[FIX] Wi-Fi/Bluetooth error - 10 minute fix - NO SOLDERING REQUIRED

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rain91x

Member
Nov 21, 2010
28
0
wifi fix

Hi
I have same problem. I cut a stripe from an old credit card, and put below motherboard. Problem isnt solved, wifi not turn on. I moved the plastic more than 10 minute, and WIFI TURN ON and stable. The next day, i disassemble the phone, and i put again the plastic. Ever since i dont find the good position for the plastic, i played with this 3 hour.... Wifi wont turn on, and phone reboots. What exactly is causing the problem?
 
F

Feche

Senior Member
Oct 5, 2012
611
288
Buenos Aires
rain91x said:
Hi
I have same problem. I cut a stripe from an old credit card, and put below motherboard. Problem isnt solved, wifi not turn on. I moved the plastic more than 10 minute, and WIFI TURN ON and stable. The next day, i disassemble the phone, and i put again the plastic. Ever since i dont find the good position for the plastic, i played with this 3 hour.... Wifi wont turn on, and phone reboots. What exactly is causing the problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Maybe it's fully broken, you will have to reflow or a rebail (rebailling), new phone or new motherboard, those are your options.
 
R

rain91x

Member
Nov 21, 2010
28
0
Feche said:
Maybe it's fully broken, you will have to reflow or a rebail (rebailling), new phone or new motherboard, those are your options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

But once i repaired for 1 day... And i disassembled, it interested me to, that what is causing the problem.. But i didnt know it. :(
Ribbon cables, or the wifi chip?
 
Last edited:
A

acidrums4

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2012
218
51
rain91x said:
But once i repaired for 1 day... And i disassembled, it interested me to, that what is causing the problem.. But i didnt know it. :(
Ribbon cables, or the wifi chip?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

As far as I know (I mean, I read this somewhere here on xda), this is 100% caused by planned obsolescence in wifi/bt's chip. After a year (almost exactly 365 days) it stops working and nobody knows how to fix it, excepting replacing the chip on the board (almost impossible), replacing the entire board (most reasonable, but I don't know if doing this would cause changing your IMEI that, for some people like me, that would be a problem with the service carrier). Or the one option that (I think, after finding out that I can't receive calls and my speaker is no longer working after trying this 'fix') is the wisest choice you can do: saving your money for a good phone, and never buying a Motorola again.
 
Matada02

Matada02

Senior Member
Sep 7, 2011
217
53
logout.hu
Maaaaan, I love you! Really works!!! You saved my life :) I owe you!

MANY THANKS FOR THIS POST!

Edit: I have drops, after 10 minutes then i rebbot and everything is fine for another 10 minutes. Also when it broke i can play with turning on the wifi but doen't see any signal. (i am on the latest cm9 krystianp)
 
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J

junior1142

New member
Aug 4, 2010
1
0
Thanks!!!

I've had my Atrix in a drawer for well over a year having since moved on to the Sammys (SGS4 curently). Wifi and BT have been jacked and could never get fixed. Figured I'd do another web search to see if any new developments and found this which seemed like a simple enough solution that was worth a shot. Sliding the plastic under the motherboard was a little tricky but hot damn it worked.

BT and wifi currenty working and if it wasn't for a dead area on the top third of the screen (no response to touch) this would be back to as good as brand new. Nice, now I have an even better backup phone should the need arise. I can also connect it via mini-HDMI to stream videos from the web.

Thanks again to Newbleeto and John-Aurelio for the solution.:good::highfive:
 
Last edited:
K

komisch

Member
Oct 30, 2013
8
0
I have the same problem with my atrix but me the problem is that the chip is totally seperate of the motherboard. Did one of you know how to repair this?
 
S

sobitthen

Senior Member
Jun 20, 2012
186
28
Superior
refer.cricketwireless.com
Careful of the ZIF connector during placement of wedge.

So my kid comes to me with his phone, tells me his wi-fi is out, known bug, been busy with work so just order him a new phone...

Tonight I decide to open it up to see if anything is visibly damaged...

I find screws all scratched up, and some foil jammed under the battery below the vibrator, making contact with both sides of the battery, shorting it out. I also find the small piece of plastic from this thread...

So I ask him, and he admits to coming here and finding a fix, he knows I am a member and cracked my phones before and decides to fix on his own, knowing full well I have an electrical engineering degree and many years of experience and specialized training,,,
After my shouting match, I made him show me the page where he got the idea for the repair, and this is it according to him.

