yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Captivate General] Ben74:
i just scraped the contacts again, and while i do see more sats now, i can't seem to replicate the dramatic improvement that i got the first time i did it. after the first time, i was getting a lock indoors, and 7-8 sats, and now i get 5 sats with no lock. this is with the phone in the same exact location in my house as the first time. very strange.
[Captivate General] Ben74:
ok, i just went and pried up the gold contact again, and now i'm back to excellent gps performance. so it appears that prying up the gold contact is more important than scraping the battery cover. this explains why the performance is falling back down over time. the gold contact gets pushed back down by the battery cover and eventually loses good contact with it. that's my armchair theory at the moment :)
[Captivate General] codyrt:
I too have tried doing this, with great results the first time I did it. Great meaning I could pick up satellites and get a lock, I never tested driving navigation because I didn't have the time.

It has now gone back to it's normal state of working when it likes too.

I have tried using dielectric grease on the batter cover on the two contact points. I saw no notable improvement, but it doesn't hurt to have it there, if anything it would be beneficial.

I would be careful about doing that, metal that thin will eventually snap if it bends back and forth too much.
[Captivate General] Ben74:
i just applied dielectric grease to the contacts on my battery cover. it seems to have decreased the gps performance slightly. i could still get a fix indoors, but with a couple fewer sats. after removing the grease with a piece of toilet paper, the performance went back up to the level i was seeing before applying the grease. now that i've discovered that prying up the gold contact is more important than the scraping the battery cover, i don't think the grease is really necessary anymore. the point of it was to stop the oxidation of the aluminum battery cover, but that doesn't appear to be the real issue now.
[Captivate General] Ben74:
i agree. i'm trying to think of a way to permanently keep the gold contact up now. it might be possible to insert a piece of non-conductive material under the "hump" of the contact, to keep it from getting pressed too far into the case. so far, i haven't been able to find anything lying around the house that would be suitable.
[Captivate General] gormander:
@Mikal Carbine

I will probably find some time later to try out what you are suggesting. But since this MAY be a ground plane issue and not making a stable ground plane, can I just use conductive (aluminum or whatever) tape and make my own ground plane? See the attached picture. I havent taped it on yet but this is thin enough so that you can put the back cover on and its big enough to make the correct connection between the two jumper tabs. Also, this will most likely make a short between the metal casing that holds the SIM card and possibly the metal casing that holds the external SD card....but I already measured the continuity between them and they are already shorted so this shouldnt matter right?

Does the size of the tape matter or is the bigger the better? I thought RF signals needed to have matching wavelengths or something along those lines to achieve the max efficiency/power.

I also agree about how the main issue is maintaining a lock while moving/driving and not getting a quick lock in general.
[Captivate General] cumanzor:
So, are guys scratching the white out of those spots? Why use an eraser? Can't we use say, a coin?

I feel tempted to try this. I can get lock on 4 or 6 sats if I'm outside, but it's rather inacurate.
[Captivate General] modum:
I tried it, and it works. 11 sats. Nav much more accurate.
[Captivate General] mikegy2002:
Copilot does an excellent job. Even tracks me accurately driving thru parking lots. Something perhaps in the algorithms this phone uses to process the Google maps information seems to be fubar. I dont believe an increase in signal strength will help this issue.
[Captivate General] dodaniels:
The reason I currently use copilot is because within the app you can see the satellites you are seeing and how many, like gps status but within the copilot app. And for 3.99 big deal..... It also is offline gps so your data doesnt have to be downloaded while on the go. You can run from SD also. (I know google maps 5 does some type of caching download of maps, but I havent figured out how to force it to download, say California. I think it only downloads most visited areas. Which isnt any good when im out in Central California / or Sierras and have no signal to downlad them). I have also set my settings to 30feet accuracy in supl. And it still locks great with this 'mod'.
[Captivate General] sstrunks:
I tried this mod on 3 different captivates (captivate family!). Anyways I've seen an improvement in all 3 phones. Before this mod, all 3 phones had issues getting a lock, even while standing outside on a clear day. Now all 3 phones get a lock within 10 seconds. Google Maps and Google Navagation works well but not perfect yet.

