yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Vibrant General] tjhart85:
Not necessarily, it's entirely possible that the new GPS was just offered to them at a discount that they couldn't get before (after seeing the sheer number of devices Samsung sold, the seller may have offered a significant discount). It's also possible that the company stopped creating/selling the original chip used. Beyond this, there are LOTS of different possibilities, but none of them REQUIRE Samsung to say it's because the old ones are faulty (even if they are, Samsung will not admit it).

Also, Axura 2.0.5 is giving me more problems with GPS than Bionix Onyx did, so it may be that ROM. Also, the only sources of 2.2 we have are unfinished leaks, so it's entirely possible that it's been fixed since then.

Interesting, I didn't know that. I assumed they would be like the wifi antennas in a laptop. Thanks for that electronics lesson :-)
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
That is the font on my phone and I happen to like it. If I choose to style my posts in this way, and the forum gives me option to do so, then it is my prerogative.

My posts are generally well thought out, and provide more detail and information than the majority of the people here bother to take the time to provide. Also, I lost a finger and removed all the flesh and meat on the others a little over two weeks ago, and typing causes me serious pain and discomfort, and is a laborious, one handed process.

If I can put the effort into my posts that I do, despite the pain it causes me, then you can put forth some effort to read them without *****ing . . . or not, but it is your loss rather than mine.

I am not taking any offence from your post since you most likely were not aware on my condition. Don't take any offense from mine as I am merely informing you that I like how my posts look, and I am not changing it. You can do with that as you want, but you will miss out on a lot of good info if you choose you don't wish to read my posts.
[Vibrant General] jonjonk:
I seriously doubt that they changed anything. It either a lemon or a fully functional device. Most ppl probably got lemons :(
[Vibrant General] etichola:
The connector between GPS antenna and motherboard of vibrant might cause a problem easily. It's something like a home button censor of iPhones. My phone's GPS wasn't working well. So, I opened the phone and did a very easy fix with a soldiering iron. Now, it works 100% fine. :)
[Vibrant General] dinan:
Was there a guide that you used for this? Link would be appreciated =)
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
Yes, please post link or pictures if you have them, but I doubt there is one.

It most likely went line this:

Step 1: open phone and void warranty

Step 2: locate antenna by looking around for it

Step 3: use heated well tinned soldering iron to put small amount of solder joining spring on main board to antenna lead.

Step 4 : reassemble and pray it worked and that you did not apply too much heat to the board

Just a guess, but I bet I am close
[Vibrant General] :
cold effing solder joints... rookie *#$! really. but i can't help but wonder if they have a half ass solder robot they run these things through. if not they certainly are using some cheap labor who are most likely not too concerned with production quality out of their plant in asia.

as to your question... yeah possibly. or a trace that got bubbled from excessive heat. that's the problem with modern electronics vs the old school stuff. the new junk is so dang on small and prone to failure it's ridiculous. it's the whole throw it way electronics generation.

btw, my buddy just received a replacement vibrant from tmobile in the mail today with different style buttons. the phone looks a little different in general. i will try to get some pics next time i'm over there. they probably changed more than just the aesthetics, i'm guessing.
[Vibrant General] Plato56:
I did notice blue Loctite on one screw or two screws, but with the referb phones, i dont think that they are puting these screws in a specific place. I managed to send back my old, out of the box, vibrant that I had dissasembled (transfered the speaker to the new one, sounded better) TMO didn't notice or make a fuss.

Thus far, give all other factors the same, including software, this seems to be something worth exploring.
[Vibrant General] Plato56:
FOR GODS SAKE>> DONT SOLDER ANYTHING GUYS>>> LOL... If you do get the back off, you will see the contact im talking about. no solder was nessasary, just cleaning and expanding the contact a bit.

On a side note, I have noticed that the contact to the antena has a small raised nub in the middle, I am concidering filing off that nub and polishing the rest of the conection to provide more surface area for the contact point, just a thought at this point.

BTW GUYS, THIS VOIDS THE WARRENTY PERIOD. I dont want to hear about it latter, do this stuff at your own risk.