I can see he used the plastic wedge under the ribbon cable, noticed that his placement of this wedge opened up the ZIF connector allowing the ribbon cable to still be in the socket, but without any tension to insure contact, so if people are trying this and not correcting, or intermittent, perhaps pull the board up, use fingernails near the USB-HDMI connector to spread case and flip over to inspect the ZIF connector to make sure you didn't open it up like my son did...

If I can get a battery for less than $5 shipped I may try and repair this, or hunt for one with broken screen to have a back-up since I sold my old one with every accessory made today to a friend, but going back to argue with him to find the article that said to short the battery so I can comment there as well... :cowboy:
 
I

iTaisHi

Senior Member
May 16, 2014
142
21
the battery issue

sobitthen said:
So my kid comes to me with his phone, tells me his wi-fi is out, known bug, been busy with work so just order him a new phone...

Tonight I decide to open it up to see if anything is visibly damaged...

I find screws all scratched up, and some foil jammed under the battery below the vibrator, making contact with both sides of the battery, shorting it out. I also find the small piece of plastic from this thread...

So I ask him, and he admits to coming here and finding a fix, he knows I am a member and cracked my phones before and decides to fix on his own, knowing full well I have an electrical engineering degree and many years of experience and specialized training,,,
After my shouting match, I made him show me the page where he got the idea for the repair, and this is it according to him.

I can see he used the plastic wedge under the ribbon cable, noticed that his placement of this wedge opened up the ZIF connector allowing the ribbon cable to still be in the socket, but without any tension to insure contact, so if people are trying this and not correcting, or intermittent, perhaps pull the board up, use fingernails near the USB-HDMI connector to spread case and flip over to inspect the ZIF connector to make sure you didn't open it up like my son did...

If I can get a battery for less than $5 shipped I may try and repair this, or hunt for one with broken screen to have a back-up since I sold my old one with every accessory made today to a friend, but going back to argue with him to find the article that said to short the battery so I can comment there as well... :cowboy:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

so for your opinion it is the battery?
the peace of plastic work for me only for couple of hours and again the wifi not working .
which battery is that? should i give achance for this battery solution?
 
A

andresrivas

Senior Member
Aug 4, 2010
1,061
363
Córdoba
What battery? He didn't mention any fix related to battery. Only that his son short circuited it.

If your wifi wont last long, ut could mean its related to heat more than a loose connector

Enviado desde mi MB860 usando Tapatalk 2
 
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F

Fatherless

Member
Jul 7, 2011
23
0
WOW.........IT WORKS..... WOW..... yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh IT WORKS............... it works

. I USED an old Credit card

THANK YOU
 
A

albertotapia80

Member
Jan 4, 2012
18
1
¿Do you really need to remove the screws in order to put the plastic or you can just slide the plastic from the battery compartment?
 
S

SimplePhoneTrade

Member
Jun 20, 2015
10
1
DIY Motorola Repairs

My company, Simple Phone Trade, specializes in Moto repairs. If anyone else breaks a Moto device send me a message if you want a link to our manuals (XDA won't let me post URLs yet) or need direction with parts and tools.

We don't sell parts or tools and are unbiased/agnostic concerning wholesalers (not to mention experienced and knowledgeable).
 
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    Newbleeto
    This is the way I fixed the wifi\bluetooth error with continuous rebooting on my Atrix.

    I did not come up with it, and I do not guarantee it will work in your device, I'm simply sharing this because it's information that's hard to find and understand. I fixed my device in this way, so have others. I do not take responsability for any damage you might make to your device attempting this fix, and I do not claim it will work forever - it's been two days for me and still great!

    For completeness sake, if you guys want to check other proposed fixes and some reasons why they might or might not work, here is this great post by mvniekerk, a person more far more knowlegble then me when it comes to these technological issues:
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1655071

    I'd also like to thank John-aurelio, junior member, who initially posted about this fix here:
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1655071&page=4
    All credit goes to him!

    So, what did I do?
    1) I cut out two rectagular pieces of plastic from a pill tin, glued them on top of each other with scotch tape. I think any thin piece of plastic should do.
    2) Opened up my Atrix by removing screws with a T5 Torx screwdriver. If you don't know how to do this check out this teardown by ifixit: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola+Atrix+4G+Teardown/4964/1
    3) Slightly raised the motherboard and placed the plastic rectangle under it, with a little bit sticking out into the battery compartment.