On a side note I ran the official samsung gps reset app after i did this mod and it also seems to help my gps lock times dramatically.
[Captivate General] MikalCarbine:
@gormander

I like your setup, I was trying foil but your idea is more secure. Don't worry about it touching the sd card chassis, like you hinted it is all connected to ground and shouldn't hurt anything. However if you notice the performance worsen, maybe open up a hole where the after card chassis would've touched. Its possible samsung seperates the rf ground from the digital ground but I believe that is bad practice and at one point or another the grounds should connect.

One suggestion however: take some light grit sandpaper and score up your tin tape. Sometimes there is a clear coat of plastic/rubber on it which would work against us. Make sure you have bare metal.

Like I said I've been playing with tin foil, in the hopes of seeing noticeable radio (not too concerned with gps till I can actually test it) gain. The antenna signal readout in the about phone settings seems horriblly unreliable :-( nothing I can base any test off of. Maybe I'll resort to speedtests now.
[Captivate General] alphadog00:
EDIT. NM I saw tin foil. Now I see tape mentioned. D'oh!

Anyone try aluminum tape? It is cheap and conductive and adhesive. Used for ducts in HVAC.
[Captivate General] MikalCarbine:
That's what gormander is using in his photo above
[Captivate General] gormander:
I haven't tried out the conductive tape yet because I am now having other issues with my phone that isint GPS related :-(. I reflashed to stock and upgraded to JH7 to see if that fixed the problem but it didnt. Now my GPS is pretty darn good with no mods whatsoever. However, I have had this experience before where reflashing makes the GPS better for a limited time (2 days of GOOD and accurate GPS but then quality deteriorated on the 3rd day a little, then pretty much horrible after 5 days). WHEN (not If) I see the GPS going bad again, i will try it out. If I apply the tape now, I will not be able to tell if it is actually helping or not.

Sorry guys (and gals). Stay tuned!
[Captivate General] maxjivi05:
Works, I never get gps lock at work and now I do! Awesome find
[Captivate General] SchecterRocker:
Before: No satellites, period.

After: 7/7 locked on satellites in 2 seconds.

I can't argue with those results.
[Captivate General] eatonjb:
i frear that this will not work, but i will try it anyways.
[Captivate General] 88EVGAFTW:
Damn this really made gps lock on way faster. And I'm in mexico with only 2 visible satellites. Google Maps found my location 2 seconds after turning on gps :O
[Captivate General] secretasianman:
My GPS is working better but I lose a lock in the car if it's removed from the dash board. What kills me is that my cousin bought a new Captivate and can get a lock in a two story home while mine is searching till infinity and beyond. This has got to be a hardware issue.
[Captivate General] fldude99:
Not sure if this helped any..but I did this eraser thing before leaving on a trip to S Am. I'm now in south of chile with a gps thats just working great & coming in super handy in a pinch, using mapdoid
[Captivate General] RocketSled:
On some, I think I would have to agree. On my Captivate, GPS performance is totally random. Sometimes it locks in seconds, other times it will go for hours without a lock. There appears to be no rhyme or reason. This "mod" made no discernible difference. I'd challenge anyone who's had "good luck" with this to try and experiment and see if removing the Back makes any difference. On mine it does not...

I bought one of those key-fob GPS dongles, and the friggin' thing locks in seconds, no matter where I am, house, car, office. It works *in my pocket* while I'm sitting *in my car*.

It makes the Captivate GPS look slow even when the Captivate GPS is working at its best. My GPS has to be physically faulty. There's just no other rational explanation.
[Captivate General] shanghei:
What is a key-fob gps dongle?
[Captivate General] JohnnyDanger:
Well I went to bend the clip more cause my GPS stopped working so well and guess what I did. Broke the thing. Same thing my friend did. That sucks. I can still get a lock indoors with the back cover off and when outside, but not very quickly.

Not check this out. If I try to use Google maps with the GPS settings set to "use wireless networks" then it gets my location WAY off. It gives a accuaracy of up to 2100 meters. So I wonder if the click is really something to do with something other then the GPS and maybe has to do more with network tracking, if that makes sense.
[Captivate General] bames:
scraped and cleaned the squares as well.

