GPS issues demystified

[shloms]

Strange. My GPS and cell signal dips low when i Touch the glass , and more strange, When i touch the glass part that's close to the notification LED the Cell signal increases from -113 db to -99 db
This this caused by bad Grounding? Because you speculated that the Cover it's just a Grounding plane
should i get a new back cover to test?
The covers you guys shows there is a patch near the LCD cable and the corresponding place it touches there is a Mesh that goes under the LCD flex cable, My cover and Midframe has neither of those.
the mesh that goes under the lcd cable : https://i.imgur.com/XOzFfQe.jpg
the patch that make contacts with the mesh :
https://i.imgur.com/BNjjvEb.jpg
GPS strength: https://i.imgur.com/btT9xtT.png
Touching the glass : https://i.imgur.com/xQ9K0rC.png

There are many grounding points between the PCB and cover. Some of the grounding points on the cover have mashes, other do not and have just bare metal case touching the PCB pins.
See what I marked on my own cover:

And the missing ground points from the LCD flex is strange. I do not think this has to do with reception though.
Touching the glass near the LED is exactly where the antennas for the GPS and cellular bands are. It is not a big surprise that the signal might increase/decrease when you touch this area, it's through capacitive coupling that your body acts as an antenna, changes the tuning of the antenna - could be for better or worse.

As you know, some users having a bad GPS reception because of bad connection between PCB pin and cover, get signal by pressing the upper right glass, this is different from what you describe as this fixes (temporarily) the mechanical connection between them.
Are you having GPS problems, or just cellular signal?
A new case may solve you problem, but if the pins on the PCB are the problem themselves, it won't do any good.

 

[ChristopherXI]

There are many grounding points between the PCB and cover. Some of the grounding points on the cover have mashes, other do not and have just bare metal case touching the PCB pins.
See what I marked on my own cover:
View attachment 4347500
And the missing ground points from the LCD flex is strange. I do not think this has to do with reception though.
Touching the glass near the LED is exactly where the antennas for the GPS and cellular bands are. It is not a big surprise that the signal might increase/decrease when you touch this area, it's through capacitive coupling that your body acts as an antenna, changes the tuning of the antenna - could be for better or worse.

As you know, some users having a bad GPS reception because of bad connection between PCB pin and cover, get signal by pressing the upper right glass, this is different from what you describe as this fixes (temporarily) the mechanical connection between them.
Are you having GPS problems, or just cellular signal?
A new case may solve you problem, but if the pins on the PCB are the problem themselves, it won't do any good.

i take off the cover and bend the pins up myself but no improvement. Both cellular and GPS performance has been abysmal for me. But the GPS signal decreases when I touch on ANY part of the glass, pressing the top right part doesn't increase the signal indicates that the connection from the PCB to the antenna pad is good. When I check my covers it's missing the MESH that the gps pin rest on, the bottom left orange mesh, and the mesh next to the display cable
I'll get another case and give you guys the result.
Update: Further inspections and finding replacement covers online.
There are two different cover type for the G5, B and F covers.
I saw that you have the B Cover and have the H850 model.
I don't know the cover type for my H820 because the cover i'm having doesn't have any indication symbols or letters.

 

[thetool]

OK I think it's pretty confirmed that it's the damn back plate.
BUT just buying a new one at eBay may not solve anything because you never know what you may get there... (at least with the cheap ones)

My GPS has NEVER been connected to so many satellites at once. (In my car cradle)
I'm having issues uploading images here.
anyway it's 27 satellites 9m accuracy..

 

[ChristopherXI]

OK I think it's pretty confirmed that it's the damn back plate.
BUT just buying a new one at eBay may not solve anything because you never know what you may get there... (at least with the cheap ones)

My GPS has NEVER been connected to so many satellites at once. (In my car cradle)
I'm having issues uploading images here.
anyway it's 27 satellites 9m accuracy..

we have a shop that only sells replacement parts for phones, i think i could go there and try

 

[thetool]

we have a shop that only sells replacement parts for phones, i think i could go there and try

Yep that may be a good idea.
Be advised that it could be possible that you have an other issue than I had. (I doubt that though)

Except replacing the back cover, I also raised the gps pin beneath the board and cleaned the contact...

