Why does LTE connection seem weaker than other sprint LTE phones?

Eckono · Apr 26, 2014

My GS5 seems to have a very weak LTE signal. I disabled all bands except for band 25 because the phone was trying to signal hop killing the battery. My girlfriend has the Note 3 which can only pick up band 25. When my phone is right next to hers, she can have a very strong LTE signal and my GS5 will either have a very weak signal or drop down to 3G. The only LTE band in my area that's currently pretty strong is the 1900mhz band. I can barely connect to that. Anyone else having weak signal or connection issues?

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s13silviaguy · Apr 26, 2014

Eckono said:
My GS5 seems to have a very weak LTE signal. I disabled all bands except for band 25 because the phone was trying to signal hop killing the battery. My girlfriend has the Note 3 which can only pick up band 25. When my phone is right next to hers, she can have a very strong LTE signal and my GS5 will either have a very weak signal or drop down to 3G. The only LTE band in my area that's currently pretty strong is the 1900mhz band. I can barely connect to that. Anyone else having weak signal or connection issues?

Sent from my SM-G900P using xda app-developers app

I've noticed the same thing.... my girlfriend has the Galaxy S3 and has better signal then me all the time... WTF?!?!?!?!?!

Eckono · Apr 26, 2014

I'm tempted to go to the Note 3. I can deal with alot of things, but signal issues isn't 1 of them.

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Epix4G · Apr 26, 2014

s13silviaguy said:
I've noticed the same thing.... my girlfriend has the Galaxy S3 and has better signal then me all the time... WTF?!?!?!?!?!

Your phone is showing data signal hers is showing cdma 1x voice. .. please download signal check app and you will see true db of 1x 3g lte signal. .. so you can compare

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sporklover · Apr 26, 2014

Eckono said:
My GS5 seems to have a very weak LTE signal. I disabled all bands except for band 25 because the phone was trying to signal hop killing the battery. My girlfriend has the Note 3 which can only pick up band 25. When my phone is right next to hers, she can have a very strong LTE signal and my GS5 will either have a very weak signal or drop down to 3G. The only LTE band in my area that's currently pretty strong is the 1900mhz band. I can barely connect to that. Anyone else having weak signal or connection issues?

Sent from my SM-G900P using xda app-developers app

Signal bars lie. Do this on both of your samsung phones:

Go in to your phone app, and dial ##DEBUG#
Enter 777468 for your lock code
Select LTE Engineering
Go down to RSRP. The number next to RSRP shown in dBm is your LTE signal strength.

Compare numbers.

I did this vs my wife's iPhone 5 and found that although her signal indicator was showing 3-4 more bars than my s5 we both actually had the same signal strength.

Eckono · Apr 26, 2014

Thanks I'll do that asap. The only reason I'm thinking something is wrong is because in areas I had 4G all the time on my Note 3 and S4 I'm barely get 4G or I'll drop to 3G. Then when I'm watching YouTube, if I stop a video , fast forward, or rewind, if I'm on cellular I can never get the video to play back. I get the error tap to retry. But when on WiFi I can I can.

Sent from my SM-G900P using xda app-developers app

Epix4G · Apr 27, 2014

Eckono said:
Thanks I'll do that asap. The only reason I'm thinking something is wrong is because in areas I had 4G all the time on my Note 3 and S4 I'm barely get 4G or I'll drop to 3G. Then when I'm watching YouTube, if I stop a video , fast forward, or rewind, if I'm on cellular I can never get the video to play back. I get the error tap to retry. But when on WiFi I can I can.

Sent from my SM-G900P using xda app-developers app

You also have to read about cfbs and triband phones ... which can cause the data issues

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bambam126 · Apr 27, 2014

well if i dont remember note 3 and s3 dont use the spark network and the s5 does soo,.,.its prob a bad spark connection they are still upgrading the towers ..

eyecon82 · May 2, 2014

The s5 signal bar shows data strength instead of voice strength

When you make a phone call, it switches to the voice signal strength, which is why it seems to get higher all of a sudden

-Sent from Tapatalk

master4g · May 2, 2014

Eckono said:
My GS5 seems to have a very weak LTE signal. I disabled all bands except for band 25 because the phone was trying to signal hop killing the battery. My girlfriend has the Note 3 which can only pick up band 25. When my phone is right next to hers, she can have a very strong LTE signal and my GS5 will either have a very weak signal or drop down to 3G. The only LTE band in my area that's currently pretty strong is the 1900mhz band. I can barely connect to that. Anyone else having weak signal or connection issues?

