(VZW) Nexus 4.0.X Update Discussion

I keep hearing people complaining about dropping 4G to 3G - where I am, I'm lucky to not be on 1x like I usually am on Seymour Johnson AFB, NC. The base has notorious signal for all carriers, especially inside. I'm REALLY looking forward to new radios.

And I don't have to worry since I'm already on the 4.04 radios? I'm new to flashing radios and am terrified of a brick.

BabyBlues said:

And I don't have to worry since I'm already on the 4.04 radios? I'm new to flashing radios and am terrified of a brick.

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Nothing to worry about I've seen people with all versions of radios who have flashed mwalts pkg'd kernel with nary an issue. He even posted that he flashed the newest 4.0.4 radio over the older 4.0.4 radio back and forth several times (to test) and never had an issue.

It does take a while to write the CDMA radio so give it a full 2 minutes or so before you start breathing heavy

If they don't do anything for you just flash back to what you're on now. And check the MD5!

jbdan said:

Nothing to worry about I've seen people with all versions of radios who have flashed mwalts pkg'd kernel with nary an issue. He even posted that he flashed the newest 4.0.4 radio over the older 4.0.4 radio back and forth several times (to test) and never had an issue.

It does take a while to write the CDMA radio so give it a full 2 minutes or so before you start breathing heavy

If they don't do anything for you just flash back to what you're on now. And check the MD5!

Click to expand...

yeah his package work fine for me. (running the latest gummynex, although these should be totally ROM independent)

I did start getting nervous about CDMA part bootloader and LTE went so fast then it just "stopped" on CDMA forever...

jbdan said:

Nothing to worry about I've seen people with all versions of radios who have flashed mwalts pkg'd kernel with nary an issue. He even posted that he flashed the newest 4.0.4 radio over the older 4.0.4 radio back and forth several times (to test) and never had an issue.

It does take a while to write the CDMA radio so give it a full 2 minutes or so before you start breathing heavy

If they don't do anything for you just flash back to what you're on now. And check the MD5!

Click to expand...

OfTheDamned said:

As jbdan said, super easy and nothing to worry about. Just don't get impatient.

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I will flash then walk away to curb the heavy breathing/ impatience/ panic.

BabyBlues said:

I will flash then walk away to curb the heavy breathing/ impatience/ panic.

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lol :laugh:

So two quick questions Will there still be a 4.0.5?? and if i do Flash this Leak will it disable future updates and require me to flash back to stock in order to recieve updates??

Late to the party. This update hasn't actually been sent out OTA yet, right?

Sketchr said:

Late to the party. This update hasn't actually been sent out OTA yet, right?

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Was sent out as a soak test to select devices.

Someone that got it pushed, grabbed a logcat and pulled the file from Google's servers.

Sketchr said:

Late to the party. This update hasn't actually been sent out OTA yet, right?

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There have been some received, most believe its part of a "soak" test, to see how the OTA is received and not a mass push.

the stuff floating around is based of the OTA file that was pulled.

There are also some reports that the file has been pulled for the google server...

Where that leaves us? firmly in "know one knows-ville"

Tim K said:

Have you guys with dropped / missed calls exchanged your phone and / or swapped SIM cards? I'm wondering if its not a hardware issue. Most of the 'signal problems' reported tended to be for people in areas without good signals where they had other phones that would work.

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I've exchanged phones once. So, I'm on my second Gnex. My problem isn't having a signal in strong signal areas. I have fine signal in strong signal areas. Like, right in the middle of a city or right next to a tower. It's when I'm outside of the city a few miles or in my home.

Honestly, I truly believe that this problem is a hardware problem. The hardware CDMA radio in this phone just can't pull down and hold a signal like my previous phone could (Droid Incredible). I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. The funny thing is, sometimes at home, I have full 3G signal and fast data, but other times it won't even connect to data and I have to drive half way into town to get it to connect to data.