Here's the screenshot btw

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

[shloms]

The GPS god is smiling on you
BTW, I see from the pic that your in the Middle east, right?

 

[ChristopherXI]

Yep that may be a good idea.
Be advised that it could be possible that you have an other issue than I had. (I doubt that though)

Except replacing the back cover, I also raised the gps pin beneath the board and cleaned the contact...

Here's the screenshot btw

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

My h820 wont show BEIDOU and wont connect to SBAS satellites, probably it's because of android marshmellow.

 

[thetool]

I'm still on marshmallow..
Yes I'm from Israel shloms

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

[shloms]

I'm still on marshmallow..
Yes I'm from Israel shloms

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

Me too, so thetool = Ha-kli

 

[thetool]

haha thanks!
Updating that my GPS still works great everytime, outside it locks in 2 seconds.

Update 10.12:
GPS Suddenly doesn't work so well AGAIN!!
this device is cursed!

 

[thetool]

After initial tests it seems now like a software issue.
when opening Waze with gps test I get poor results,:long fix time, less sats (13) & less accuracy.
Running LG GNSS from hidden menu gets fast fix, 18 sats & more accuracy. (10m indoors)

 

[halomademeapc]

I've been getting frustrated with the GPS issues since I use this phone for Android auto on a daily basis. I've only had this phone for a couple months and don't really want to risk taking it apart so I ordered an old Bluetooth GPS module from eBay to try out. Hopefully we can figure out a reliable fix for the internal GPS someday

 

[cheeze.keyk]

After initial tests it seems now like a software issue.
when opening Waze with gps test I get poor results,:long fix time, less sats (13) & less accuracy.
Running LG GNSS from hidden menu gets fast fix, 18 sats & more accuracy. (10m indoors)

I always thought also that it is a software issue or a network/data connection issue. Looks like the data connection of the device is not consistent or continuous without noticing it by the user. I tried using my G5 as a hotspot on my nexus 5 and the data connection is not good also when I used my Nexus 5 navigation and the while navigating it went crazy just like my G5's GPS.

 

[thetool]

The pin that touches the back has broken, so I just soldered some wire where the pin should be and it works well now.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

[cyobane]

Contact cleaner working well

Going along the same lines as the original post but without foil or soldering, I found that applying contact cleaner to the GPS connection points has 'fixed' the GPS for me (for at least 40 days). I used deoxit D100L contact cleaner (like $8 for a small tube from amazon). I don't know if my technique was correct but I put a small amount on the mesh pad and the other contacts around the GPS connector, let it sit for like 15 minutes, then wiped clean with a q-tip and reapplied a small amount.

A few months prior to this I just wiped the GPS related contacts without any cleaner solution, and the GPS worked for about a month, with signal strength continually degrading until it became non-functional.

This time around, using the contact cleaner, signal is still stable after 40 days. After first applying I was getting solid 5m accuracy and mostly green bars in the 'GPS test' application, now it's 5-10m accuracy with mostly yellow bars and like 1 or 2 green bars (testing outside). So it seems the signal strength has decreased a small amount but nothing like what I saw when I just wiped the contacts without cleaner.

It seems like magic, curious what goes into these contact cleaner solutions, but fingers crossed this will continue to hold. Even if I eventually need to reapply the solution it's less than once per month.

Deoxit D100L is the 'general purpose' cleaner, there are other solutions that might be a better fit for this application. I'm curious if other people have some perspective on this.

 

[gboari92]

Remove the mesh!!

Hi. This is my first post here on xda, sorry if my english isn't very good.

I was getting signal from GPS (weak / 15m máx) but it often got crazy. After spanking the phone on the back it actualy came back on track. I decided trying to improve it.

