yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
Good luck to you. I hope they actually fix it instead of doing a stupid reset which I could have done myself. BTW it still didn't work after they "RESET" it.
[Vibrant General] dalepa:
Nevermind, after spending a few days with the new phone, the GPS SUJX just as bad. It initailly appeared to work better indoors, however on the road its just as bad or maybe even a little worse that my first vibrant.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
I am sorry (and a little surprised) to hear that. I wonder if they just did a software reset as per the posts a little earlier.
[Vibrant General] stealthx32:
Got it replaced under warranty.
[Vibrant General] chuimk:
Getting two Vibrant replacements

@stealthx32: How did you proceed to get that replacement? I bought two Vibrants on August/2010 on a T-Mobile promotional offer and both have GPS issues.

And, does anyone knows if I reflash the stock ROM, un-root and re-network-lock, will my warranty be "ressucitated"? I'm currently usign TW Nero5...
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
The answer is yes, if you odin back to stock and the type *2767*3855# in the dialer you'll be fine with the warranty. That's what I did before I sent my vibrant in and there were no warranty issues. The trick in the dialer will format the internal sd card and erase any evidence of unofficial updating.
[Vibrant General] Mannymal:
On a whim I re-opened my phone and re-did the solder. Removed what I had done before, and removed what remained of the ****ty copper contact. Heated the metal spot on the motherboard, applied a perfect round shiny drop of solder directly to the board, then filed it until the case fit almost perfectly, with just a hair of bulging just to be sure there is strong contact. Installed the KA7 baseband. GPS is better than ever, locks in less than 10 seconds with great accuracy. I think this is as good as this phone will ever get.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
LOL. Mannymal, not that I am counting, but I think this is the third time you have said that you think this is the best it is going to get.

I am waiting until next month when you decide to open it again and replace the solder with MHF4 connectors :p
[Vibrant General] omegaspin:
This is what worked for me, cleaned up from someone earlier

In addition to the GPS hardware fix I did the following:

First, make sure you have working WiFi and/or 3G data and it's working well.

Open your phone dialer and enter

*#3214789650#

(I like to save *#3214789650 to a google contact for future reference)

Under Application Settings use the following options:

Session Type -> Tracking

Test mode -> H/W Test

Operation mode -> H/W Sensitivity Test

Start Mode -> Cold start

GPS Plus -> ON

Dynamic Accuracy -> ON

Accuracy -> 50

GPS Logging -> OFF

Next go into SUPL/CP settings and set the following:

Server FQDN Type -> Custom Config

Server: -> supl.google.com (others have suggested supl.nokia.com)

Server Port -> 7276 (yes I know 7275 is normally the default)

SUPL security -> ON

AGPS mode -> SUPL

Go back to Home and reboot your Vibrant

Go back into LBS test mode (you saved it as a contact right?)

Select Delete GPS data

Select Get Position Test

Wait up to several minutes until you see Latitude/Longitude/Accuracy *green letters. (move to open sky if this part takes forever)

Lastly, go back into Application Settings and change Start Mode -> Hot Start.
[Vibrant General] chuimk:
Thanks Mo! :)

I'll just have to research a bit about that odin thing... I already read about it many times, but as I did all my updates using ROM Manager, I never cared. :)

And, BTW, getting back to stock, it seems, will be the easiest part. I just called T-Mobile support to complain about the GPS issue, and the answer was: yeah, you know, there's this new Froyo update that was just released. You should try that...". So, who did you called in your case? Was it Samsung support directly?
[Vibrant General] Mannymal:
Perfection can always be improved upon :)

As soon as you post instructions on a MHF4 mod, I'll be the first to try it out. If I wreck my phone then maybe I can beg XDA for another one to try and get GPS perfect for.

A little back drop into my GPS obsession: I am a pilot, and more than once GPS has saved my life when radio navigation has failed me in central america. Even though its just a phone I can't just rest easy knowing that one of my navigation tools is faltering. I practically owe my life to a Garmin 486 .
[Vibrant General] DocMarc73:
Back to the antenna contacts: what about the other tiny metal contact (the small silver block) right below the copper one?