A little harder to tell improvement because i have always gotten pretty good locks but did seem to improve my lock speed by a few seconds.

My tracking has been really good with docs rom.....may flash and try the updated chronus so interested to maybe test tracking in stock again before flashing the chronus update.
[Captivate General] sremick:
Not really a good test, as all the electronics are interconnected anyway and unless you're lucky enough to get a diode pointing in the right direction and a simple circuit, a continuity test will always show some continuity as there'll be some path electricity can take to get from one point to the other.

Incidentally, instead of dielectric grease (which coats and protects, but does not conduct electricity. Dielectric = insulator), you might get better results with an electrically-conductive grease like No-Ox-Id or Ox-Guard. Ox-Guard in-particular is explicitly designed for aluminum.
[Captivate General] bames:
i had considered a small dab of good quality thermal paste (arctic silver) in place of the original dry film
[Captivate General] sremick:
Arctic Silver isn't electrically conductive either. Only thermally conductive. My point was to use an electrically-conductive grease to both insulate from oxidation as well as provide a better electrical connection.

Just don't let the phone get warm enough that the grease runs. That's the risk.
[Captivate General] bames:
true...it is a capacitor of electricity but in most circumstances won't conduct.

CorrosionX is dielectric so won't help with better connection but is a nice option for the protection from oxidation and/or any rust forming.
[Captivate General] Scott_S:
Maybe that's what Samsung had in mind when they put that white coating on that everybody is scraping off?

I find it hard to believe that the same brains that engineered this device in the first place would decide to go all rookie and put some material on that would inhibit performance of the device.

Unless, of course, the material batch or the coating process was defective, or something.
[Captivate General] mrflips:
I have been lurking this thread and figured I would post my results. I tried the eraser, scraping, and prying on my wife's phone which showed no substantial differences. Since I just replaced my broken iPhone 4 with a Captivate and felt a bit adventurous, I lined my battery case with aluminum contact tape and saw a substantial improvement. I can eventually get a lock indoors, but outside I can hold a lock within 15 meters within seconds. Your mileage may vary I guess, but it fixed the one issue I had with this phone.

Running Cog 2.3b8 btw.
[Captivate General] :
Works for me!

Tried this yesterday and I now have a much more accurate lock indoors at my home. (Sorry, didn't d/load GPS Tester prior to trying and therefore don't have hard comparison numbers, was too excited!)

GPS locks on in a few seconds within 20-30 feet, and holds the lock much better. I can actually move around in my home and Google maps approximates where I am pretty well. Previously the best I could hope for was within 80 or 100 feet of my home after probably 20 seconds of searching.

Will try driving next, and I've lost my patience with that bit as it takes me off in too many different directions when in a moving vehicle.
[Captivate General] alephnaut:
Definitely helped. I only pried the right contact up but saw far fewer bounces in google nav. I'm going to clean the contact on the door next.

Btw I have a model 1007.
[Captivate General] mod777:
With gps fix from siggy and making sure I use the spirent supl I never had bad gps even after flashing many many roms. I tried this though because I want a better signal from the tower in my house (normally get 0-2 bar or so of HSPA without putting the phone in window) after doing this I get between 0-2 and did see a 3 which was a first. So either it did something or it was a coincidence.

I mostly wifi tether with the phone in the window which I could always get 3 bars, no I did not see 4 bars in the window, and no I did not get more than 10 asu (normally get 7-10 which is still what I get after doing this)

So, in my case I'm gonna say this didn't do much at all.
[Captivate General] mod777:
I wonder what a piece of aluminum foil on the inside of the battery cover would do?
[Captivate General] GregGarner:
I bought Seido 3000mA-hour battery, which is thicker than the stock battery, and the new back cover that comes with this battery is made of plastic. There are no metal contacts on this back. I haven't experimented with GPS since I bought this.

GregGarner
[Captivate General] alec5216:
I lifted the copper contact and cleaned/scratched the white contact. I no longer see a single satellite...
[Captivate General] NascarFastcar:
Yeah I saw that cover/battery pack before. You said there's no metal contacts like on the oem cover? Im really interested to see how your signal is.
[Captivate General] mcnutty:
Hehe, you have to read the MIT study on the effectiveness of aluminum foil hats! Long story short, aluminum can amplify the frequency bands between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. 1.2 GHz is the range that is used by GPS (according to the FCC), so you can actually get a signal improvement under certain conditions.