Here is a dissasembly guide, and some pics of what the phone looks like with the back off

http://www.squidoo.com/disassembly-of-samsung-galaxy-s

Sorry for being so vague, im no good at this forum stuff and its not realy in my nature to be helpfull, but this is a good community, and im trying contribute what i can since eveyone here has been so helpfull to me.

BTW guys, this may be a compleate dead end but I think its worth exploring.
[Vibrant General] reuthermonkey:
Telling people that you're going to ignore them, or telling everyone who you're ignoring is actually a very good example of trolling and flamebaiting.
[Vibrant General] AndyA_UK:
It looks like there is a new version of the Vibrant planned but I don't think it's out yet.

The FCC show a SGHT959D (the original vibrant is the SGHT959) was submitted for approval on September 13th. So it looks like a new version of the phone is either out now or due out soon.

The internal and external photos of the new version are marked as confidential until March 2011, normally things only remain confidential until the launch date so that would imply that it's not released yet but will be at some point before March.

Since GPS is receive only it would have been possible for them to change the antenna without new approvals but only if they didn't touch any of the other antennas, given how tightly packed these things are and how everything interacts that would have been tricky.
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
The T959D is the Telus Fascinate. Looks exactly like our phone but with 850 3G and no 1700 3G.
[Vibrant General] rstonex:
For those with fixed Vibrants, I'd love to see a map of you walking around your neighborhood, recording a map with google's My Tracks. My Vibrant has (arguably) worked since I got it, but it's always had poor performance. Here's some examples:

This was taken with my MyTouch 3g, which always had good GPS performance.

goo.gl/NaEpd

And this was taken with my Vibrant, after the 2 stock updates that were pushed in November.

goo.gl/MLR6f

I flashed Axura 2.0.5, and did another map.

goo.gl/EYqnX

Still terrible, not even close to the accuracy and precision I had on my mytouch 3g. By the way, on those 2 vibrant maps, I walked on the sidewalks, I didn't dash through houses and jump over fences. :)

I also use Latitude, and for some reason, it's showing me across the country right now.

I suppose for the most part, GPS works, it knows where I am within a few yards if I stand still, but it's terrible at tracking, and I wouldn't even think to try using this for navigation, while my old phone was perfectly capable.

edit: apparently, I'm too new to post links, so just throw those into your web browser to see what I'm talking about.
[Vibrant General] ecardwell1:
Do you think it would be possible to take a picture of where you did this mod?
[Vibrant General] spookini:
So...I have an upgrade available to me, and am waffling b/w Vibrant and myTouch 4G. All this talk of, "Vibrant is a great phone if you root it and give up all hope of decent GPS performance" is a bit unsettling. Damn. That screen is so beautiful. :(

Curious, if you vibrant owners were able to do it over again, would you buy Vibrant, myT4G...or just wait for Spring 2011 and Nexus S/Vibrant S or whatever it is that's coming?
[Vibrant General] ZX3ZX4:
spookini-

I'd get the Vibrant, run the GPS through its paces, and keep it if the GPS worked fine, or return it or exchange it if it didn't.
[Vibrant General] ronjeremy11:
hahahaha, you're not offended? you're not trying to offend him? clearly. Listen, your knowledge and skill set only gives you significance among nerds (just being honest, im a nerd too) so dont get uppity and start thinking you're actually cool. I promise you're not.
[Vibrant General] N8ter:
Lol. What a phenomenal level of defensiveness and it seems a lack of reading comprehension.
[Vibrant General] N8ter:
Only in your opinion.

You can go back over 6 months and see that heygrl is a troll and I'm not the only one with him on ignore.

