yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] cesar65:
I've done it!

During this week I found this thread and today I decided that I should give it a try. Now GPS works very well. I get a fix within a few seconds, satellites are being recognized very fast. Big thanks to LEENO!

Here's my story for those who are interested:

I must say, the first big problem was removal of the back cover (the inner one). Once that was done without any losses, I decided to go for option 1 since that seemed cleaner to me. Tried to desolder the third antenna contact which at first didn't work. Then after more heating with the soldering iron, the thing came off, but not as expected. It took the copper layer from the pcb with it. No problem, since it's unused. But I had to remove that piece from the contact by heating it and pushing it off.

Now I removed the rubber contact by scraping it off with a little screw driver. When I wanted to add some solder on that spot to solder the contact to I noticed a metal sheet that was probably the base of the rubber contact. Put that off as well and put some solder on that spot.

I then placed the contact to the spot but with the contact point to the phone's upper part to make sure it really hits the contact spot on the cover.

All of a sudden the whole contact was covered in solder and rather solid and no more flexible. Tried to put the cover back and hope for the best but the contact stuck out too far and the cover would not fit. So I had to desolder it and clean the contact with a pump. Needless to say that this little sucker just made it into the pump. Luckily it came back out and was rather clean of solder. Tried soldering again with less solder, now everything was fine. Closed the inner cover, added cards and battery, closed the outer cover, switched on and crossed my fingers.

Conclusion: Option 1 works well if you are careful with the heat and don't use too much solder. I like it more since it doesn't tie the inner cover to the pcb.

Makes my pretty angry with Samsung though. What a stupid design bug on such an important feature, just to save a penny!!!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Mazarin07:
Hello!

I have a Star U920+ (or i9220) Android smartphone, which is said to be the clone of Samsung Galaxy Note.

It has poor GPS performance, so I would like to improve it.

Can you please tell me where to solder and what?

...and here is the back cover:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] leftywhat:
Just wanted to say this seems to have fixed my issues.

I tried to figure out how to solder that pad on (I got it off perfect), however its a little too large in size.

If you look closely in the OP's pictures, he's soldered the gold pin/spring onto the GPS pad, but also over the Switch Button pad.

The switch button pad is not ground, it goes somewhere else, it shouldn't be touching/soldered onto. I checked with a multi-meter.

So I tried to solder it on horizontally but its very tough/large in size, I went to "Open" up the spring so to speak, but then it snapped in half, so I trimmed it, soldered it onto the pad, and put a decent solder blob, cleaned with Metho.

Works a treat, thanks :)

So I think people should first try a large solder blob first, its far easier the trying to remove the Tab/Spring, and for me its working very well. All the spring did for me was help me get a larger blob.

Also, one last note, for anyone wanting to try this, we use really small iron tips at work, we solder crap under microscopes with very thin wires etc, but this wasn't really an easy job at all, when the Tab/Spring is too big in size. The wire method (although annoying, in terms of opening/closing the phone) is a far easier and far safer option.

Note 1: Btw don't try attempt doing it with a car soldering iron for like $10-$20, you'll be screwed.

Note 2: To remove the ****ty conductive pad, it just peels off/rips off, if you have a flat tool, or a flat head screwdriver that will do, try not to scratch/damage the pad

Note 3: So your choices are;

1. Solder Blob (Easiest)

2. Wire (Easy)

3. Use foil (Hard)

4. Remove spring and transfer over (FML was difficult)

Go with the blob!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] neozengar:
Thank you for the suggestion. If I were to put a blob, would it make it differences if I apply the blob on the motherboard or the gps ground contact on the back plate? I am planning to add the blob to the back cover. The reason I am asking is because this is my first time soldering, so if I mess up on making the blob, I can always buy a new back frame to do it again. Thank you in advance!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] boyoboyo:
I would like to give it a go. Can you please upload a picture of the current state of your phone (soldering etc.)? Thanks in advance.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Giap:
Hi,

i tried to put an aluminum foil on top of the rubber twice, the second time I used a thicker folded foil. I did not find a real improvment: satellites are fixed rather quickly but they are then lost frequently. If the problem is the bad conductivity of the rubber, I do not understand how the alu foil can help.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] GarryCollins:
A major thumbs up to Leeno.