The downside here is that your Bluetooth, wifi, and GSM connections may have worse performance with aluminum foil in there as it can cause unwanted attenuation.
[Captivate General] sremick:
Except the battery cover is already aluminum. So what does adding foil do? What am I missing here?
[Captivate General] rajendra82:
I think that adding foil increasing the contact pressure due to the extra thickness, effectively achieving the same thing as bending the tab up to make better contact.
[Captivate General] Dungeon47:
It might be a good idea for people who have tried this to post their batch number. (i.e. mine is 1008). That way we may be able to find a common reason why it helps some, and not others.
[Captivate General] mcnutty:
^ This. From what I've seen, the older batches had more issues than the newer batches. If nothing works, I would take it in for an exchange and try a new one.
[Captivate General] NascarFastcar:
Im 1008 as well. I did this a few weeks ago. Over time I notice the lock speed slightly decrease but the number of satellites is still insane. Around 6-10 in the 30-40 snr range. It appears the hardware is fine, but theres just something thats preventing locks. Im still on stock eclair as well... People using roms have stated much better improves even with older phones?
[Captivate General] Dungeon47:
Has anyone tried using aluminum foil to make contact between the gold protrusions and the backplate? I was going to test this last night, but I don't have any aluminum foil.
[Captivate General] dodaniels:
Batch 1008 but I am returning phone as I have had to use Captivate Keep Alive all this time due to the shutdown issue. But since I saw the memo from Samsung to AT&T about this, I am going to exchange phones.
[Captivate General] chinesedevil:
Seemed to work for me, 10.11
[Captivate General] GRACO:
I have a 1006 with Cognition 2.3 b8 and GPS was not working at all, I removed the back cover and instantly got 4 satellites inside my house! I just used the pencil eraser and now my GPS is working like a charm. Excellent!
[Captivate General] fatttire:
me too. well, i'm at 0/1. wondering if scratching is a bad idea. i used a paper clip - didn't take off that much metal.
[Captivate General] amateurninja:
I broke the antenna!

So I broke the antenna while trying to lift it up and the SNR in LbsTestMode is definitely worse than before.

Is the antenna that I broke used for anything apart from GPS reception?

And how do I fix it? Just solder it back onto the board?
[Captivate General] ssurell:
Wayhayhey better

Of all the things I've done to this phone software wise... cleaning the contacts on the back cover fixed it. Somebody just slap me silly.

Edit: My exuberance was premature. While my GSM radio signal is vastly improved (I've never seen 4 bars before), the GPS only works if I'm sitting still or merely walking.
[EVO 4G Accessories] stkiswr:
I bought it and it finally came in today...all I can say is it's the best money I have spent. The fit and quality and reserve power is amazing. Out of the box it had 56% life. I have tried draining it with movies, qik, anything that pulls juice...gps on, wifi on (i know it actually uses less batt on wifi but I have 12m net lol), even have the brightness up...after 2 1/2 hours I have only pulled it down to 40%!

I know there are other batteries that are very cheap compared to this unit but I can say fit is excellent. Power is shocking...it is well worth the $65 to own such a power, well designed battery and back plate. The non skid coating doesnt even fly off my center console anymore. GREAT PRODUCT! very satisfied!

Sent from my EVO
[EVO 4G Accessories] blackroseMD1:
Yep. I have a Platinum branded 3500 mAh from Seidio, and it lasts forever. Don't know how I ever got by without it.
[EVO 4G Accessories] bones841:
Does the battery get more powerful overtime?
[EVO 4G Accessories] blackroseMD1:
For me it got better after about the fifth charge.

Swyped from my Cyanogen HaxTC Supersonic 4G
[EVO 4G Accessories] eighty1:
Can anyone post pics please?
[EVO 4G Accessories] Cares:
I can't post links yet due to post count so you will have to play around with my links to see them. Add http and also dot com to Amazon.

