droid wifi strength is weak

[Sooks]

thanks Sooks, that is very helpful.
so problem definitely is prominent.

I am wondering why this hasn't been made too much of a big deal from other posts/forums.. i searched and did not see this type of complaints.

I think its just what they expected from the device , i mean hell the internet is pretty fast , but your right it should be faster.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Anyone with a droid and a terminal app try this -
ping <your router address> -c 5

while on wifi. post the results. this will test connection from phone to router

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

I can compare droid, netbook, laptop, eris, hero, iphone and storm2 tomorrow. Should give a fairly solid point of reference

Stats are DL speed, server 18 miles away. My router grabs some bandwidth from the old OC3 line I'm using for data hosting farms. Likely a better connection than 99% of homes in the world, including mine lol.


Desktop PC hardwired to 100mbps router - 46
Laptop with IBM onboard wifi - 22
Laptop with Moto wifi card - 37
Netbook with onboard wifi card (unknown maker) - 19
Storm2 - 13
iPhone 3Gs - 21
Hero - 19
Eris - 17
Droid - 11

This was all done at my desk about 6 feet under the wifi router. Unfortunatley I didn't follow my own advice and test the ping times. Got busy and forgot. Blame the years of drug abuse

There is an issue. Either it's an underpowerd chip (ala Storm2. As soon as I have a droid in for repairs I'll look at the chip itself. Not tearing down my test unit...yet), has the power throttled back (can be changed once Sooks gets root lol), or a software issue. Time to get on the horn with VZW/Moto and raise some hell.

 

[Kronko]

Hi,

I tried it at work and signal and speed are great as well. Love this phone. Co-workers where impressed.

Kronko

 

[convenientstore]

coworker of mine has same issue(one or 2 bar)... i am begining to think this is hardware issue. If some of you are getting full bar but some of us are not.. it could be hardware issue, which is BAD news.. which means i have to start calling into V-CS.........

 

[carnadi88]

I've had no problems with my wifi. It might have only 2 bars, but my download speed is excellent.

 

[convenientstore]

carnadi88, i am glad you are not having an issues but we must be objective about this situation and see if there is any underlying problem w/ overall hardware/software OR some of us got ****ty equipment.

 

[James_B#AC]

I'm going with some of us got crap phones.. I'm having the same wifi issue.

Like everyone else, I thought it may have been the router, or maybe just me, but no. It's definitely the phone. I tested it on 2 routers with the same result.

For my phone to show full signal bars (which is at about -45dBm) I had to pretty much touch the routers antenna with my Droid. I moved two feet away from the router, keeping a clear line of sight to it, and it dropped from -45 to -55dBm. At 10 feet away, clear line of sight, it dropped to -85dBm. Around the corner to the next room, I lose signal all together.

I tested a friends Storm2 doing the same thing. Same router. His phone shows -20dBm right next to the router, and in the next room where my Droid would lose signal completely, his Storm2 has shows -60dBm. In other words, the Storm2 works like it should.

Looks like I'll be returning this phone after owning it for 2 days. What a joke.


Update:

Just tested another Droid (Also running 2.2) on the same router, and it works completely fine. Definitely bad hardware on some of the phones.

 

[anon(52425)]

I experienced this with my droid. Ended up selling it