Also, making a phone call is most times impossible in my home, but other times, which are rare, I can make a phone call just fine in my home. There is no rhyme or reason to this problem. I usually have to leave my house and drive to the nearest highway to make a phone call, when my Droid Incredible never had this problem.

After installing this update, I am almost certain now that the data and voice not holding signal and even having signal but not connecting to data, for some reason, is a hardware problem. My phone will, often, have full gray bars, but it won't connect to 3G even though I can clearly see the full bars of signal that are gray. I can't even count the times I've wanted to chunk this phone, and the one before it, right into the wall! It's just so annoying.

So, my question would be now since this update and the new radios that came with it haven't fixed my signal issues, what phone do I start looking towards? I've already swapped out once and I know I can get Verizon to let me trade it for another phone, I just need to know which one I guess. Motorola kinda makes me sick at my stomach, but the Razr Maxx is looking like a very viable option. Because I HAVE to be able to use my phone for phone calls. Maybe the Rezound? I know they'll both have ICS soon, but I just love the Gnex so much I hate to leave it. But I have to do what is best for me, data and call quality wise.

Does anyone know which, or have an educated opinion, which phone on Verizon has the best signal strength? I am, unfortunately, going to have to start weighing my options.

@Nashdroid

your situation sounds similar to mine. I'm lucky if i can complete a phone call at home with no issues. Before on my old DroidX i never had this issue. I don't care how the G Nex reports 4G because i have the same problems when i have 4G turned off.

Moto has always made the best radios hands down. My neighbor across the street has a RAZR and gets at least 2 bars of 4G inside his home....i get zero..-120 ...

i had the rezound for a few weeks before the Rez and it didn't get as good as my old DX did but it was still better than the Gnex.

OfTheDamned said:

I'm not seeing a huge difference in dBm, but I am unfortunately seeing a placebo of better bars. On the the plus side I am see better 3G/4G hand-off and if I move the phone around the house I can actually see the dBm change from -100 in my office to -98 in the hall to -106 in the kitchen to -94 on the stairs and -82 in my bedroom. I guess that is something.

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If the update only offers a placebo of more bars without increasing the signal strength then it sounds like this device has a hardware problem of either a poorly designed antenna, a low powered transmitter, a poor "radio", or a combination. When a call is dropped we can still hear the party we are talking to but they cannot hear us. This seems to indicate an under-powered transmitter as part of the problem.

The phone doesn't actually have reception problems... this dead horse has been beaten to death and proven not long after the phone came out.

dguy said:

The phone doesn't actually have reception problems... this dead horse has been beaten to death and proven not long after the phone came out.

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i'm confused by this. My particular unit has a reception problem. What are you saying exactly?

dguy said:

The phone doesn't actually have reception problems... this dead horse has been beaten to death and proven not long after the phone came out.

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Mine does. CDMA is worse than LTE but both are weak often dropping to -120 dBm. Where is this proof?

I just checked my signal strength:
LTE = -106 dBm
CDMA = -120 dBm

I am not having a problem with 4G but have a severe problem with dropped calls due to the very poor CDMA signal strength.

trophynuts said:

i'm confused by this. My particular unit has a reception problem. What are you saying exactly?

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He is probably talking about this report: AnandTech - Investigating the Galaxy Nexus LTE Signal Issue

Yup. There's a lot of people who see few bars and think "my phone has poor reception" even if they have no problem what so ever. The majority of posts on here about reception issues is just from that.

People with actual reception problems most likely have faulty hardware and should get it fixed. It's common sense. If one person has no reception issues what so ever and another does and both devices use the same software then the hardware can be the only explanation. Get it replaced.

trophynuts said:

@Nashdroid

your situation sounds similar to mine. I'm lucky if i can complete a phone call at home with no issues. Before on my old DroidX i never had this issue. I don't care how the G Nex reports 4G because i have the same problems when i have 4G turned off.