Is it necessary to have firm contact as well? If yes, how could you improve that? Because you cant bend it anyway ... Would it help to put some metal part on top of it, or do you think that could mess it up?
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
I called Samsung about my GPS because I got my Vibrant from ebay. They didn't fix anything, all they did was "RESET" the phone. Could have done that myself. Good luck.
[Vibrant General] joeuser:
turnaround

havent tried the hw fix yet since my gps is fairly good already (new phone, signal strengths averaging 34 outside, accuracy 10m). what i did notice though (like some others), is quite an improvement when i turn the phone upside down. signals average around 41 then and accuracy is always at 5m.

i am very keen on getting the most accurate track recording performance possible on my trips without the need of carrying another device plus charger. so i was wondering if someone thought about a hw mod to actually move the gps antenna to a different place or wire something external? outdoor users will probably have one of those 3000mAh batteries with bigger cases anyway, so there could be some room for experiments.

greetings,

joe.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
Ok, Joe. Here is how:

Follow this schematic for assistance:

Maybe you can get Red Green to bring the duct tape and assist, I think he is at the lodge.
[Vibrant General] Kingfanpaul:
First of all I would like that thank you for finally giving me a working GPS. I have tried many different things, apps, roms and this is the only one that worked. BUT with wifi off the best accuracy I can get is within 1700 meters. Anyone know whats up with that? Did I not bend the contact up enough? I just barely moved it up because I was nervous about breaking it. Could it also be that the 3G connection is not very good and sometimes nonexistent here?
[Vibrant General] ZX3ZX4:
T313C0mun1s7-

Thank you so much! I haven't seen anything clearer since the Pentagon revealed its diagram for the path to victory in Afghanistan...
[Vibrant General] Janis:
Wasting a post, maybe

Three days ago, it took me minimally 3 minutes to get a lock, ever. I was one of those stuck with grey bars in GPS Test. I now get a lock on the first floor of the house, completely obstructed, really, in about 20 seconds, usually.

I did read the whole thread. A couple of things:

This didn't seem to help drift, or rather, I've always had wifi on with it, so when I was at least trying to use GPS I was mostly getting wifi locating, which was amazingly accurate. (I live in the sticks, all the way out on the outer edge of the first ring of suburbs). Without wifi on, I can always get a read within about 500 feet, which gets corrected fairly quickly. But thanks to this rigamarole I know that now.

I also know that not a lot of apps (any 3rd party?) don't tap into wifi locating. I would love to see some developers get into the GMaps API, or pick apart Maps to see how that's done. My Maps was always dead on with Wifi. Like, six feet.

I do have fingernails like the "dude" in the video (a couple of them, anyway), and I still had to use the pry tool I got a PPCTechs years ago. I've used it for 100 other things, too. It's cheap, considering the mileage and it'll fit in your toolbox. It really is just a wedge of plastic, but the hardness is such that it does the job without banging up your gadget.

IF $15 is too much, it's a wee softer than Lego. I had actually contemplated trying my DD's Polly Pocket Cinderella's spare leg (#1 Cindy lost it, we interred her, we found the leg. Now the new Cindy has a spare just in case.) Checking out the local second hand store for plastic wedgie toys might prove helpful if you can't get a purposed tool locally. A really nice plastic flatware knife might work, too, but not the regular, cheap, and toxic polystyrene ones (Google that). My other thought was bamboo if it's cut right. It just has to be pretty sharp to get into the .1 mm crack.

Many of us here would be SOL on GPS if it wasn't for XDA. If you're that happy, and if you can (e.g. you're not eating donated food), consider supporting the site. No one's paying me to say it. This site is a tribute to open source if there ever was one. Those of us for whom this worked just reaped the fruits of lots of labor and bandwidth. I love this site for exactly this thread, and 1000's of others just like it.
[Vibrant General] candyman123:
holy moly this worked great on my vibrant!! acquired a gps fix within minutes for first cold start, then within seconds for the next time gps turned on! now there are no cons for the vibrant in my eyes :D THANK YOU XDA MEMBERS! using Nero v5 btw
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
I saw improvements with Nero v5 as well. Bionix V with the KA7 modem and kernel gives great performance as well. I'm glad it worked for you!
[Vibrant General] Yuvan:
After reading through a gazillion posts in the Vibrant section of XDA, I finally got some decent locks on my GPS. Bought my phone from private party seller, which has a manufactured date of October 2010. I upgraded to official Froyo KA6 and the GPS became completely unusable. Prior to the update, I locked onto the GPS about 4 times over the course of 2 weeks, but at least I was able to get a lock.