So....
The mesh itself is glued to the gps antenna wich is the back plate itself. If you use a multimeter to test the resistence between the mesh and any other contact in the backplate, you will get something around 3-5 ohms, and depending on the spot in the mesh it wont be conductive at all, and I think it is because of the glue itself. I took off the mesh and cleaned the glue in the contact beneath it. Cleaned the other contact mentioned in the first post too. Resistance dropped to 0.2 ohms.

I am getting very fast and precise fix for my GPS now. Tested for a week now.

I think that if you replace the mesh with something more conductive (at least without any glue) and clean the contacts it will work for everybody. For me just removing and cleaning got the job done.

And 1 more thing. If you test continuity on the 3 volume pins, you will get continuity on 2 pins when vol down is pressed and continuity on 2 pins when vol up is pressed. I had the vol down not working, and cleaning the contacts also got the job done.

Thanks.

 

[geminihc]

OMG THIS MAN DESERVES A REWARD, AND THIS MUST BE PINNED TO THE TOP!

This works and is the EASIEST fix without soldering, adding conductive materials or anything! Just open it up, rip the damn thing away and swab it with abit of alcohol. i previously did the stupid adding a card under the 3 pin thing and that fixed it for like a few days purely because of "random" re-seating.

THIS is the FINAL and ULTIMATE easy solution!

Hi. This is my first post here on xda, sorry if my english isn't very good.

I was getting signal from GPS (weak / 15m máx) but it often got crazy. After spanking the phone on the back it actualy came back on track. I decided trying to improve it.

So....
The mesh itself is glued to the gps antenna wich is the back plate itself. If you use a multimeter to test the resistence between the mesh and any other contact in the backplate, you will get something around 3-5 ohms, and depending on the spot in the mesh it wont be conductive at all, and I think it is because of the glue itself. I took off the mesh and cleaned the glue in the contact beneath it. Cleaned the other contact mentioned in the first post too. Resistance dropped to 0.2 ohms.

I am getting very fast and precise fix for my GPS now. Tested for a week now.

I think that if you replace the mesh with something more conductive (at least without any glue) and clean the contacts it will work for everybody. For me just removing and cleaning got the job done.

And 1 more thing. If you test continuity on the 3 volume pins, you will get continuity on 2 pins when vol down is pressed and continuity on 2 pins when vol up is pressed. I had the vol down not working, and cleaning the contacts also got the job done.

Thanks.

 

[ChristopherXI]

The pin that touches the back has broken, so I just soldered some wire where the pin should be and it works well now.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

can you post the picture?
My wifi pin broke off.

 

[Kruzkal]

Would copper foil tape with conductive adhesive work on this just as well as copper foil without adhesive?

 

[ew]

Hi. This is my first post here on xda, sorry if my english isn't very good.

I was getting signal from GPS (weak / 15m máx) but it often got crazy. After spanking the phone on the back it actualy came back on track. I decided trying to improve it.

So....
The mesh itself is glued to the gps antenna wich is the back plate itself. If you use a multimeter to test the resistence between the mesh and any other contact in the backplate, you will get something around 3-5 ohms, and depending on the spot in the mesh it wont be conductive at all, and I think it is because of the glue itself. I took off the mesh and cleaned the glue in the contact beneath it. Cleaned the other contact mentioned in the first post too. Resistance dropped to 0.2 ohms.

I am getting very fast and precise fix for my GPS now. Tested for a week now.

I think that if you replace the mesh with something more conductive (at least without any glue) and clean the contacts it will work for everybody. For me just removing and cleaning got the job done.

And 1 more thing. If you test continuity on the 3 volume pins, you will get continuity on 2 pins when vol down is pressed and continuity on 2 pins when vol up is pressed. I had the vol down not working, and cleaning the contacts also got the job done.

Thanks.

I was going to try this, but I can't seem to get to the mesh. I have disassembled the PCB, but don't see how to get behind to the mesh. Any help would be appreciated.