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

[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://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1655071

I'd also like to thank John-aurelio, junior member, who initially posted about this fix here:
http://forum.xda-developers.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

 

[brh0003]

Huh. This is similar to the fix some people did with the digitizer problem. Seems like the the connectors on this phone tend to come loose, to where pressure in the right direction will fix it.

Sent from my MB860 using xda app-developers app

 

[guidoido004]

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://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1655071

I'd also like to thank John-aurelio, junior member, who initially posted about this fix here:
http://forum.xda-developers.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.
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.
Sorry for no open device pics, I did this yesterday and don't really feel like opening my phone, but if you guys think its needed I'll do it later.

Cheerios

A detailed How To to show us what to do exactly, we can do much ourselves with just this pics. :/


EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYz_RiuFVRk had anyone seen this?

 

[Semseddin]

Will try this with my wifi broken atrix tomorrow.

 

[Newbleeto]

A detailed How To to show us what to do exactly, we can do much ourselves with just this pics. :/


EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYz_RiuFVRk had anyone seen this?

It's literally as simple as opening the atrix and placing the plastic under the motherboard, I don't think it gets any easier then that. But I'll try to take more photos.

As for that video, there are reports of people killing their mobiles by breaking the piece holding the battery or killing the nearby ICs trying that. That guy is just too rough. Also, it doesn't show the battery actually being replaced. If you wanna try to replace the battery, better do it gently and stay clear of that video

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[lehjr]

If the solution is to apply pressure to certain parts of the board then it's likely similar to the infamous nVidia issues from around 2008 where the chips were getting hot enough to expand and brake the solder connection or in some cases, rip some of the pads from the board. If that is the case, be careful, as flexing the board the wrong way could eventually lead to making it worse over time.

 

[adampadum]

I can't believe this actually worked. Been using my Atrix for the whole weekend on WIFI. Also finally been able to use my Lapdock properly.

Thanks so much for such a simple fix.

If its any help to anyone, I ended up using an old debit card, as its seems the perfect height to give enough pressure on the board.

It did take a few goes, but as long as you persist with it, it works really well. Plus no more over heating too.

Thanks again

 

[alpha1172]

holy crap. 5 minutes and its fixed! thank you

 

[yorici]

Cause found??

Hi everybody,

I might have an idea what causes the wifi errors. As the wifi gets fixed by changing the motherboard's position, the motherboard is not fastened properly. This might be caused by the vibration function that is located on the part of the motherboard you would need to move up.(see the location of the vibrationfuction in the attachment.)

If so, should this function be less used then?

 

[sbalaji]

Thanks Newbleeto! I was so frustrated with this issue. I was initially trying based that youtube video link by someone else which never worked for me. I later decided to try your solution and it worked for me the very first time Appreciate your help!

 

[Feche]

Thanks, seems to work!

 

[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

 

[harszeee]

IT WORKS

after nearly 4 months of this bug i finally had the guts to open up my phone and do this fix.
and it is working , my wifi is back thank you OP. :highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::victory::victory:

 

[sangyum]

This method works wonderfully. Thanks, OP!

 

[sangyum]

This method works wonderfully. Thanks, OP!

Spoke too soon. This fix stopped working after two days.... Back to Wifi Error and boot loop. :crying:

 

[SaschaElble]

I got my wifi to work again, there are two snap on connectors on the same side of the phone. I put 2x pieces of toilet paper cardboard between the frame of the phone and the connector, pushing the connector tighter to the other side.

 

[rafi532]

I'd like to confrm that it works to me !
Thank you, I spent dozens of hours to try solve it.

 

[bbignell]

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://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1655071

I'd also like to thank John-aurelio, junior member, who initially posted about this fix here:
http://forum.xda-developers.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

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!

 

[Cab121]

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.

 

[bbignell]

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.

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