A major thumbs up to Leeno.

I don't normally subscribe to forums that I don't expect to contribute to, but this fix is so GREAT, I have broken one of my own rules.

My Galaxy S 19000 has had poor GPS since the day I took it out of it's box. I have tried all the hacks, tweaks and apps imaginable, but with very little success.

After applying this fix, it is like magic. No more crossing my fingers every time I fired up the GPS, no more explaining to passengers in my car why we were having to wait while my phone rebooted and I hoped that it would "work this time".

I was about look for a new phone as my 2 year contract with my phone company is about to expire.

With my "new" GPS, I may just hang onto the old girl for a while yet.

Thanks Leeno!!

:good:

Garry.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] AusMatt:
Gary, which fix did you apply ? The solder blob, the foil, something else ?

I've tried the foil but it's not much, any ?, better.

I'm thinking I need to try the blob.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] i9001user_:
Thanx it really works :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dumle:
I think I've tried every possible tweak out there, and none of them could make my phone use Google Navigation without problems. After using your method by placing aluminium foil on the rubber connector and bending the other antenna as high as possible to make both of them equal heights the difference is astonishing. Now I get a cold fix from my room (indoors) in about 15 sec and it looks onto 7+ satellites with 10m accuracy (was not able to get a fix from indoors before, it would just keep seeing two sats, even after 10 minutes). Finally I can use turn by turn directions.

Thank you OP.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Mazarin07:
Star U920+

Please take a look on this post, and give me a helping hand in a similar GPS-fix problem.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Axtmus:
Awesome work and thanks for your Guide. I try it by myself after I drink a couple Beers. ;)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] hepterci:
I wish I could tell all about one video solution

I'm afraid to break
[Galaxy S I9000 General] CatalystWon:
Which 4.2.1 ROM and version are you using? CM 10.1?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jupiter5700:
Hi guys! My method for GPS signal fix is here. Look at the attached images. GPS antenna connectors are pushed up.

Conductive gummy (1) pushed up with bended wire.

Second connector (2) pushed up by the tube isolator inside.

Result is in 15 meter accuracy from the balcony.

Note: on picture one the wire is bent not much.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] hneel:
Today I modded my phone. I used the first method.

In my experience the gps is only slightly better than before. It used to have reception up to about 32 db, and now it's sometimes to 35 or 36 db.

But still not like the picture in the start post; over 40 db. Or like my Tomtom reciever has.

Maybe I'll do it again with wires. In that case I plan to make wires for both signal and ground.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] sfz420:
Gps is becoming a problem for me while moving .. for sure will try your solution
[Galaxy S I9000 General] tronda:
My problem with gps is solved a small drop of WD on rubber solved it
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
solution

the problem with gps is the part where the 'main board' touches the 'antena'

all samsung had to do is to connect those two with a wire but they did not, it is mainboard thingy touching the antena placed on the plastic back cover

and every time you drop your device (and you can do it, i9000 is bulltproof) or it gets overheated the 'touch' btwen those two becomes weaker and at finaly you end up with no antena basicly thus freaking problems with gps

best you can do is to proffesionaly connect point A (motherboard) with point B (backcover antena) with a wire but i would suggest you to leave that to some proffesional or do it with extreme caution

other things that help are:

- gps.conf setting for NTP_SERVER near you - thats a placebo basicly

- using nexus s (1:1 with i9000 dveice more or less) 'gps files' ive assembled year ago - but the main thing you gain here is 5m stepping and a bit more accurate fix due to cfg files (butill have to test it vs XWJWB firmware from 2013)

i will geet back to you with those nexuss files after a good sleep as for now i am over 72h wo sleep :P

and with photos of the two points you have to hard connect to gt gps fixed

cheers =]
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jose.celestino:
Yes, that's what says on the first post, thank you for underlining it.