I just give people the benefit of a doubt and open their posts now and then, since the people I'm ignoring are typically the ones who find the need to reply to every damn post I make and lace them with insults and personal attacks. Sometimes they actually do have something good to add to the discussion.
[Vibrant General] reuthermonkey:
Actually, over the past 6 months i've had a number of disagreements with heygrl. But just because I disagree with them doesn't mean they're a troll. There are quite a few trolls on this forum, and heygrl is not one of them.
[Vibrant General] Col.Kernel:
No one is ASKING for "dead on GPS location". We expect a GPS that can be used with 10m-50m CEP. Some few Vibrant owners got it, many of us did not. if you are one of the lucky ones who actually GOT a working GPS with your phone, congratulations. This conversation does not apply to you, thank you for trolling. Have a nice day, merry Christmas, happy Channukah, or whatever you celebrate, and your services are no longer required in this thread.
[Vibrant General] lolcopter:
maybe instead of *****ing on the internet about your broken GPS, you take the phone in for a replacement?

just a thought
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
There isn't much to be done here. Even after proclaiming the sale of this person's Vibrant for months and even going so far as to post an ad here, still here.. doing gods work.
[Vibrant General] dsellers2:
Fixed GPS

Well,

I really enjoy having GPS on my phone. I also like to tinker (Electrical/Electronics Engineer) and did not mind voiding my warranty as I bought my phone off ebay. So here is what I did to fix my GPS.

I dissambled and started messing around with the contacts. I reallized they bend way to easy and are just not a good set up contacts. So I took a solder gun and took off the contacts.

After that was accomplished I went to radio shack and bought some solid rugged Gold contacts for a replacement.

I soldered those in place of the other ones, put my phone back up and the results were astounding.

Before

GPS could take as long a 20 minutes to get a lock. Some days it would not at all. All while I'm out in a clear view of the sky.

GPS Test would show my signals at and around 15-25

After

GPS locks in less than 30 Seconds. I lock onto at least 6 but most of the time I lock onto 10.

GPS Test would show my signals at and around 35-50

I'd say that the contacts are definitely an issue.

WARNING: I do not suggest you try this unless you are good with a soldering Iron and know what you are doing.
[Vibrant General] mrxela:
dsellers2 can you please post a couple of pictures? Also, have you used your GPS functions enough since this mod to confirm that you are reliably getting better performance?

Thank you.
[Vibrant General] dsellers2:
I will post next time I open my phone up. Will be in a couple days. As far as using it, I originally did this about 4 weeks ago, and no problems since.

I also forgott to mention that my 3g signal has all bats where before it was 2 at the most. No new towers have been put in to my understanding.

My dl speeds went from 1.5 to 3. Something.

Doesn't matter what kernel or rom I use. I attribute all of this to better contact.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
So then you replaced the contacts for all of the different antennas? I mean the 3 different cell frequency antennas, the Wi-Fi antenna, and the GPS antenna?

Any chance when you post the pics you can annotate them at to which it which?
[Vibrant General] dsellers2:
I don't know which is which man. I just replaced them because none of them were making good contact. I'm not a dev nor do I have the schematics but I do know how to trouble shoot and I can definitely see when contact isn't being made. ;)
[Vibrant General] mrxela:
Dsellers2, would appying conductive silver based grease help at all? Oxidation, better conductivity, etc? Not sure you know this by trade, figured you sound like you know what you are doing.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
I doubt it, in fact it would make things much worse. You forgot a very important word in your description. It is THERMALLY conductive silver based grease, and it is a very poor electrical conductor. In fact when using it between a chip and a heat sink the key is to make it as thin as possible while still evenly covering the entire surface. It is not as good as having direct contact, but since most heat sinks are cast and not perfectly smooth, it is used to fill the small air gaps created by the surface imperfections.
[Vibrant General] mrxela:
T313C0, i'm not talking about thermal grease for heatsinks. I'm talking about conductive grease.
[Vibrant General] dsellers2:
The conductive grease may be ok, but you may have missed my point. The current contacts in the phone are very very Flimsy. In fact so flimsy, when I was messing with one it snapped. You touch them and they bend period. Therefore, when you put the cover on to make contact to the antenna the contacts bend and in my case did not make very good contact. This resulted in a ****ty reception and terrible GPS.

I solved that by buying a solid gold plated contact, then I soldered in place of the flimsy contacts, and now when I put the cover on the back the connections are solid.

