properly ground everything. Soldering on a populated board is always risky.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] thibal:
Thank you!! Now i have 5 meters accuracy, this is amazing!! Samsung should pay you!

Sent from my SGH-I9000
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Asrafil:
To all skeptics, DO THIS AT ONCE!!!!!

I'll be damm. For the first time I see 5mts accuracy and 10 satelites sync all the time. Used method 2.

A big thanks to you my good sir.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] vaibhavkapoor:
Thanks so much for this fix! 100% confirmed it works.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] t-jet:
This fix kicks ass!!!!!!!!!! I love you dude.

I have done method 2 (soldering the spare spring to the gps gnd) and I'm now getting 5-10m accuracy outside and 15-25m near the windows. Not as good as i9001, which has 4m accuracy outside AND inside, but it's still amazing.

I considered buying a new phone because of the poor gps performance, but now I don't have any reason anymore.

Thanks thanks and thanks LEENO.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] the-weatherman:
I'll grab an iron solder on monday. So far I have already managed to gently remove the rubber with alcohol, unfortunately I have broken the top of the useless connector, I hope soldering it will do the trick, will let you know.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] marcelogabriel:
Hi,

The rubber contact is connected to ground?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kavkatan:
Thank You!

this really helped a lot.

at first i thought i have ruined my gps because the next close connector lost contact cause the new one was higher.

i gave it a little bend upwards and now its working.

Thanx
[Galaxy S I9000 General] the-weatherman:
Yes it is, watch the picture very carefully before soldering. Good luck :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] BattleBear3000:
For me it is also working with only modifying the gps.confg file :p
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Hey,

I have an i9000 that does acquire satellites, but rarely gets a very strong signal. If it views 10 or so satellites, it'll usually lock to between 8 and 10 but the strength will only ever get as high as maybe 20-30, sometimes 18. This means that it regularly bounces about when driving and it usually causes it to lagg to which means you miss turns. I've never had an accuracy higher than 30 meters or 45. I think I've once had 15 meters but it was only briefly and doesn't happen very often.

Would this fix that? Or is this for those with NO GPS connection at all?

A proper tutorial would be great. I really can't tell from the OP what to do :( whichever way is better/safer.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Reading through those german websites now.

OK, sort of understand it a bit more. How do you remove the antenna in the second tutorial? The unused one? So I can move it to the place where it is used.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] GreatVortex:
I soldered a thick isolated wire and now my gps works like a charm.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Where to ? thats the problem, none of the descriptions really give enough information :'(

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:32 PM ----------

OK, i've got. I've worked out which contact now.

Solution 2, how do you remove the unused contact? or is a cable a better solution.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kavkatan:
i just used a sharp blade and it snapped out.

be sure u clean the surface of the small part u puled out. with sand paper or something of the sort.

but people here recommend unsoldering it out.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
So you didn't unsolder it or is that impossible?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] GreatVortex:
The cable is easiest solution and works exactly like the unused contact.

The unused contact you have to solder and its a little bit harder to do. you have to align it with the antenna contact perfectly.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
OK, so that's basically remove the rubber piece, solder a piece of wire to the contact and then solder it to the contact on the case. Can I use insulated wire or does it have to be bare wire? I am very enthusiastic about doing this mod to lol.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] GreatVortex:
Use a thick insulated wire. Solder a piece of wire to the contact and then solder it to the contact on the case and you`r done.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Sounds good. I'm not used to soldering on circuit boards, usually guitars lol!

so I'll have to get my smaller soldering iron out lol :o Not used it since I was about 15 lol!

Will let you know how it goes :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] GreatVortex:
Good luck!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Thanks :D before I do it. This will work on phones that just get poor signal won't it?

Mine does get a GPS connection, and it does kind of work, it's just not very good, a bit slow locking and sometimes loses connection. It's also proper **** for the Fitness app which tracks your movements.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] GreatVortex:
My phone saw the satellites but didn`t locked. And when it locked i had weak signal. I opened my phone and replaced the rubber with a thick insulated wire. Now i have lock and an accuracy of 5meter.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Cool. Just took my phone apart for a quick look I'm not sure if I slightly pulled on the little piece of plastic sticking out from the power button, its gone back on the hook okay though so we'll see if it breaks when I'm using it. It felt a teeny bit flexible for what is essentially a piece of plastic. That said, the power buttons are 3 quid off ebay so if i do break it its an easy fix.