Connecting the two connectors (or all for consistency) with a wire wouldn't be the best solution for Samsung, the parts are supposed to be separate, for easier dismantling and replacing and the copper connectors are perfectly good, the conductive rubber is not, it seems to easily loose form with time and temperature changes and it deteriorates the signal.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
why are they ment to be separate if gsm antena is wire connected :)

---------- Post added at 03:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:15 PM ----------

ok anyways here is mentioned Nexus S file, version it come from is GRK39C but i checked and GRK39F did not changed anything when it comes to GPS binaries and stuff, feel free to flash it via your custom recovery - ofc do a security backup first just to be sure :)

this is a CWM flashable

http://hotfile.com/dl/221078596/9247406/GPS_GRK39C.zip

this file is for 2.3.6 firmwares I9000 firmwares

i do not haave otehr devices to test it on

laters i will write a bat file for those just with root and no custom recovery that will push the files to the device and give them proper privilages
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
atrSsci Brianch

1) hardware is one thing - the motherboard<->antena connection must be fixed in some devices

2) software is another thing - GPS_GRK39C.zip is not only "update settings and north american server for gps" as you said

GPS_GRK39C.zip are files extracted from last (GRK39F is not changing anything)

Nexus S 2.3.6 build assembled in handy CWM flashable

Files that are used by GPS module to setup it and to produce a fix for android system

(Nexus S and I9000 mothrboards are essentialy the same)

So it is obvious that it will replace conf and xml files as you mentioned as those are integral elements of the system

But also it will replace binaries and libraries for those from Nexus S build (so Google made)

and those do not match gps essentials from Samsung firmware builds

and from my experience i can tell:

- those files are 100% compatible with all 2.3.6 Samsung firmware builds

- fix is a bit faster (might be placebo or simply better Googler's work)

- obtained fix floates less when phone is not moving (hard to reproduce same conitions)

- fix changes its accuracy in 5m stepping (5-10-15-20- and so on) while on Samsung files it is 5-15-30- and so on
[Galaxy S I9000 General] helios21:
Does it work with Samsung galaxy s plus? Is there anyone that tried it? I have very poor gps connection...

Thanks in advanced.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
as long as it uses same gps module it should :) if you ask about my tweak

you can always flash back stock firmware,
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Tz2000:
there is any video on youtube? explain about it
[Galaxy S I9000 General] nerick:
Hello.

Does someone have GPS working fine with Cyanogen 10.1 ?

If yes, can you tell me if application Z-DeviceTest shows some satellites with almanac or ephemeris ?

It should have some "true" for lines "has_almanac" and "has_ephemeris".

Mine doesn't work properly (very slow to fix and not very stable nor accurate) and have "false" every where ... :(

So I think it's software issue.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
i guess ask cm then not here
[Galaxy S I9000 General] risingsunxx:
Interessting stuff but what about the Apps Faster Gps & FasterFix? Dont they fix the problem?

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9001 mit Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jose.celestino:
Have you read the first post? Mainly the "First try software fix (it not helped me) then try my solution" part?

Do you think that those apps will solder the phone to fix the problem mentioned on that same post?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] elitevet:
Wire fix applied.

Accuracy < 10m

sent from CM powered SGS
[Galaxy S I9000 General] galaxyms:
Recently I lost all GPS again, so I took the phone apart and this time removed the rubber/gummy pad - then fitted the gold contact. Its too big for the pad - be careful not to short the pad to the left of it. I put it the opposite way round to the OP as the other way I had no contact or reception at all. Now I have 9 in view,7 in use indoor with an accuracy of 49ft!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] cottec:
at first: LEENO I LOVE U :)

and now some tips for everbody who is afraid to do this on his own.

- u only need 2 tools: a soldering iron (my one has 52W Power and its enough) with a flat head; and a pair of tweezers.

- to unsolder the "u" just put the iron on it and wait until you can move it, then take it up with the tweezers.

- scrap of the contact rubber with a flat screwdriver.

- add some(not much) solder to your soldering iron and put it on the metal base of the rubber.

- it will immediately begin to stick to your soldering iron

- u dont need any new solder

- take the unsolderd "u" with the tweezers and pull it in the right position.