The fix for phones manufactured October 2010:

Samsung’s GPS Restore tool found in the Android Market. Run the app outside in open skies since this particular GPS is beyond **** to begin with, so it’s worse indoors. If it doesn’t work at first, try again! The GPS is far from perfect, but it works to tolerable levels now.

To OP, please add this to your original post for easier reading for others looking for GPS fixes.

PS- **** you Samsung and TMobile. Thank you XDA contributors.
[Vibrant General] DocMarc73:
please delete
[Vibrant General] cowppl:
For those who think the GPS is good, I say travel a bit. I lived in Fresno and my GPS was near perfect. It used to drift a bit, but was really reliable. I went to LA, and my GPS was completely broken. Tried the GPS fix and it said it locked on to more sattelites but it kept jumping. Three quarters of the time, it just wouldn't lock. I am currently overseas in South Africa, and the GPS wont even lock on to one sattelite. It seems depending on your location, the Vibrant's GPS can either be near perfect or completely useless
[Vibrant General] lkt01071:
This worked really well for me. After flashing Bionix-V I couldn't lock locks and accuracy as good and quick compare to Axura 2.2.7.1.

I tried Samsung Restore App and didn't get much differences, then I tried what you have suggested and it got 12 satellites and locked on to 10 of them in 5 second from COLD START!.

Thanks and I got a even better gps than I had from Axura.

Btw, the only differences in settings in LBS for me are:

Test mode -> H/W Test

SUPL security -> ON

Not sure if those were the cause of the sudden perf. increase!
[Vibrant General] AEguyNYC5:
The bums at Samsung sent me the same email they sent you. This phone is like a girl with a pretty face, you know she probably is no good for you but your a sucker for that face (in this case, the screen). Hopefully Samsung starts selling the screens to other companies soon so I dont feel forced to buy another Samsung after this junk and their crappy service. Once I receive it I'll be opening it up again see what bending or soldering I do.
[Vibrant General] AEguyNYC5:
Solder question

For the guys that have done the soldering, is there a specific thickness of solder on the contact you recommend? This is why I find cooking so difficult, I ask my mother ok how much cinnamon, cloves, sugar, I put to make the oatmeal how you make it? She says JUST A LITTLE BIT, ok well that leaves me with no clue at all, do you guys suggest like 1/64, 1/32, 1/16? What is a good amount? Me and my shaking hands will turn this phone into solder soup. Thanks
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
This is very small, surprisingly small. I personally like to keep a nice large spool of my favorite solder around which is suitably small diameter, If I need to do larger work I just feed it faster.

Here is what it says on my spool:

Ratio - 60/40, Tin/Lead

Type - 370 Flux, 5 core

Diameter, 0.56 mm
[Vibrant General] AEguyNYC5:
Wow that is as specific as anyone can get :eek: Thank you so much! Time to operate.
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
The smallest diameter I have is .022....that's what I'd use.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
.022 inches = 0.5588 millimeters = Same Thing
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
Sho nuff. I left inches off of mine. I was a little delirious and intended to type out that solder can be labeled differently. However, I fell asleep, woke up, saw where I hadn't clicked "Submit Reply" and just went for it. :D
[Vibrant General] Janis:
I would venture to say that several of us tried these. I did, pretty much entirely based on the good GPS reports in Nero v5 threads. I didn't get any improvement on any ROM until I cracked open my phone. I would agree, though, if you haven't tried at least five radio images and three ROMs of good repute, don't risk this. You aren't in a "clean room," you might lose a screw, you might break your connector, you might get something in your eye and drop a tear in your phone, who knows. It's risky. All that said, I'm really, really glad I did it (after thoroughly vacuuming my space with a 5-horse-power HEPA vac).

Just a bit of my story and a caveat: I didn't think I was actually bending my connector. I went through the motions. I probably got about an invisible .2mm of difference in the height of the thing, if that, and closed it up and tested it to see if I had done anything. I figured better to put the extra work in opening, nudging, closing, repeat, than to break the connector. It's also a bit tough on the connector to bend it too far and have the cover pushing on that bend-point so hard. If for some reason that weakens it, it could bend right back to not connecting. If you have to do this again, then, you may have a weaker connector. My personal advice would be to be gentle, test a few times if need be. You'll be working with a distance you can't see. I was lucky; once was all it took.