Sent from my SM-G900P using xda app-developers app

How do you disable certain bands? I want to try it as well as something seems to be killing my battery. Thanks

gregg37 · May 5, 2014

Yea, in the last year I have had an iphone 5, Note2, and Note3. New Orleans is newly upgraded to LTE (not yet Spark), and coverage was great on those three phones. This S5, however, constantly switches from LTE to 3G in areas where the other three phones stayed on LTE. It also drops to no data at all way too often in areas where data is fine. (I play Ingress, so I am VERY familiar with the signal capabilities all over town)

Is there any hope of this phone's signal strength being improved with software updates? Will Spark make a difference when it hits New Orleans?

This piece of garbage is pretty pathetic signal-wise compared to my other devices I've recently used. I've got Sprint to agree to a phone swap, but if that's not going to make a difference, perhaps I should just go back to my Note3.

bambam126 · May 6, 2014

I have this phone it does drop lte alot plus I have spark. But I have an offer to trade for a note 3 idk if I want ..I like yhe fingerprint scanner but this signal is boo boo ....

Shiftlock · May 6, 2014

gregg37 said:
Yea, in the last year I have had an iphone 5, Note2, and Note3. New Orleans is newly upgraded to LTE (not yet Spark), and coverage was great on those three phones. This S5, however, constantly switches from LTE to 3G in areas where the other three phones stayed on LTE. It also drops to no data at all way too often in areas where data is fine. (I play Ingress, so I am VERY familiar with the signal capabilities all over town)

Is there any hope of this phone's signal strength being improved with software updates? Will Spark make a difference when it hits New Orleans?

This piece of garbage is pretty pathetic signal-wise compared to my other devices I've recently used. I've got Sprint to agree to a phone swap, but if that's not going to make a difference, perhaps I should just go back to my Note3.

I wouldnt worry about the phone swap. I skeptically did it to see if it would work and ended up wasting an hour in ths store. between my friends and family we have 4 GS5s that all have the same issues.

None of your previous phones were triband. They only could connect to 1900mhz LTE. The GS5 is a triband phone, aka spark, that can connect to 800/1900/2600mhz LTE. Unfortunately there are issues with the software on the towers (search eCSFB) that changes you between bands. I have turned off band 41 and it has helped a lot even tho my area is a "spark" area. I turn it back on once in a while to see if things are fixed.

There have been complaints that the GS5 has worse connectivity because of the water resistant design compared to phones such as the GS4. its really only a couple dbm from what i have seen when looking at actual signal values from engineering screens and when comparing the same band of LTE.

As far as shutting off bands, you will need your MSL code. you can either get it from a sprint rep (all i did was ask) or you can use the MSL reader here
tools.flashingtools.com

use dialer code ##3282# and go to edit. enter your MSL code and go to LTE. turn off B41 and restart your phone.

gregg37 · May 6, 2014

Shiftlock said:
As far as shutting off bands, you will need your MSL code. you can either get it from a sprint rep (all i did was ask) or you can use the MSL reader here
tools.flashingtools.com

use dialer code ##3282# and go to edit. enter your MSL code and go to LTE. turn off B41 and restart your phone.

Thank you, Shiftlock! This is the kind of help I was hoping for. I'll give that a try!
:good:

gregg37 · May 7, 2014

Shiftlock said:
use dialer code ##3282# and go to edit. enter your MSL code and go to LTE. turn off B41 and restart your phone.

Ok I've got this turned off. Will it persist through resets and restarts? Or will I have to keep turning it off?
(have to remember to bookmark this so I remember how to turn it back on when Spark hits New Orleans, which I think is somewhat soon)

Shiftlock · May 7, 2014

gregg37 said:
Ok I've got this turned off. Will it persist through resets and restarts? Or will I have to keep turning it off?
(have to remember to bookmark this so I remember how to turn it back on when Spark hits New Orleans, which I think is somewhat soon)

Yes this will stay until you either change it back or do a system update. I noticed that nd2 changed it back. You may want to check it after clearing data/cache if you flash any mods or roms. Luckily the msl won't change so it's easy enough to fix if needed

eyecon82 · May 8, 2014

I'm getting LTE coverage in places I wouldn't with my s4. The data is definitely better

-Sent from Tapatalk

CCallahan · May 9, 2014

eyecon82 said:
I'm getting LTE coverage in places I wouldn't with my s4. The data is definitely better

-Sent from Tapatalk

Better because of turning off band 41 or just comparing the S5 to the S4?

gregg37 · May 12, 2014

CCallahan said:
Better because of turning off band 41 or just comparing the S5 to the S4?

Guess we'll never know....

(mine still sucks after trying that, btw)

Why does LTE connection seem weaker than other sprint LTE phones?

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