- press the soldering iron on the "u" and wait until it begins to stick to the card

- then begin to cool it by blowing and carefullly remove the iron

i hope this will help some people with their repair.

with about 10 mins of work, my phone has 7 of 7 fixes IN my room with a strength between 25 and 35

i'm quite afraid of the outdoor-use :D :D :D
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DualJoe:
I did the fix like described in the first post and it helped indeed. GPS fix remains stable now.

Thank you very much!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
i would love to see pictures of the process :) but sstill very good tutorial
[Galaxy S I9000 General] elitevet:
Pictures won't make it, me fears. You gotta see it in 3D with Dolby™ Surround.

sent from CM powered SGS
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
will do the fix in week or so, hopfully will not forgt to get all photos :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] BlueBull2:
A quick question. I have an SGS I9000 too and I too have some GPS issues. But they seem to be of a different order than what this topic is about. I can get a GPS fix just fine, quite accurate even (5m accuracy at the most, that's alot) but the problem is I can ONLY get a fix if I enable my mobile data connection too. If I don't enable the mobile data connection I can't get a fix at all, if I do it gets a fix in about 5 seconds which is great. Now I have a mobile data plan with 2GB download so it isn't that big of an issue but some parts of the country have very bad reception and as soon as mobile data disconnects due to this the GPS fix is gone too. Now my question is if this fix would solve that problem too or if my problem is software based you think and if it is does anyone know a solution for this?

Thanks in advance for the replies and thanks to the OP for making this topic!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] cottec:
in my opinion you can do the hard-fix to try out if its getting better.

some day the "conductive rubber" is going to brake down anyway, so it's still an improvement when you fix it now
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dove_g:
I tried already 5 methods:

1. duct tape on gps antenna

2. to spread connector with screwdriver

3. aluminum foil on the conductive rubber

4. solder bump on gps antenna

5. removing conductive rubber and soldering short wire

None of them works great. GPS signal is slightly better for 1..3 in SNR on GPS test application, but GPS positioning remains slow. You need to wait from 1-3 minutes to get gps position, very very slow.

I do have last 6th solution, to remove unused connector and try to sold it. Anyway, maybe someone knows where can I buy this small golden connector? Not feeling comfortable to remove unused connector, I'd rather buy new one from ebay.

Thank you.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] tni.andro:
I replaced the rubber thingy with a tiny coil spring from an old defective cell phone and got about an average 7db improvement in SNR. That doesn't make GPS reception great, but it's usable now.

So, dove_g if you have some old cell phone, you may find some springs in there. But it's pretty unlikely that that will be better than a soldered wire.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] okdark4:
cipslan arc

Thx I will try this
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
so what ive done:

1) disasembled the phone -> gretat guide by LE55ONS

2) cleaned all the connections with ethyl alcohol

3)

VERY VERY GENTLY

pushed/bended at the points marked green ('jizzle marked green') upwards

4) when assembling back

do not

touch the area marked green or you will push back the 'jizzle marked green' you bend upwards at point 3

now, cold start (all the data from /data/gps/... deleted - so like factory reset state)

at the window of my apartment made in '80s (thick walls, floors above, metal) takes 20-30 seconds, and stays at 10m accuracy

this is a temporary solution as the 'connection' of the 'jizzle marked green' will weaken as with your normal use up to date,

so the best solution (risky and voids varranty) would be to hard-connect those two points

will try to figure somthing out for this =) and figure out if it was the 'cleaning all the connections with ethyl alcohol' or the 'pushing/bending' that helped =)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dove_g:
Thank you all,

anyway I forget to add.

Few days ago I installed GPS Status Test & Fix, and after this application GPS signal get locked much faster again (10-30 sec).

Anyways I have ordered from ebay some i9000 parts, and I will change wire with connector.

I will reply soon with more results.

P.S.

Also have new Sasmung Galaxy Note 2 (n7100), GPS on this mobile is awesome. It finds 19 satellites, and max SNR is 41 :). It works very very great, and i9000 compared to this phone is gps baby :).
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
yup, ****storm community unleashed at gps after i9000 premiere was massive =)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Lisko:
Hi all, I tried to follow the procedure of the third post, that of solder directly the wire on the pad on the back cover. Unfortunately I ruined the pad and I can not solder anymore, there is an alternative point?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] knuckles1978:
ahahahaha lol........