There isn't much space to work with so I'm just looking at how I'm going to solder this safely.

---------- Post added at 05:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:37 PM ----------

Ahh, think i might have taken it apart wrong but its ok, the buttons working for the moment and ill remember for next time just in case i have snagged it a little bit. It should hold up okay and if not, ebay ;) Ill let you know how i get on,
[Galaxy S I9000 General] t-jet:
Some users asked, how to remove the unused contact.

Just put your solder iron on it and it will come off very easily!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
ahh, okay. Well I don't think I'm going to use that method. I ran out of time last night so I ended up not attempting it (want to sit down and do it properly)

Im going to try and do it in the next couple of days but I have a number of jobs on, including rewiring the back of my head unit to cut out all the stupid converters lol!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] phees:
Yup, better, take your time.

Unsoldering is quite easy, take some tweezers, grab the contact and slightly pull on it. Now touch it with the soldering iron's tip and wait for it to come loose. Don't try to snap it off' unsoldering is much safer.

SGS, CM10 alpha
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alhaaer:
Guys do you know if GPS signal is good in the Middle East or not?

Beacause we're usually the last ones to get new techs .. so if gps is already weak in the region i wouldn't need such a fix
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
I have no experience of visiting the middle east, but from a purely logical point of view, GPS satellites orbit the earth using an equal distanced constellation so realistically speaking, the minimum number of satellites you should see is maybe 6 and the most is 12, but you should always see some, so yes I guarantee GPS works in the middle east.

You're from Saudi Arabia yes? If anything, I'd assume with your climate being very hot with clear skies and quite low humidity you'd actually get excellent GPS reception because clouds and rain are one of the biggest factors in distorting GPS signal. This is because water actually attenuates the low powered GPS signals so high humidity, clouds or rain are a bit of a nightmare. Obviously, man made obstacles also distort GPS such as windscreens, buildings etc, but the main environmental obstacles for most GPS systems are the clouds and rain.

That is why GPS always locks on a warm clear day faster than on a cold cloudy day.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] fishears:
Well, I had high hopes for this one but I removed the rubber, removed the unused contact and soldered it to the GPS antenna point (solution 2) and it has made no difference at all to my reception.

Its definitely in the right place but I suppose the only way to guarantee connection is to bridge it with a piece of wire. Maybe another day.

Thanks for the tip anyway.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jpabloae:
Amazing, it works extremely well.

In my case it's a move from nothing to everything, really: previously it was almost useless as it took several minutes to see the satelites. Now it takes less than 5 seconds to see them and lock (9-12). The accuracy is acceptable too (below 10 meters). I've used the second solution. Thank you so much!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alhaaer:
Thank you for the reply

you're totally right I usually get 4-6 satellites .. but I currently live in the eastern region of the country where humidity sometimes rises to 90% so this could be the reason !! i dont know .. some times I get the signal within a minute .. bet some times it's like for ever .. any way I guess I'll buy the Galaxy nexus pretty soon .. so I wouldn't need to fix this

thanks for the help any way
[Galaxy S I9000 General] fishears:
I take it all back! Now I've tested it outdoors things are considerably better than they were.

:D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] hyongju:
Finallly my gps

Works great. Thank you very much!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Gvdn:
Thank you so very much used method 2 and everything is working superb. Amazing really!!! i get 5 meter accuracy lol.

A hint to people trying this. When u got out to test put all screws back in place else cover isnt pushed hard enough onto contacts and u get nothing.

Also what i did is used the occasion to lift all contacts a little bit. Be very cautious to not try to go to high else u might break them.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] switch_42:
Hi,

thank you very much for this fix. I chose method 2 and it was easy.

I can't believe samsung uses a rubber to connect the antenna.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] flapane:
Yup, at least that's what the theory says. The thing is that I always noticed faster fix in the US rather than in EU, with different phones.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Is that using GPS or A-GPS?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] flapane:
Sorry, I forgot to specify that I was referring to the old-style GPS fix, without A-GPS data.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] qtekker:
After reading so many success stories last week I decided to use method 2, even though my gps signal is acceptable. I had 10-15 meters accuracy with connection to 10 satellites. I'm just too curious. I had to try.