Make sense?
[Vibrant General] mrxela:
I got a good understanding of the fix you described, my reason for thinking of using grease is to avoid micro soldering and improve contact with back plate by using conductive grease. It's most commonly used in sliding switches, and in places where solid connection can't be made because of moving parts. Which sounds exactly like the case with vibrant's back plate contacts.

I'm going to do some testing to see if this works. Does anyone an app that will log signal strenght for gsm, wifi and gps radios?

Thank you for the info dsellers2, you might be onto something with this fix.
[Vibrant General] blanked:
Call T-Mobile if you're having unfixable GPS problems.

You're a customer. You paid a lot of money for your handset.

I called T-Mobile last week to complain about GPS never working, got transferred to a tech, he walked me through the various tweaks to try in Lbs, etc. After I explained that I had tried changing the SUPL settings already, tried changing the start mode to cold then hot, tried changing to MS Based, tried deleting GPS data and letting it gather GPS data for 15 minutes and nothing had any effect... he started the exchange process and I should have a new Vibrant by the end of the week.

Just tell the truth and be polite.

For the record, this will be my second exchange. My first exchange was done in-store for having a screen that had a blue color cast. Current phone that will be exchanged the second time has a manufacture date of July 14th.
[Vibrant General] mrxela:
Blanked, I'm not complaining about my gps, it works well enough, especially with latest TW roms.

Dsellers2 did discover something interesting that might explain why we get poor gps signal on our phones. There were other contributions on xda by various people trying to get to the core of this issue, this simply makes me curious if there is an easy, solder free way to improve on Samsung's engeneering of radio connectors.
[Vibrant General] blanked:
mrxela, it was more of a general statement; not directed at you :p
[Vibrant General] ZX3ZX4:
Questions about your exchange...

blanked-

My unrooted Vibrant's phone works pretty well actually since JI6, but I think it should be better. Outside it can usually lock on, say, 9 out of 12 satellites in 20-30 seconds with about 20' accuracy, and S/N ratios averaging in the 30's; inside, by a window, it can typically lock on half the satellites but may take a minute or two. My Google navigation is pretty good, and it gets me from A to B. Even in stormy, windy weather it seems to keep the lock for the whole trip.

The things it does that shows me the accuracy could be better include:

- On some trips, it will occasionally try to do a re-route for a few seconds when I'm sitting still at an intersection (I presume the accuracy is off enough for it to think I've moved a bit the wrong way);

- Occasionally it will have me on the service road next to the freeway for a few seconds when I am still on the freeway, but then it recovers; and,

- In Google Earth, say when I am standing in my yard, it will locate me quickly, but then sometimes wander around by 100'.

So, I have been thinking about getting TMo to exchange it. My concern is that the new phone's GPS might be worse than mine in its present state. So, what is the exchange process? Do you get the exchange phone before you have to send your present phone back? And did the TMo rep have anything to say about whether the newer phones actually have any different hardware in them? Thanks.
[Vibrant General] blanked:
When you initiate the exchange process over the phone they will send you the new phone via UPS. The shipment will include a prepaid box to ship your old phone back. In theory you should be able to ship the new phone back to T-Mobile if it's worse than your original phone. It's worth noting, though, that if your original phone has any kind of physical damage or the moisture sensor has been tripped then you will have to pay.

I mentioned to the tech that there are others on the forums I visit that don't have GPS issues and I posited that, given my phone was manufactured in July, perhaps Samsung has changed their manufacturing process. He replied that no hardware has changed from the original specs. I countered that it could be inconsistencies in build quality--my very first Vibrant had a bluish screen.

Another thing to note is that while reading legal text to me the tech noted that the replacement handset will be "new or like-new". It should arrive for me tomorrow and I can tell you if mine is new or a refurb.
[Vibrant General] ZX3ZX4:
blanked-

Thanks for responding so quickly and clearly. I'm anxious to hear your report once you have run the GPS through its paces. By the way, just how non-functional is the GPS on your existing phone?
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
This for the win. I did the same thing and it seems to have solved my GPS issues. I just used a small flat head from an eye glass repair kit to gently bend the metal up.
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
I put a red circle around what we're talking about. I also now get a max accuracy of about 6 yards (from inside I might add), which I find perfectly acceptable for a phone considering my Garmin Rhino gets something like 3 yards. My own theory as a technically declined individual is that this won't last and eventually, people that do this will have to bend the contact again. Personally, I think this is the issue with the vast majority of Galaxy S handsets. It isn't firmware, it isn't hardware (specifically the GPS Unit), it's the stupid freaking contact. It completely explains why so many people start out with units that get great signal only to have performance slowly degrade as time goes by (because the contact is "settling").

