How I fixed my bad GPS..

[albenex]

Hello guys,
following these steps solved my bad GPS as you can see with the screenshots.
for each GPS test i used "Gps status & toolbox" and i tested gps fix outside, on a balcony.

Starting situation: 6/24 satellites found.. no fix.. sometimes 8-10 satellites and then fix with about 80meters error

the idea is that GPS antenna lies on the detachable module and LG did a mess designing it.
basically, if you take out your module sometimes out, probably you'll result in bad gps behaviour.

here a pic of GPS antenna's contact/hook

i taped it with electric tape in order to test if effectively it was GPS antenna

and, as expected, my gps signal went worst than first.

then i prepared a little square of aluminium foil by folding it about 4 times in order to get a certain amount of thickness
i also prepared a slice of adhesive tape by making a hole on the center
and finally i attached them to GPS antenna contact

after this i tested GPS in the same place and...et voilà!

which is exactly the same performance the phone had on the first weeks!

maybe this fix is not as elegant as possible but my aim is to make gps working before getting mad.. maybe you could simply change the module but i think that responsibility is of the other side of the contact, located on the frame. it's aluminium and maybe for warm and other reasons it loses his shape by making difficult communication between antenna on the module and phone.. take my theory as it is.. and enjoy!

 

[lioko13]

Hello guys,
following these steps solved my bad GPS as you can see with the screenshots.
for each GPS test i used "Gps status & toolbox" and i tested gps fix outside, on a balcony.

Starting situation: 6/24 satellites found.. no fix.. sometimes 8-10 satellites and then fix with about 80meters error

the idea is that GPS antenna lies on the detachable module and LG did a mess designing it.
basically, if you take out your module sometimes out, probably you'll result in bad gps behaviour.

here a pic of GPS antenna's contact/hook

i taped it with electric tape in order to test if effectively it was GPS antenna

and, as expected, my gps signal went worst than first.

then i prepared a little square of aluminium foil by folding it about 4 times in order to get a certain amount of thickness
i also prepared a slice of adhesive tape by making a hole on the center
and finally i attached them to GPS antenna contact

after this i tested GPS in the same place and...et voilà!

which is exactly the same performance the phone had on the first weeks!

maybe this fix is not as elegant as possible but my aim is to make gps working before getting mad.. maybe you could simply change the module but i think that responsibility is of the other side of the contact, located on the frame. it's aluminium and maybe for warm and other reasons it loses his shape by making difficult communication between antenna on the module and phone.. take my theory as it is.. and enjoy!

Awesome guide

 

[AsianJesus]

Verification

Can anyone else verify that this is indeed a gps contact on the bottom module? I'm using the Hi-Fi module and it doesnt have a pin like the standard chin piece does.

 

[AngryDad3]

I believe that this is unfortunately not the gps contact .
I have tried this fix now and it had no effect on me .
But let's wait on the experience of other users .

And thank you for your efforts, albenex!

 

[albenex]

I believe that this is unfortunately not the gps contact .
I have tried this fix now and it had no effect on me .
But let's wait on the experience of other users .

And thank you for your efforts, albenex!

to be honest i'm not sure too..
i made this fix and noted so much differences on gps quality so i had to share it with you.

maybe this could be a starting point in order to understand why (in my opinion) every G5 at first has perfect gps and then after normal use get worst G# series GPS ever... any help/add will be appreciated

 

[karendar]

I've written to ifixit to get their impression. If I look at the teardowns for this phone, there is an antenna inside the bottom module and the lead does connect to the phone's metal back. But then again, there are multiple leads on the motherboard which does the same! As others have noted in other posts, opening the phone and raising these leads has provided positive results as well, so could it be a combination of both?

Will keep everyone posted on what ifixit says.

 

[Quotenjunkie]

For me the Fix didn't work at all. I still get no GPS Connection....

 

[NeoDJW]

GPS is NOT in bottom cover cuz camplus and hifi dont even have that + you would hold antenna in your hand ( doesn't make any sense ) , there are multiple threads overhere and no one even reads them... USE YOUR BRAIN GUYS

 

[albenex]

I've written to ifixit to get their impression. If I look at the teardowns for this phone, there is an antenna inside the bottom module and the lead does connect to the phone's metal back. But then again, there are multiple leads on the motherboard which does the same! As others have noted in other posts, opening the phone and raising these leads has provided positive results as well, so could it be a combination of both?

Will keep everyone posted on what ifixit says.

no it doesn't hook to the metal back.. it hooks to a while flat *Something* which is electrically conducive (tested with a multimeter)

you can note a black line which i assume is scratch made by detachable module contact when it enters and exits

 

[kms108]

Let me get this straight, the bottom part does contain a antenna, it is connect by the PCB that you see sticking out within the phone, the wide one is the connection for mic, speaker and charging, whiles the thin long one has 2 copper conductor is for the radio antenna, I have opened the bottom unit, but if people who has the hifi plus or cam plus, the manual does state it contains the anttena for the radio, meanning the GPS antenna is within the phone.

Hope this clears up any misunderstanding.