Stupid me. Method 2 is too difficult for someone who never soldered before. It's difficult to solder the unused contact to the main board. So I ended up with a non working gps. Once the rubber is off, there is no turning back.

Today I decided to go for method 1. This method is much easier. My gps is reannimated and the signal seems even better: 5-10 meters accuracy on the top floor in my house.

There are many many SGS users in the past 2,5 years with bad gps. And Samsung failed to help their loyal customers. After 2,5 years the solution comes from this xda forum. WELL DONE LEENO!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Interesting. With A-GPS I could understand. The US Mobile network is far superior to most countries in Europe. Technological countries like Spain and Italy, have a piss poor mobile infrastructure. Only countries like England (not UK, Wales, Scotland, Ireland its poor), France, Germany have excellent mobile networking.

However, standalone GPS only is strange. I get very good GPS signal here in the England, even in poor conditions but lock times vary from superfast (5sec) to superslow (2min+). A big thing is that England has a lot of countryside, and forests have a surprising influence on the signal.

So once the rubber is gone there's no turning back. You can't reattach it for example? Damn, that's a slight put off. I had figured if I remove the rubber carefully, I could perhaps reattach it if I ever sold the phone on or something. hmmm
[Galaxy S I9000 General] qtekker:
The only way to put the rubber back is with glue, and glue doesn't conduct. So your signal will be worse than before. But don't worry. Method 1 is easy and effective. Of course you'll need to have some solder skills before burning things inside the sgs...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] fishears:
The rubber on mine disintegrated when I started to remove it. I think that might have been the problem. My GPS had been very good until a few weeks ago. I thought at first it was something in CM10 so I flashed back to CM9 and it was just as bad (but had been great before). That's why I decided to do this hardware fix.

So my feeling is that the rubber had degraded over time and that was the cause of my weak signal.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
qtekker:

Absolutely. I got the rubber off, then realized my skills soldering wise might not be up to the job. So I'm getting my mate who does repairing electricals for a living to do it for me. Temporarily no gps ;P Probably be done on Monday. Will let you know how I get on.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
OK, got a bigger problem here.

I don't get any mobile signal at all :| Does anyone know what I might have done I used a normal phone pry to get it apart and I wasn't rough with it, but now I get absolutely no signal whatsoever. If I put a tiny piece of metal in the little plug in the back for an external antenna, I get signal.

Anyone know what I've done?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] qtekker:
Check the contact on the bottom of the mainboard. There are about four contacts that hold the mainboard in its place. Maybe one of them is loose.

Google for a youtube video "disassemble i9000". The video will show you the contacts.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
hey qtekker,

Fixed it. Turns out, I'd just caught that grey cable and pulled it out the socket. Sorted.

I have a very strange thing with my GPS. I removed the rubber as told but couldn't solder the wire, so I figured I'd wait till Monday. Theoretically no GPS right?

Erm.... wrong for me. I have GPS. In fact, it got as high as 15metres accuracy earlier. What's going on? I'd farcry say that removing that rubber thing has made no difference whatsoever to the performance of my GPS
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Samga:
I wonder if there is a difference between the first solution with a wire and the second with a direct contact because the antenna is made longer with the wire?

The GPS wave length is 19.05 cm, so a wire length of 4.76 cm or 2.38 cm could improve the signal strength.

@Leeno: Did you compare both solutions side by side?

@Jeblond: How long is your wire?

I did the 2nd method. Quite hard. Signal is really better, but not perfect yet.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] shaarky:
OK, uff...so it's really working. I can see now even 12 satellites, that wasn't possible ever before. Signal goes even to 39 - again was not possible before.

But during this "fix" I almost bricked my phone, although I have micro-solgering iron, it's really not good idea for soldering noobs which I'm ;)

Btw - I choose "the isolated wire edition". I was not able to remove successfully unused antenna contact. ;-(

And my phone is from 12.9.2010 !
[Galaxy S I9000 General] flapane:
So did anybody ACTUALLY try it on Vibrant? :o
[Galaxy S I9000 General] AJ:
nice :good:

thanks ...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
Does anyone have any idea as to why my GPS still works? This is really confusing me. I removed the rubber, that should kill my GPS as it's the poor ground between the case which is now a non existent ground, but it's made almost no difference, it's maybe made it a little worse but as I said, I've been able to get some GPS reception without the little rubber bung.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] elitevet:
Your will is strong, the Force is with you. Fear it not, Luk.

sent from CM10 powered SGS
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
lol, dear me :P I imagine the force is strong!