    To my amazement it worked, it is still working.
    I wanted to tell you guys why, but I don't know. Perhaps one of you guys wants to experiment applying pressure to each component separately to find out the culprit?
    Also, I'm curious to know if this will work for all of you, or just some of you.
    Here are the pics:



    This last one is the piece of tin\plastic with tape, side by side with a pencil for scale. Its not the tin I used, but its basically the same, but the one I used has white paint, I don't know if should make a difference. If you're worried about shorts just cover the whole thing in tape or cut plastic from a bottle or something.
    The first two are how its supposed to look in the end.

    [EDIT]: Here are some more pics:

    This is the piece of plastic I used. It doesn't show, but it is very thin, one milimiter thick, if even.


    These are of the open device. In the last one the plastic piece is a little eschewed, but you get the idea.

    Cheerios
    View
    3
    B
    bbignell
    Newbleeto said:
    This is the way I fixed the wifi\bluetooth error with continuous rebooting on my Atrix.

    I did not come up with it, and I do not guarantee it will work in your device, I'm simply sharing this because it's information that's hard to find and understand. I fixed my device in this way, so have others. I do not take responsability for any damage you might make to your device attempting this fix, and I do not claim it will work forever - it's been two days for me and still great!

    For completeness sake, if you guys want to check other proposed fixes and some reasons why they might or might not work, here is this great post by mvniekerk, a person more far more knowlegble then me when it comes to these technological issues:
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1655071

    I'd also like to thank John-aurelio, junior member, who initially posted about this fix here:
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1655071&page=4
    All credit goes to him!

    So, what did I do?
    1) I cut out two rectagular pieces of plastic from a pill tin, glued them on top of each other with scotch tape. I think any thin piece of plastic should do.
    2) Opened up my Atrix by removing screws with a T5 Torx screwdriver. If you don't know how to do this check out this teardown by ifixit: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola+Atrix+4G+Teardown/4964/1
    3) Slightly raised the motherboard and placed the plastic rectangle under it, with a little bit sticking out into the battery compartment.

    To my amazement it worked, it is still working.
    ...
    Cheerios
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse
    I did this as well, and it's been working perfectly for over a week now. Battery life has tripled to 24h (back where it used to be, what a relief) and the wifi is back to being perfect.

    In my case, I cut a small piece out of an old credit card and inserted into the section highlighted in the attached picture, inside to out (from the battery bay towards the side). There are flat cables/strips underneath and you probably don't want to insert your spacer material from the outside in. Make sure that the plastic strip fits completely underneath the board, otherwise you won't be able to properly close the back.

    Thanks!
    View
    1
    F
    Feche
    Thanks, seems to work!
    View
    1
    Cab121
    Cab121
    What an interesting tweak. There some validity to this. The Atrix 4G is notorious for wifi, bluetooth, and GPS dropout. This is largely due to kernel and rom. However I have seem plenty of Atrix4Gs with loose antenna clamps. Usually I apply a little pressure in the outside of the clamp to reform it slightly so it will maintain hold on the reciever socket. Second thing I look at is the shielding around the mainboard. This acts as a heatsink and guard. If depressed in anyway will cause massive heating along with grounding. The antenna clusters are not well separated from RF interference from one another to begin with. Metal in general will restricted RF signals considerably depending on its frequency. The greater the frequency the lower it's ability to perpetrate materials.

    From the looks of it your directing RF crossover and bounce back away from each antenna. This is a good thing. It also means as long as the phone is not held on its edge towards any receiving end it won't effect talk and data very much.

    My experiments with the Atrix4G always had a bit of unpredictable outcome when it came to pressure on the ribbon connections. This would result in the screen blacking out, digitizer over sensitive or non responsive, failure to boot and so on. Pressure is a big deal with these phones so be careful.


    Happy tinkering :D
    View
    1
    B
    bbignell
    Cab121 said:
    To add some data to this can all of you confirm the kernel and rom you are useing before and after this mod. Would help all of us in the future for reference. Thanks.
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse
    Sure, no problem!

    Atrix 4G (Bell Canada)
    Unlocked and rooted by yours truly (don't ask how, I'm still not sure I know what I did)
    CynaogenMod 10.1 from epinter: Megathread or linuxmobile.org site, builds 2013-08-07 + hporch32 kernel (before and after mod) & 2013-08-26 + hporch32 kernel (after mod)
    Radio: Telstra N_01.87.00R
    View

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