While I'm at it, I have a question, too. I'm wondering if the black sticker holding the antenna has carbon in it, and if cutting a hole in it might improve reception. I do get slightly better reception without the back cover on it. Any non-black relacement back covers anyone recommends?
[Vibrant General] YetisAreReal:
I finally got around to trying this today and I have to say my initial results are great but I used a slightly different method that I thought would be safer. I grabbed some copper tape (used for shielded data cables) from work and cut a small square piece to fit the contact on the antenna side. Then I cut a small strip of credit card and put it under the pin on the mainboard of the phone to help it with contact pressure. Using the GPS test app my SNR has improved a fair bit.

Before: Inside my room I used to get a few satellites with mid to high teens and a few with mid to high twenties and 9m accuracy.

After: Now in the same spot I get low twenties and mid thirties with 5m accuracy.

Later today when I leave for my weekend hike I will test the drift factor and other performance variables and report back with my results. I did experience the slight drift in GPS from time to time so I am curious to see it that has been resolved. FWIW my phone has a manufacture date of 10/22/10 and has only suffered from low SNR and very small infrequent drifts in recorded paths or navigation
[Vibrant General] AEguyNYC5:
Safety first, always wear goggles.

The copper tape thing sounds good. Does Home Depot or Radio Crap sell that? I wish people took pics of their work and uploaded a pic or two. :( Thanks
[Vibrant General] YetisAreReal:
Home depot might I am not sure about Rat shack but I guess they would too. Yea it hit me afterwards that I should have snapped some pics in process. Maybe I can make a video walkthrough for people later on if anybody wants it. Yesterday my GPS did good outside with SNR's from 29-40 and 12/13 birds which is by far the best I have had since I got the phone. Tracking seemed good but I would need to test it a bit more for drifting.
[Vibrant General] twe69:
I tried fixing it but didn't make much of a difference, signal was still weak but connected a little quicker. Anyway decided to make use of the 24 month warranty with Samsung and posted the phone off to them! They better fix it and not charge me for it otherwise going to be blood on my hands.....
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
I would not have publicly admitted that if I were you . . . just say`n
[Vibrant General] AEguyNYC5:
Well, I'll tell you like MoWeb told me about week or two ago, goodluck! I sent in my phone, even tried give them a guilt trip over the phone & to the tech with letter I wrapped around the phone saying my mother is disabled and I need to drive her around, and all they did was reset the phone. They didnt even pickup a screwdriver. Those techs must play dominos all day or watch Maury & Jerry and then just reset all the phones and log them in the system. They are probably in a union with great pay, benefits, and a pension too.
[Vibrant General] chuckbass:
I did the credit card version of the fix--sticking a bit of credit card under the connector to prop it up. It definitely improves my SNR and I get a couple more satellites, but for me it doesn't fix the problem of locking, which has always been the main problem on my phone.

I'm currently in Boston, indoors, in a huge snowstorm, and I have 11-12 satellites in view--9 satellites are 39+ in SNR and the others are in the mid-30s! So by # of sats and SNR standards, this is working really well. But it just won't lock, even though 11 of the satellites are totally steady (the 12th comes in and out). (Obviously I've also tried outdoors on a clear day, and I always have a great signal from lots of sats, but no lock.)

I was in Phoenix a couple weeks ago when I did the fix. My GPS already worked well there (it would lock, and tracks were steady without drifting). The fix definitely helped the SNRs, accuracy, and lock speeds. I could get 5m accuracy indoors. (But then I put a serious damp on my hardware fix afterglow by putting my girlfriend's G2 next to my phone, watching it lock in half a second with 1m accuracy.)