Anyways, I saw this fix a long time ago but only got around to doing it today after it finally pi55ing me off once too many times when I needed GPS yesterday.

Used tweezers to pull little rubber contact off, then used a small flat head driver to scrape away the remains of the rubber contact, which left me a nice shiny easy to solder contact. Then I soldered in a little piece of wire stolen from an old RJ45 network cable and the result was amazing GPS.

Cheers dude, thanked in OP :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] dove_g:
Please try to reboot i9000,

then clear all data. Sometimes GPS on my i9000 works normally and fast (locked signal in 10-30 seconds), sometimes it doesn't lock at all after 5minutes :).

I think there is a big error which is made on i9000 and GPS, not only connectors and reception qualitiy, but also some kinda error and bad quality of GPS tuner.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
yup, it was discused wide. the chip (BCM4751) is used also at ipad2 if i recall good and users there also whine on fix quality
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
btw someone said it is impossible to get fix wo. data connection / wifi

myth busted, it takes much much longer but fix will be made
[Galaxy S I9000 General] gonzalobasterra:
I'll try, thank you!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alwaysfresh:
Appitan under

I got an i9001, and the GPS reaches no server. I took a look at the phone and seems that there is one missing component in the hole just above the battery. Instead of that missing component there is a soldered wire. The missing component is a 3705-001731 coaxial connector. This could be the reason why my GPS doesn't work?

I bought the phone from some guy... second hand.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Beowulf_pt:
I had two sgs2. In fact still have one. Tried everything. The only way to fully get a reliable gps was upgrading to the note 2.

It was like night and day. I even put my tomtom on sale as the phone is finally as good or better

The sgs2 is crap gps-wise. Only the sgs1 is even more useless. I had an early adopter model. Perhaps they improved antenna design with time and that would explain the very mixed opinions, but i doubt it.

The n2 really is hugely better for navigation.

Note 2 N7100, rooted, with stock Samsung ROM.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alwaysfresh:
I've done the trick with the soldered wire for the GPS antenna, but it still can't reach any gps server :(

what's the problem then?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
first fix takes quite a while, can you attach a photo of what youve done thre ?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] alwaysfresh:
I forgot to take a picture of what I've done, but I'm pretty sure that the connection made is good. I don't want to disassembly the phone again :(
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
reflash stock, factory reset, enable data connection (will spd up first fix) go outside for that firt fix
[Galaxy S I9000 General] SysGhost:
Reporting back

Before this fix, my i9000 had problems getting a good GPS fix. Often it took several minutes before it got a lock. Sometimes it just didn't get a lock at all. It just sat there blinking, despite being on a large open grass field with a totally clear sky. Specially when it's cool outside. (Below 10 degree Celsius)

Then, after some search, I found this thread. -"Why not, That GPS can't get any worse than it already is." I said to myself. And I grabbed my tools.

I soldered a thin wire between the two contact points, as described. (As I do work with electronics in a daily basis, this is a breeze. Can do it with both eyes closed and both arms tied up. ;) )

Here I am now, reporting back:

First thing I noticed: It gets a fix within a split second. The applications won't even finish loading before it's locked on. That is the MAJOR improvement. From several minutes down to a a few fractions of a second.

The other thing I noticed, that I first thought was an application bug, is the "wandering around" problem. Despite saying it had less than a meter precision.

Being perfectly stationary, the GPS would wander around several meters in random directions. (That problem made it very hard to use the GPS in GPS based games such as "Turf")

This problem is now blown away. As it was never there in the first place.

To Samsung, if they ever read this: Why, oh why? You guys should have seen this problem before even putting it into production in the first place. And yet, with all the reports about a poor GPS antenna on your devices, you still continue using that poor design. :confused:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] somator:
i9000's BCM4751 never had 1m / lesss than metter precision =)

havnt seen it also on the nexuss gps files i use

you can try to edit XML's located in /vendor/etc/

by adding DynMode="DYN_PEDESTRIAN in <gll section