Does anyone have an actual answer :P ?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kavkatan:
Hi

As i said, i have made the fix and the result is satisfying.

Wandered thou how come some get 5 meter accuracy?(there is a pic on page 11)

Again thanks. i have gone lost so many times before this fix.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] fishears:
16 feet = 4.8768 metres :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kavkatan:
fixed

I am embarrassed...

:eek:

Thanx
[Galaxy S I9000 General] skezza:
I rarely got 15 feet before, so I hope I do after I've done this fix. I used to get about 30 - 45 usually. Currently (with no rubber bung) I get about 45-60. Sometimes down to 30 and once or twice down to 15.

Let's hope hey? :) I'd like it to be as accurate as possible. I am getting it done by a friend on Saturday, don't really trust my own abilities.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] flapane:
Done. No birds at all, just one sometimes. I wonder if it's a sw issue.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lcampori:
no it's not.

I tried reflashing a vanilla unrooted stock rom (jw7) and I got 6 (I really mean 6, s-i-x) satellites with n/s ratio above 42 out of 11.

BUT: I did not try the mod as explained here.

I just removed the third unused contact and secured it above the conductive rubber.

My guess is that in your case the other antenna does not properly connect with the back cover contact anymore. Indeed, since my results are really astonishing, I wonder if the problem really lies in rubber conductivity or the plastic cover being too flexible.

the OP is the expert, anyway. you'd better trust him, not me.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] qtekker:
Correct. Sometimes one bird means that there is no contact between antenna and back cover. There is no "ground".

You should try again (with a cable, method 1) for you have nothing to loose.

I took a thin wire from an unused IDE cable (for hard disk or cd rom connection) in the PC.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] flapane:
You mean a thin wire taken from one of the those, right? http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/CABLEPIX/1541/pic06.jpg

Do you think that the resulting welding I did is too "big", so that the cover (ground) doesn't touch anymore with the brass contact that is located near the conductive rubber pad (which, of course, I scratched away before connecting the wire)?

Just for the record, unfortunately Vibrant doesn't have the third unused antenna contact, so I have to rely on cable method (atm I simply don't have time to find a brass contact in an electric shop).
[Galaxy S I9000 General] qtekker:
Correct, that's the wire I used.

My first attempt resulted in no gps at all.

I had the same big welding and a wire as thick as on your picture.

Then, I took a thinner wire from the IDE and welded with less tin.

So the welding was smaller, and with succes!

Good luck!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kulaki0:
Hello,

I have done the fix (method 2) on my international i9000. But I am not sure if the performace increment was huge. Actually the main problem I had was gps signal lost for a while with Endomondo.

Now it gets satelites in a few seconds, but they are all yellow and light green(GPS test) and the bes accuracy I got so far was 16 feet.

Does it sound reasonable? I attached a screenshot when I am at an open air field.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lcampori:
it looks very good to me. it depends on your position (indoor, outdoor) and weather condition, tho.

the best outcome I've got was 11 birds locked, 6 of them with n/s ratio above 42 (green bars in gps test), the others in 30-35 range, 5m accuracy. outdoor, extremely clear sky. That was an extreme, anyway.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] fishears:
That's a solid & accurate fix, friend, you can smile now :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] kulaki0:
Thanks for the responses!

I was a bith worried when I saw in one of the first post that people was getting 7 satellites inside the living room! :eek:

And I might get one if I get close to the window... Anyways I will test it the coming days to see if it looses the signal like before during my workouts with Endomondo.

Cheers! And thanks for the FIX!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] fishears:
Those guys live in pretty flimsy houses. Not like our solid constructions ;)

And anyone who needs GPS in their own home has other issues to deal with :p
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lcampori:
:D it was me.

no my friend. I'm living in a house with very thick walls. REALLY thick.

we got a couple of earthquakes this year and I'm still alive. :p

apart from that, I do agree testing GPS indoor in the living room is not the smartest thing one can do at home.

just playing with the toy, so what? :D I mean, if a beautiful lady wants to have a rest on my sofa and she does not know its longitudine and latitude data, how can she get here??

edit:

I'm insane. so here's what it looks right now on my sofa...