Bad signal on VZW GNex

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aimetti

Senior Member
Nov 23, 2011
976
155
Maybe your coverage area? I am in Tampa...in a building, in my office, i get 5-6 megs down and 2-3 up...with my LTE GNex, i cant even hold a 4g signal, and when i do its 5 megs each way. Nothing earth shattering....but on top of it, that drops to 3g and stays there. The GSM, always had a connection.


Ive had nothing but problems with mine. Have a ticket opened with google and others reporting same thing.

Feel free to read if you would like..
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=20359645

Pretty much I can watch my 4s have a -83 DBM signal while my nexus ends up dropping to -100s and not recovering.
 

FlagAZ

Senior Member
Jul 10, 2011
154
8
Same thing with me, I live in a small town but the cell tower is across the street from my house. My old Inc, Inc2 and the rezound I had for a few days had better signal. When I was in Phoenix yesterday for about two hours. All I did was 4g speed test and could not come close to the Rezound speed. The battery sucks on the nexus, I charged it from 9:20am to 11:30am in the car with the phone off. I played around with 3g and when in Phoenix (4g) for the two hours I only had 10% battery. I wanted to check out the 4g speed and battery life. So far I'm not happy with this phone. You might like it, but for me I want good signal and battery life.
 

ceredics

Senior Member
Jul 25, 2011
2,197
43
Toledo, Ohio
Coming from my rooted charge yes this has bad signal. I used to have full 4g bars in my home now I have one and bounce between 3 and 4g. Which is also kicking my batteries ass. The nexus s 4g had it bad too when I was on sprint but that was WAY worse than this

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
 

xEVILFREDx

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2011
328
23
NY
Everyone please read and answer.

Do you have the hard case cover on your phone ??? I notice a -20 up on connection. Still had random drops from LTE to 3G.

Did you have another LTE device so we can start putting calls to VZW about it. Reason I ask is because I put in a ticket last night about this. I think its a concern big time in which I really need to evaluate it myself if this is software/driver driven or maybe its Samsung drop the ball on this and just install a weak radio on the nexus. Either way, VZW won't look and act on it if we only complain here in the forum. If we can get enough complaints to the call center, then we might get somewhere. I really don't want to exchange this for the rezound but I love my LTE. Coming from the T-BOLT and connection wise, it was better then the nexus.
 

tsk138

Member
Sep 20, 2010
41
4
I had a Rezound for 3 weeks and never lost 4G.

The Nexus has the same signal with and without the gel case. (-100 to -120 mostly with -140 the worst) all in the exact same spot.
 

mrpoptop

Member
Feb 3, 2008
9
2
norman
I have seen down from low 20s to currently a high of 38 in Norman oklahoma. No complaints here.
 

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TiltedAz

Senior Member
Oct 19, 2007
522
76
I have a hard case installed,

4G with 2 bars showing in home,

speedtest.net: 12.7Mbps/4.4Mbps during morning rush hour commute.

No drops for me.
 

tsk138

Member
Sep 20, 2010
41
4
For what it's worth...

One thing I have noticed is that the signal stays the same with the case on or off.
However the speedtest differs. With gel case off I get 3 to 4 MB more down.
 

xEVILFREDx

Senior Member
Jan 13, 2011
328
23
NY
I am going to contact VZW and trouble shoot the phone. If there is still issues then I am going back to the store and replacing the phone. Maybe its a defect on the phone. That's all I can think of.
 

jeffreycentex

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2006
273
63
New Braunfels, TX
I'm a mostly-3G person, and the phone seems to be:

1. Much better than the Thunderbolt or Incredible in 3G signal. By about 10dB.
2. Slightly worse than the borrowed Razr by 5 dB.

I can't talk about 4G as I'm not in it's area enough to gauge a difference. When I was in San Antonio, I got 22 down and 11 up. And I had a 4G signal in an office where I didn't have one with the Razr.

I must admit, though, that at least the Nexus can hold/reconnect (quickly) a data signal. When the Razr dropped off a data network, it could take 30~45 minutes for it to "see" a new data network. It was very annoying especially while driving. Handoffs on the Nexus seem fast.
 

sstang2006

Senior Member
May 7, 2009
518
58
If it is not a Motorola you can bet signal will $uck.

My rented RAZR never dropped 4G at work, with the Nexus I only see 4G from time to time.
 

mastibeta

Senior Member
Jun 14, 2010
432
74
Tampa Fl
I am thinking this may be hardware specific...it seems most have the issue, but some seem very good....ideas?

EDIT: I spent some time on the phone with Tech support. They ran some service through the towers to my device...i am assuming its like re-associating with the towers....whatever they did, my phone now has a solid 4g lock, and my data speeds have doubled.
 
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fender2kx

Member
Apr 6, 2010
25
1
Columbia, SC
I am thinking this may be hardware specific...it seems most have the issue, but some seem very good....ideas?