 

[albenex]

Let me get this straight, the bottom part does contain a antenna, it is connect by the PCB that you see sticking out within the phone, the wide one is the connection for mic, speaker and charging, whiles the thin long one has 2 copper conductor is for the radio antenna, I have opened the bottom unit, but if people who has the hifi plus or cam plus, the manual does state it contains the anttena for the radio, meanning the GPS antenna is within the phone.

Hope this clears up any misunderstanding.

thanks

 

[albenex]

i tried again isolating the mysterious hook and got not gps signal at all for all day long.
reversing back lead to immediate gps fix.
maybe it's not gps antenna but definitively is a gps-related thing!
i guess gps signal is in such way interfered with that and maybe cleaning up the connecting spot on the white-thing attached to rear case would be a good fix. just try and explore yourselves!

 

[lolmensch]

interesting:

i tried some aluminum foil and I got about the same amount of fixed satellites (7) and same first fix time but there were only 16 satellites available instead of 22-28.

Just maybe there are different antennas in our phone, one for gps, one for glonass (russian) and one for bds (chinese) as they all use different frequencies. That by the way would support the fact that those 3 little pins are indeed for the positioning system

 

[albenex]

interesting:

i tried some aluminum foil and I got about the same amount of fixed satellites (7) and same first fix time but there were only 16 satellites available instead of 22-28.

Just maybe there are different antennas in our phone, one for gps, one for glonass (russian) and one for bds (chinese) as they all use different frequencies. That by the way would support the fact that those 3 little pins are indeed for the positioning system

yep, surely both things are mixed.. little 3pins and wide white antenna hooked with module.. if you isolate one of them you'll break gps signal

 

[daverup]

On my G5 H850, I had a few cases where GPS was having a problem getting a position.
In all of these cases I used GPS Status and Toolbox to reset the A-GPS state.
GPS Status and Toolbox, "top left hamburger menu", Manage A-GPS state, Reset.
After doing this GPS Status was able to get a fix quickly.
Following this, the Google maps and navigation worked normally.
The H850 comes with the gps.conf file set up to use NTP_SERVER=europe.pool.ntp.org
If you are rooted you can change the gps config file to use NTP_SERVER to be something in your region. They are just commented out.
This obviously won't help if you have a hardware problem, but some might just have A-GPS issues.

 

[albenex]

On my G5 H850, I had a few cases where GPS was having a problem getting a position.
In all of these cases I used GPS Status and Toolbox to reset the A-GPS state.
GPS Status and Toolbox, "top left hamburger menu", Manage A-GPS state, Reset.
After doing this GPS Status was able to get a fix quickly.
Following this, the Google maps and navigation worked normally.
The H850 comes with the gps.conf file set up to use NTP_SERVER=europe.pool.ntp.org
If you are rooted you can change the gps config file to use NTP_SERVER to be something in your region. They are just commented out.
This obviously won't help if you have a hardware problem, but some might just have A-GPS issues.

thanks for reply.. but g5 suffers from hardware problems.. further tests showed me that even cleaning the hook point between module and white antenna, helped a lot.. a g5 of a friend went from +-80m error to +-4m !

besides this i'll try this gps.conf thing

 

[el_bebert]

Hi all,
Thanks for this topic, just see it, after receiveing my G5 coming back from french LG'service (SBE by Allo PSM) for this problem
Default was : MKGF - GPS out of order. It takes 9 days to come back
Last time (I hope not) try first this solution
Mine wasn't rooted so warranty worked and pay nothing
See ya

 

[mrbeem]

Hello. The gps problem is a hardware issue, not software. I had the same problem, but it's now been gone for over a month and so far gps works like it should. There was a solution for bad gps on this forum, it included opening your device and pulling gps antena contact pins, located on the back of the display a bit up in order to make a better contact between the pins and gps antena contact pads which are placed on the inside of back cover, but people reported it only helped fo a day or two, probably because those fragile pins went back to their previous position, and that means bad connection with the antena pads. Now i took a bit different approach... If those f....ing pins are so fragile that putting the phone back together pushes them back down and gps gets broken again afted a day or two, why now make the antena pads a bit thicker. So i did.... I bought thinnest solder i could get (0.3 or 0.4mm wire diameter) to be able to be super accurate with the solder dosage, and i put a little solder on each pad, making them stick up about 0.1mm, maybe 0.15mm higher. I put the phone back together and voila.... Over a month later and no issues with gps at all. It connects to satelites quicker than my wive's G4 which does it super quick.

If you decide to do it with your device be very careful. Too much solder on the pads can cause a shortage in your device. Better to put less, then test, then put a tiny bit more etc. Than put too much and destroy your G5

 

[karendar]

Considering this phone is on warranty for most people, just SEND IT BACK! No point in finding weird ways of working around poor design from LG... They replaced the motherboard on mine and GPS locks just fine now. My Z force is still faster, but it's less of a pain than it used to.

 

[mrbeem]

Well... Weird or not, it works and about poor quality... I'd rather have a phone that needs a bit of tweaking done, than a device that can set my hands or trousers on fire without a warning