Edit: I attached a screenshot...that was from inside my house, 10 feet from a window that has trees hovering above it. It's all in the contact.
[Vibrant General] blanked:
Takes a long time to lock, if it ever does (~10 minutes). When it does lock, it either loses its lock intermittently or the accuracy is so poor that it thinks I'm on side-streets while driving down the freeway so it's always rerouting. Needless to say the whole experience is an exercise in frustration--enough so that I consider it to be unusable.
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
So it is at the top next to the sim card and not the bottom, I thought I was losing my mind.
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
Yep, the round disk at the bottom (on the left side) is the vibrate motor. I always assumed all of the antenna's were on the bottom of the phone (hence the necessity for the hump). Nope, just the motor. :p
[Vibrant General] Plato56:
Wow some of you guys are really taking this antenna contact concept to the next level. When I first posted this I didn't know if I was on to something or not.

Until just a few mintes ago I didn't even know if anybody else had tried this fix other than myself. It seems that everybody who has tried it has had positive results. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread for taking my hypothesis seriously even though I am not a developer. People like those who have posted in this thread are the reason that we have such a good community here.

Yes the circled item in the picture above is the contact for the gps antenna. That is the contact that I bent up slightly with a jeweler's screwdriver and then cleaned with a little q tip and some tuner cleaner. I am considering applying a little bit of electrolytic greece to it like the kind found in auto parts store for spark plugs but I am so happy with my current results I have no reason to do anything else to my phone. If the contact settles in or starts to act up again then I will take my phone apart again and apply a little bit of the greace.

Again thanks to everyone
[Vibrant General] Fedburin:
1+ - how about if you bought a car with GPS and the GPS didn't work ;).
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
So then your saying you bought a car with Microsoft Sync? I am still waiting for the thing to pop up and ask "Are you sure?" before deploying the airbags. ;)

This is from Ford's website. Yes, that is footnote number 29 there. Hmm . . . I wonder what the list of disclosures looks like.
[Vibrant General] Fedburin:
lmao - I have a Ford Focus for a company car.
[Vibrant General] mrxela:
KWKSLVR, Plato56, Dsellers2, et al, i started logging SNR levels today. I'll pick up conductive silver grease this weekend and apply it to spring contacts. This should help us determine if there is any improvement that can be derived from this fix.

Thank you all for contributing this awesome info.
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
I've chewed through it in my brain for a good long while wondering if something like that could be the culprit. Sometimes developers want to blame everything on firmware just like sometimes mechanics wanna blame everything on a broken part. If it was straight hardware, then I'd think it would either work or wouldn't. If it was firmware, then what makes it "change" (after using the Samsung Reset App for example)? The logical gremlin, in my simple brain that lacks understanding of this type of technical stuff, is either interference or a bad connection.

This reminds me of my Blackberry days where our trackballs would become hard to scroll and/or wouldn't click when you pressed in. All it took was several small layers of tape in between the trackball and the contact to fix the problem.

Also, wouldn't Samsung be more likely to pretend that a hardware problem DOESN'T exist more than a firmware? If it's firmware, then there's a chance for a fix that can "be in the works". If it's hardware, then it's millions of units that will NEVER work. What are the chances of the GPS unit in these phones being exclusive to the Galaxy S? It seems like there probably aren't 1,954 different GPS receivers out there for smart phones. There has to be some cross over.

All I know is that after modifying the contact, the GPS is perfectly fine. It works just as good inside on the second floor as it does outside with a clear sky. Sammy actually hit a homerun with this unit IMHO.