Moto has always made the best radios hands down. My neighbor across the street has a RAZR and gets at least 2 bars of 4G inside his home....i get zero..-120 ...

i had the rezound for a few weeks before the Rez and it didn't get as good as my old DX did but it was still better than the Gnex.

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Have both Rezound and Nexus and the Rezound show significantly better bars/dBm. Though, my particular DX of yesteryear didn't have any better reception than my Rezound. In fact, my first DX was faulty and I received a replacement within the first 2 weeks. While the replacement had much better reception it had a few other issues which had somewhat kept me from pushing the trigger on another moto anytime soon...

trophynuts said:

@Nashdroid

your situation sounds similar to mine. I'm lucky if i can complete a phone call at home with no issues. Before on my old DroidX i never had this issue. I don't care how the G Nex reports 4G because i have the same problems when i have 4G turned off.

Moto has always made the best radios hands down. My neighbor across the street has a RAZR and gets at least 2 bars of 4G inside his home....i get zero..-120 ...

i had the rezound for a few weeks before the Rez and it didn't get as good as my old DX did but it was still better than the Gnex.

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So, where are you at now in your decision-making process? Is it looking like you're going to have to return your Gnex for something else as well? From all I've read, the Rezound has better reception than the Gnex, but I wonder if the Razr Maxx has even better signal than either? I want the absolute best signal possible. The Gnex was fun and stock ICS has been awesome, but I need to be able to get a dang signal and make a call. I'm glad someone else had had the same issues. The signal is just so unreliable and I'm about to go back to the oil and gas production business in about a month or so. So, I'll be out in the middle of nowhere a lot. Even when I WAS in the middle of nowhere last year, I could still get at least a 1x signal with my Droid Incredible and make a phone call. I know there is NO WAY that my Gnex could do that. That's why I have a serious decison to make. It's either the Razr Maxx or the Rezound.

I believe that a lot of us in this forum are going to, unfortunately, be having to make the same decision now. Because I think this is a hardware problem. I waited on the update and now I have it, and the problem hasn't gotten even a little bit better. It's possibly even a little bit worse. I had high hopes when I installed the update last night, but I should have known better. It's the Samsung hardware radio, apparently.

Stigy said:

He is probably talking about this report: AnandTech - Investigating the Galaxy Nexus LTE Signal Issue

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This article compares the LTE signal strength. My CDMA signal strength is much worse which causes the dropped calls. The dropped call starts with the other party not hearing me but hearing clicking noises (I can hear them fine). Then the call totally drops.

dguy said:

Yup. There's a lot of people who see few bars and think "my phone has poor reception" even if they have no problem what so ever. The majority of posts on here about reception issues is just from that.

People with actual reception problems most likely have faulty hardware and should get it fixed. It's common sense. If one person has no reception issues what so ever and another does and both devices use the same software then the hardware can be the only explanation. Get it replaced.

Click to expand...

Not sure if you're refering to anyone in particular, but as I've stated, I'm on my second Nexus. How many am I supposed to get before I finally admit that it's Samsung's weak hardware? I would be fine if I lived in a city right in the middle of town next to a tower, or even on the outskirts of the city, but I live in the country. I have a wilson DB Pro home cellular amplifier installed in my home ($380) and still this phone will not hold a signal most of the time and I can rarely, if ever, make a phone call in my home or outside of my home. Would my Gnex work for someone in a city closer to signal? Sure. It most definitely would. However, not everyone lives in the city. My Droid Incredible did great out where I live and everywhere else. Mine, and Trophynuts problems are hardware. I'm not going to try to get another replacement Gnex. I don't think a new phone is going to help what I believe the problem is for me, weak hardware radios. This is my first Samsung phone. HTC and their radios served me much better where I live and where I travel. The GNex is a flawless phone if you live in a metropolitan area (at least mine is and would be) but I don't live in one of those areas. I need a phone that can pull in a signal and hold onto it. This phone is not one that can, apparently.