EDIT: I spent some time on the phone with Tech support. They ran some service through the towers to my device...i am assuming its like re-associating with the towers....whatever they did, my phone now has a solid 4g lock, and my data speeds have doubled.

I'll try that tomorrow, but the signal has been terrible. LG Revolution pre Nexus and gets much better 4G in this area.

Lets get the word out and comment on posts you can find: http://androidcommunity.com/verizon-galaxy-nexus-significant-signal-issues-arise-20111216/#comments
 
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martonikaj

Senior Member
Nov 20, 2010
7,867
1,670
Seattle, WA
I am thinking this may be hardware specific...it seems most have the issue, but some seem very good....ideas?

EDIT: I spent some time on the phone with Tech support. They ran some service through the towers to my device...i am assuming its like re-associating with the towers....whatever they did, my phone now has a solid 4g lock, and my data speeds have doubled.

Probably analogous to just updating your PRL on the device.
 

steelersfan16

New member
Jun 21, 2011
1
0
I noticed the 3g signal is about the same if not better than my droid 2 global. I live just on the edge of 4g and neither me (galaxy nexus) or my brother (tbolt) can get a 4g signal consistently.
 

Gilbot

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2010
617
117
Milpitas
Coming from Sprint, this phone's 3g and 4g speeds are insane good. I'll reply if I see issues, but right now I'm in heaven.



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
 

xguntherc

Senior Member
Mar 25, 2010
974
13
Viva Las Vegas!
Anyone try going back to 4.0.1 stock image Google released (LTE obviously) before the update and see if the signal is better?

hmm.. This XYBOARD 8.2" LTE sitting next to my Galaxy Nexus has two bars of LTE while I'm on 3G.. that isn't fun
 

MrKleen1

Senior Member
Mar 3, 2010
299
68
Well guys this is not our imaginations. Yesterday I got the phone first thing in the morning and if I did not have wifi in my house I would not have been able to use the phone because it kept dropping.

Yesterday I pulled the battery several times and the sim card. The phone would have 4g for a minute and then drop again.

Today I called tech support and they had me do a factory data reset. I did this and thought the problem was solved because my signal was then about as good as my Thunderbolt. However as the day has progressed it has now gone bad again and now I cannot hold much of a signal if any again.

I called tech support tonight and they guy had me turn the phone off and take the battery out and he re-provisioned it and had me check all the settings. We checked it all out and my signal is about -125 to -140 dbm. He said anything above about 95 is not a good signal.

He said it sounds like I have a device with a bad radio. He said I should take it back and get another to see if it is better with a new one or if they are all bad. Then if the phone is no good I at least have a chance to get something better within my return timeframe. This is what he told me...

This is what I am going to do tomorrow. So far I am very disappointed with the Nexus since I tortured myself over it for two months in anticipation. Finally it comes out and it is a dud. Obviously this is probably why it was delayed. It appears as though it should still be delayed or redesigned.

I hope to never be so excited over a phone again.
 

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    That is what tech support told me when I was on the phone complaining about loosing 4 bars of 4g going from my razr to the GN. I had download speeds of 28mbs/sec now I have around 4mbs/sec if I have any 4g at all. I asked to have the phone reprovisioned on the towers but they didnt do it because the radio is now a "Know Issue" with VZW tech support. Again I was told a fix is in the works expect it mid Jan.

    Yes, you keep believing that from a VZ rep, Mid- Jan magically is the date that any purchases over the holiday period lose their return window ...

    Gee, I hope I'm wron... er, nope, I'm not.
    2
    For whatever it's worth, here's what I heard back from a tech at Verizon who seems to be pretty knowledgable based on past experience:

    As far as the Nexus, it's really been too short of a time for me to get an accurate gauge on what the situation is, but here's what I know so far.

    ---The signal indicator is incorrectly displaying signal strength. Google is saying that it displays signal differently than the normal stock of VZW phones, but either way, a software fix is being developed. Tentative release date Mar 2012.

    ---The 3G reception is faulty. There is a recognized issue where the device displays that 3G is available, but the device is unable to commit to data sessions. Temporary workaround is to reboot the phone (not necessary to pull the battery, just powering down and back up again should do the trick). I would not advise to put the plane into airplane mode and back on again because the Nexus also has been documented to take up to 60 seconds to regain signal after coming out of airplane mode. Software fix for the 3G problem has a tentative release date of January 2012 and the airplane mode problem is tentative March 2012.
    1
    I have to imagine the VZW network was getting pounded pretty hard last night with new adopters and phones being activated. I'd say give it a few days and check back into it
    1
    I have same signal i used to have on my rezound, i still get almost same speeds around 28 up and 18-20 down here in Minneapolis. rezound used to get 32 down and around 20 up, but i am thinking since verizon network was pounded yesterday so there will be some impact on speeds
    1
    How did you pull up a measure of the signal strength in db on an iphone? I'm having the same gNex weak cellular signal problems and wanted to try an actual reception comparison to my wife's iphone like you did..

    Go to the phone keypad and type *3001#12345#* then press call/send