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Help Crazy Reception on Droid X

Hi all,
New forum member here after lurking for quite a while. I traded my DInc for an X on the 15th (I was not happy with the audio quality) and am going to really like the phone if this glitch gets resolved.

My signal reception has been extremely poor on this new phone. I know others have reported similar findings, and I'm really hoping the upcoming baseband update fixes the problem. The problem I am having is that where my wife's original Droid will have a -70 signal, I will have somewhere in the -90's. Sometimes I will watch the signal meter go from full bars to none to a no signal indicator. Sometimes I will have a very poor signal (-105 or worse) and will still have 3 bars which seems odd to me.

At work where the office VZW cell phones can makes calls, I am unable to. Here's something strange--when I go to make a phone call, the signal bars go from full bars to no bars and the 3g indicator goes away. At the same exact location I can get a download speed of 1.7mbs which is nice....but no voice calls. I have poor reception at my home as well which is about 15 miles away, and talking to my wife on the way home last night I dropped the call about 4 or 5 times, almost like is was having a hard time switching towers or something. Never experienced this before with other devices.

Anyone having similar issues? I have already performed a hard reset and *228 using option 1 and 2. This has made no difference. I'm waiting for the OTA update, and if that does not resolve the issue I will see about getting a replacement.

Thanks,
Brent
 
Okay...after some poking around I see that the signal indicator next to the 3g symbol is only for the 3g signal, not the signal for voice calls. When a call is placed then you see what the signal strength is for voice calls. I'm pretty sure the dbm in the settings screen is for voice calls, and I see now that just because you may have an awesome 3g signal the voice could be unusable. I am now using the RealSignal app to view my voice signal as well.

This leads to the question of why would be data be great while voice could be unusable?? I do not know the details of the VZW network, but I would think that since they both run over the same network, if data is good then voice would be as well.

Can anyone educate me as to why this is the case? Also, still wondering if this is a phone issue or something else?

Thanks.
 
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Hi all,
New forum member here after lurking for quite a while. I traded my DInc for an X on the 15th (I was not happy with the audio quality) and am going to really like the phone if this glitch gets resolved.

My signal reception has been extremely poor on this new phone. I know others have reported similar findings, and I'm really hoping the upcoming baseband update fixes the problem. The problem I am having is that where my wife's original Droid will have a -70 signal, I will have somewhere in the -90's. Sometimes I will watch the signal meter go from full bars to none to a no signal indicator. Sometimes I will have a very poor signal (-105 or worse) and will still have 3 bars which seems odd to me.

At work where the office VZW cell phones can makes calls, I am unable to. Here's something strange--when I go to make a phone call, the signal bars go from full bars to no bars and the 3g indicator goes away. At the same exact location I can get a download speed of 1.7mbs which is nice....but no voice calls. I have poor reception at my home as well which is about 15 miles away, and talking to my wife on the way home last night I dropped the call about 4 or 5 times, almost like is was having a hard time switching towers or something. Never experienced this before with other devices.

Anyone having similar issues? I have already performed a hard reset and *228 using option 1 and 2. This has made no difference. I'm waiting for the OTA update, and if that does not resolve the issue I will see about getting a replacement.

Thanks,
Brent




I'm also experiencing inconsistent signal with the DroidX. I've been comparing it against my original Droid, and while the 3G dBm readings are very similar between the two devices, the 3G bars in the notification bar consistently shows the original Droid with 3-4 bars, whereas the DroidX fluctuates quite a bit, going all the way down to 1 bar quite often. But the dBm readings are similar between the 2 devices...

I've also tried testing the 3g download speeds using the speedtest.net Speed Test app, and the original Droid consistently gets better download speeds. With the DroidX, it almost feels like it hangs up a bit during the download (ie. the download progress bar seems to stutter and stall a bit), whereas the original Droid is smooth and consistent during download...

Also, when you make a call, the 3g icon will go away because it will show the 1x signal instead. That's normal.
 
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I'm also experiencing inconsistent signal with the DroidX. I've been comparing it against my original Droid, and while the 3G dBm readings are very similar between the two devices, the 3G bars in the notification bar consistently shows the original Droid with 3-4 bars, whereas the DroidX fluctuates quite a bit, going all the way down to 1 bar quite often. But the dBm readings are similar between the 2 devices...

I've also tried testing the 3g download speeds using the speedtest.net Speed Test app, and the original Droid consistently gets better download speeds. With the DroidX, it almost feels like it hangs up a bit during the download (ie. the download progress bar seems to stutter and stall a bit), whereas the original Droid is smooth and consistent during download...

Also, when you make a call, the 3g icon will go away because it will show the 1x signal instead. That's normal.

Yup same signal issues here, hoping the update fixes this.
 
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The update didn't seem to fix my issues. On the way home from work, I was consistently getting a much lower signal strength (read: no signal) for much of the drive. My Blackberry Storm (while not having the most fantastic reception) never had that bad of a signal on that road.