Seidio looks like this:

amazon/Seidio-Innocell-Extended-Battery-Black/dp/B003SNIR7Y

I personally don't like the "bulky" square look on this one. I opted for the Quickshippers version. Much more smooth and "cleaner." Not to mention about 1/2 the price.

amazon/SHIPPING-UPGRADE-3500mAh-Extended-Battery/dp/B0042TY68C
[EVO 4G Accessories] ghostyroasty:
Was in the market for a new case until I saw the Quickshippers battery... My main concern has always been camera protection.. The battery cover alone looks like it would do the job, no?
[EVO 4G Accessories] BrianDigital:
also anyone in the market for these extended batteries. There is kernel developed that allows for full charging of the them. SBC kernal it comes in sense and AOSP
[EVO 4G Accessories] ghostyroasty:
Here is the link for the Quickshippers option. If anyone has this, let me know what you think in regards to protecting the camera in particular.
[EVO 4G Accessories] squick:
I have the same battery and have a couple of tricks you may or may not know. I get about two days out of mine with moderate to heavy usage.

1. when the charge light goes green, the batt isn't full. charge about 3 or more hours over to get a full charge. I charge mine overnight and it's good. If you remove right after the light goes green you will not see much difference from the stock battery.

2. I just recently started running Calkulin's new kernel. I'll give you the link. I use the one that says SBC for Netarchy's CFS More Aggressive 4.2.1 (aka 131) 131.zip (2.91 MB). Find the one that best suites your rom, This one kicks ass. Scroll down to the second post. Here's the link- http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=876590

3. as far as turning things off while not using them, that's up to you. I dont and I still get the great life.

Hope this might help! Enjoy that awesome batt. By the way, bout the green light, the phone only recognizes either when the batt reaches 1500 or it reaches the proper voltage that makes the phone think the batt is full. It was set that way for use with the stock batt. This is what I've read bout and recognized from personal experience.
[EVO 4G Accessories] stkiswr:
Not sure I want to **** w the kernel atm. I managed 60 hours and charge the phone every 2 days...its amazing

Sent from my EVO
[EVO 4G Accessories] stkiswr:
Unplugged 12 hours @ 69%...seidio is a great battery

Sent from my EVO
[EVO 4G Accessories] squick:
That's great time. If it works great. The one I spoke of is supposed to be the newest and hottest thing out because of its ability to trickle charge the batt. When I take the phone off charge, it stays at 100% for hours if I dont use it. I've taken it off charge in the morning before just to test it and woke up bout 4 hours later and the phone was still at 100%. I've never fully tested to see how long mine will last as far as hours. I could guess that I would get at least the same as you. For instance, I took it off charge yesterday about 10am and right now I have 61%, granted I have had it connected to the computer a couple of times to download and transfer stuff.
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bobn4burton:
So my compass seems pretty well in the new google maps...but not in normal compass apps?

Anyone else experiencing this?
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Gomjabar:
compass works GREAT in gmaps 5. Also seems to work just fine in "compass" app by Catch.com.
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dawsoju:
compass is great in google maps. Never used another compass app on my Vibrant just on my MT3G
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jinx8402:
I've noticed that if holding it upright it works perfectly, however if you lay it down (both on a hard surface or holding it flat) it's off...maybe i just need to calibrate it better. When I first started maps after downloading 5.0 it said my compass was not calibrated and to make several figure 8 motions with it.
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] slinkyman22:
I have a Sprint Hero running Fresh 2.4.0 by Flipz and I am trying to put stock Sprint 2.1 back on the phone. When I go to push the software on there it says the phone is not connected to the computer. But I can charge the phone and move stuff from the sd card I can do everything but put the software on there. Can anyone help I am trying to sell the phone to get a EVO
[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zwizzle:
Are you using the RUU? If so, close it and try the following code in adb:

adb shell reboot oem-78

This will boot into the bootloader with RUU mode enabled. You should just see the HTC symbol. Then run the RUU again and it should find the phone.
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xriderx66:
today i noticed on my sd card and phoen storage settings thing

that my sd card hasn't used a single MB but my Phone Storage with 12.77 GB currently has 1.25GB left?

How is that possible? i'm sure i dont have 10GB worth of things in here, to make sure i went on my computer, connected USB and saw that none of my files were bigger than 300MB

Why is this and how can i fix it?