My verdict is that the hardware fix definitely helps on my phone, but there's still an issue with locking. Maybe that's a software problem; I don't know. (I'm on Nero v5, and I've tried a bunch of different ROMs, including everything people recommend for GPS like Axura.) So I'm glad I did the fix, but I didn't quite get the same results as others.
[Vibrant General] twe69:
Hey I got my phone back yesterday, sent it Tuesday last week so thats a turn around of about 3 days excluding delivery! Anyway they have fixed my phone! I connected to 10 out of 10 satellites on the way to work and used the sat nav program to direct me [without data on] and no loss of connection or thinking that I am on a different road, took seconds to connect rather than minutes. They did load it with old software though for some reason so am tempted to make a nandroid backup, change the rom etc on it.
[Vibrant General] nomadrider123:
Did you do the hardware fix? I wonder if there is any way the devs could make use of the " old software" they put on it?
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
Man that sucks....I was hoping they did something different for you. I tried the hardware fix and I guess it's better. Don't really know since I actually broke the phone. No speaker, no sim, no sd card all broken. Screen, camera, and headphone jack working. I'm looking for a broken Vibrant on ebay to replace the motherboard.
[Vibrant General] twe69:
Well I kind of messed it up already! Tried the darky 9.1 rom with voodoo 5.3 kernel and everything seems fine besides the GPS now! This is on the Samsung Galaxy S i9000.... Going to play around with it.

This is what it had when they sent it back to me:

Firmware 2.2

Baseband I9000XXJPP

Kernel 2.6.32.9 root@SE-S608 #1

Build FROYO XWJPH

edit: Actually it's still working fine, guess I didn't stick it out the window long enough due to cold start.... Connected to the same amount of satellites before the darky rom was installed.... Am happy, thanks Samsung UK customer support! :)
[Vibrant General] Mannymal:
How did this happen, during the hardware fix or something else? Because if it was during the hardware fix then you must have used a hammer.
[Vibrant General] heygrl:
He must have pulled up on the top half of the mainboard too much when he was pulling off the back of the phone. It's very easy to do that.
[Vibrant General] nuke777:
man I wish there was similar video to boost the anttena signal. I tested my vibrant with 3 other vibrants who had identical Roms and basebands and my Vibrant has the worst signal, usualy by 10 dbm.

any advise for this poor sucker??
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
LOL...I think it happened when I snapped the phone back together. I heard a cracking sound so I'm assuming damage to the motherboard. Sucks for me.
[Vibrant General] T313C0mun1s7:
I updated post #2 (Q & A) with the new market link for the GPS Restore app.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sec.samsung.GpsRestore
[Vibrant General] villainous_scum:
Locks immediately. Accurate. Thanks!
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
Also guys, don't forget, if you don't have a Captivate or a Vibrant, the GPS Restore App won't work on your device.
[Vibrant General] nacron:
wow, amazing. I am getting lock in waze as soon as I open the app. And also, my social checkin apps load the closest locations now instead of a guestimate. I did also bend the rest of the spring loaded pins, I'll report back on any improvement on other wireless connectivity.
[Vibrant General] MV10:
I'm curious, why was this thread un-stickied?
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
Because it's in the sticky roll up thread which makes the number of stickies at the top just a single thread. So it's still sticky.
[Vibrant General] AEguyNYC5:
I also heard a cracking or popping sound when I put my phone back together. I think I must have snapped off the gps connector pin thing because before the phone used to see the satellites but not lock onto any, but after I tried to do surgery there is no "heartbeat", it shows no gps activity whatsoever, no satellites at all.

MoWeb, try both eBay and Craigslist to see if you find a Vibrant you can use for parts.
[Vibrant General] KWKSLVR:
Less clutter as well. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=876779
[Vibrant General] MoWeb:
I won a Vibrant on ebay with a cracked screen. I should get it on Monday or Tuesday. I'll apply the hardware fix before I put the motherboard into the phone. I've had a lot of practice with this one since it's already broken. I put a rubber band underneath the curve to raise the spring up and give it some cushion. Accuracy to 5m but locks are around 90 seconds.

My advice to all is, be careful when snapping the phone back together. Make sure any part on the motherboard or the motherboard itself hasn't shifted somehow.
[Vibrant General] theratdude64:
speed incorrect in GPS

I've done the physical GPS fix, and several different roms, using GPS status... My GPS shows incorrect speed. Going 20 it says about 30, then at 35 it's showing more like 57 mph.

Is there a file to update the GPS or something like that? I know the GPS is notoriously bad on vibrants but just seems strange that I finally got it actually working and it's not quite right.