Also, it seems as though the reception is incredibly inconsistent in the battery usage section. I'm sitting in my apartment where I usually get great reception. I haven't moved the phone since I unplugged it nearly 5 hours ago. And its saying that 66% of that time I've been without signal.

I'm very new to Android, so I may be interpreting this wrong. But is it saying that 66% of the time, the signal just decides to drop out? Or is it just referring to the data signal? (I'm running it in battery saver mode which is supposed to disconnect to data after awhile)
 
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Fortunately, the update did seem to make a difference for me. I was able to sustain a call with my wife on the same route without it dropping. I also compared signal strength with a co-worker who has an Incredible, and I was getting the same strength.

I am in a fridge area at my apartment and the signal is very spotty at times. Lately, I have been able to maintain a signal, even though it is very low, and I can still make/receive calls. Data at the apartment still goes and up down sometimes, but I giving the phone the benefit of the doubt since I am in a bad reception area. My wife has a Droid and her signal strength is still usually stronger than mine at the apartment though. Makes me wonder if the X is not as good in fringe areas.

So while correlation does not demonstrate causation, the update did seem to help me out. I'm glad to see that they are on top of these issues and working to resolve them, and I think it will only get better as more updates are released.
 
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I agree. It's sad when my wife's about-to-be-discontinued Droid gets better signal in our place than this one week old X. I find it strange that I can have a very good 3G signal but a poor voice signal. I'm thinking about taking it to my VZW store and have them compare it to another X or a Droid. Probably when I do that though the signal will be strong enough that the difference would be negligible. Not sure, worth a shot I suppose. I'm still glad though it did not drop any more calls on my drive home from work. Now if only I could get stable reception at my apartment, where I use this as my primary phone, I will be pleased.
 
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droid x's reception is less than stellar even with the new update, they need to do something about it.

No, the update gave me better reception. I already had good reception before the update. The update made some folks phones better. Just read the posts of ppl that are not having this problem.....

These sound like individual phone issues. Anytime one phone gets better and one doesnt. Just get a replacement and see if that does the trick.

Reason why I know the X has good reception? It has better reception than my rooted Droid running Froyo, with a Froyo antenna update that gave me better reception than the one on 2.1

The signal issues are probably bad phones. Or needs some tech support fix.
 
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Went to the VZW store and compared my signal with phones in the store and with the sales person's phone, and mine was substantially lower. He took a look on their knowledgebase to see if anything had been posted, checked PRL versions, etc. In the end, when they get stock back in I will be getting a replacement X. Hopefully, that will take care of it and not introduce any other quirks.
 
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Update -- I received my replacement X today and the reception is much better. In fact, it is now on par or surpasses the reception of my wife's Droid 1. There is no doubt that my original X had a defect. Where my old X has a signal strength of -105, my new one has -90 or better in the same location (in my apartment). Big difference. I'm very satisfied now.
 
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same issues as stated above. My signal is significantly weaker than my dumbphone and original Droid. Worse still, tons of calls are going straight to voicemail. No local stores have any replacements so I'm stuck with this POS unless I want to cough up $35 for the restock fee.

My situation must be different than yours as far as getting a replacement phone. My local VZW store ended up having a replacement X shipped to me via Fed-Ex 2-day. That was going to be quicker than waiting for them to get stock. Is that an option for you? Also, why would you have to pay a restocking fee within 30-days for a defective phone? I would check into the option of having one shipped to you either at a local store or *611; the process for me was very quick and easy.
 
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My situation must be different than yours as far as getting a replacement phone. My local VZW store ended up having a replacement X shipped to me via Fed-Ex 2-day. That was going to be quicker than waiting for them to get stock. Is that an option for you? Also, why would you have to pay a restocking fee within 30-days for a defective phone? I would check into the option of having one shipped to you either at a local store or *611; the process for me was very quick and easy.

the store I went to told me that they couldn't replace the phones until they got them in stock (which is in 2 weeks). When I told them I wanted to return it he said he couldn't do anything about the $35 fee but I didn't push him. I guess I'll go in tomorrow and push them until they do something about it.
 
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I received my Droid X two days ago and I've noticed really bad reception. Both my parents have Verizon and they get great reception. The bars on the phone are always jumping around but I've had it at 0 bars quite frequently. It also bounces out of 3G to 1x a lot and on a few occasions the past couple days i've had to reboot the phone because the network wouldn't connect but it was showing 3G and a signal.... idk what to do is this just me? is my phone defective??
 
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Sounds a lot like what was happening to me. What really confirmed to me something was wrong was when I was dropping calls in places I never dropped calls with my old phone and where my wife's phone worked great. I would have the no signal indicator at times and the signal indicator acted erratically.

I had my phone replaced and it was a huge difference; I have not had any issues at all with reception. Sounds like that may be in your future. Of course, try the normal steps first of re-programming with *228 option 1 and then make sure your PRL is current by *228 option 2.

Hope you get it resolved.
 
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