Asurion replacement phone & WiFi issue

[PoisonDarts8714]

Hey guys,

Last saturday I dropped my month old HTC Evo 4G LTE in the toilet. Despite the rice-trick, the display never came back to life. I called Asurion, paid the deductible and received a new (maybe refurbished?) HTC Evo 4G LTE. It works fine, except the WiFi performance is horrid! Using the speedtest app my speeds fluctuate from 40kb/s-500kb/s down (my old phone had super consistent wifi at home and it always tested at around 1,000-1,200kb/s down) I mean bytes-not bits. LTE on this phone functions as it did on my old one, but there's something wrong with the wifi. It's not just the speed tests though-its obvious loading pictures on Facebook and stuff like that theres something wrong when I'm using WiFi. The nice thing is we have great LTE everywhere around my home/work so I don't really need WiFi but just the same it shouldn't be this bad.

I haven't tested it on another network yet but I will. What can I do to make sure this isn't a software issue? I really really don't want to deal with Asurion again. I've tried restarting the phone & router. No change.

Edit: FWIW, Unrooted and running Stock HTC sense rom. Current on all updates.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Thats a tough one. If its a hardware issue no matter what you do it will suck. But if its a software bug a hard reset might fix it, or re-running the RUU from HTC might fix it.
Basically installing the software from scratch.
Are you noticing low signal as well? lower speeds with WIFi is also associated with poor signal performance. Its possible your refurbed EVO LTE might have the wifi antenna not making good contact.

 

[PoisonDarts8714]

That's the odd part. Signal levels are good! I have five bars almost all the time its doing this, but I also use WiFi analyzer. I average -60Dbm to -40 but it makes no difference. I can set the phone physically ontop of the wifi router and it will still do this. I tinkered with the routers settings (tried changing channels, setting it to only 11g/b-was a waste of time.) I tried it on my neighbors WiFi and it does the same thing, wildly inconsistent speeds sometimes slowing to a crawl.

Having said that, once or twice it did behave normally and I max'd at 1,354kb/s down and 1,112kb/s up..during these periods Facebook, Youtube, etc were all operating normally. I'm hoping its a software issue. I'll try a hard reset tomorrow. I already reinstalled all my apps so now I _really_ don't want to get another phone..again. "or re-running the RUU from HTC might fix it?" Could you elaborate? This is my first Android device. I'm semi-tech oriented, but I'm coming from a BlackBerry lol.

 

[iFebby]

Contact them so they replace it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[PhyscoAssassinX]

Contact them so they replace it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

Yes contact them inform them that you recently received this replacement from them and it is faulty, that your Wi-Fi doesnt work, maybe throw a little Fib like you took it to the sprint store to get it checked out and they couldnt figure out the problem

 

[PoisonDarts8714]

Yeah I don't see any way around it. I did a hard reset and it made no difference. I think this is a hardware issue and I've wasted enough time with it. I'm going to call Asurion in the morning and TRY to get them to send me a new one-not a refurb. Hopefully they let me keep this one until I get the new one. This phone works fine on LTE, but when I need WiFi its just terrible. Oh well! Wish me luck with Asurion

 

[iFebby]

Yeah I don't see any way around it. I did a hard reset and it made no difference. I think this is a hardware issue and I've wasted enough time with it. I'm going to call Asurion in the morning and TRY to get them to send me a new one-not a refurb. Hopefully they let me keep this one until I get the new one. This phone works fine on LTE, but when I need WiFi its just terrible. Oh well! Wish me luck with Asurion

As long as you've shipper back the original one (unless it was a reported lost or stolen unit) they should ship you one without problem.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[PhyscoAssassinX]

As long as you've shipper back the original one (unless it was a reported lost or stolen unit) they should ship you one without problem.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

This is true and they will most likely have you send the faulty one back when you receive the replacement

Sent From My HTC....oh wait it's stuck at customs

 

[IAmSixNine]

RUU is Rom Upgrade Utility.
Basically its what HTC uses when they release a major update to a phone. Its basically the entire ROM in an executable file so that you can download it, run it and it will upgrade your phone to the latest version..
Samsung uses KIES or ODIN.. but similar principle.

 

[PoisonDarts8714]

I've been meaning to setup my DropBox. Haven't yet. Just a conclusion to this: I received my second replacement Phone from Asurion. This one works great. Back to 1,500kb/s down on WiFi! Seems to hold the LTE signal a little bit better than my original one did too! Pretty pleased. Not sure what was wrong with the other one-I assume someone made an error when they were refurbishing it.

Thanks for the replies!

RUU is Rom Upgrade Utility.
Basically its what HTC uses when they release a major update to a phone. Its basically the entire ROM in an executable file so that you can download it, run it and it will upgrade your phone to the latest version..
Samsung uses KIES or ODIN.. but similar principle.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Awesome. Glad to see you got a good working unit.
Working in the repair and refurbishing industry i can say were only human and we all make mistakes. But i think with some companies they prefer to push out stuff and not do as good of a job..