How's your wifi connection on Note 3?

[barucch]

I haven't tried more than my home network, which is working amazingly compared to my previous phone. I haven't tried other networks yet though.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Eric Mazariegos]

Hey guys, thought I would offer some insight into this unfortunate issue.

A little background: I come from a family of Galaxy devices including the S3, Note 2, S4, and now the Note 3. It is a great device but it sure has its quirks. One of them being this WiFi issue.
At home, I have an ISP provided router/modem that all my devices connect to just fine.
At work however, we have a different story. The ISP at work handles things in a more secure fashion and you need to have a password in order to connect to the network. I am pretty sure that the connection type is WPA 2 (not that it should matter). I tried connecting to my work WiFi but failed doing so. First, I would select the WiFi from the list of available WiFi networks and then I would put in the password. After clicking the Connect button I am seemingly connected to the network, but after a while I get a message in the notification panel saying that I must login to the network. This was strange as I had already entered a password and I thought that was sufficient to use the network. So upon clicking the notification, it simply takes me to Google's mobile site and that is it! This was pretty weird as I was expecting to be taken to an online log in service for my work WiFi. I thought everything would be ready to go from there so I started to stream some music but was soon interrupted by yet another notification in the status bar. This time it said that the network authentication failed, and then another notification saying that the network timed out. I tried a lot of things including restarting the phone, and reconnecting to the network again, but it did not work.
This was reminiscent of trying to connect to the WiFi at my school. There, you did indeed need to use a web based login site in order to use the network. On my Galaxy devices, this was always a pain to do because the notification that usually tells you to sign into the network took a while to pop up. (I later found a fix in just opening up any webpage and then it will redirect to the web login page). After this, if I successfully logged in, the internet would again time out after a certain time and then I would have to repeat the process again. So all in all, it was a pain to use the WiFi at school (and now at work) so I just stopped trying.
Interestingly enough, this problem never existed on my Nexus devices. I found this out after taking my Nexus 4 to school instead of my Galaxy, and lo and behold everything was working properly. The notification alerting me to log into the network popped up almost immediately after turning on WiFi on my phone, and the connection was not intermittent at all - it was very stable and I could easily stream high quality YouTube videos without a hitch.
This got me thinking that perhaps this was just an issue with Galaxies, so instead of bringing my Note 3 into work, I recently started using my Nexus 4 again. As expected, the WiFi at work functions perfectly on my Nexus 4, as well as my Nexus tablet. Thus, this leads me to the conclusion that this is indeed a software issue. I have read through this thread and saw some potential fixes for the issue, but I cannot test them out at this time (since I am currently using my Nexus 4). I will stop by work tomorrow with my Galaxy Note 3 in hand and will test out the various fixes (dialing #0101 or something, as well as unchecking the network switch option). I will update when I get the chance.


As a sidenote, I was also encountering the same issue on the LG G2 (both at school and work). However, there were too many issues with that phone so I ended up returning it anyway.

Edit: So I tried out the disable WiFi Direct and Sharing solution, and it did indeed fix my issue. WiFi at work stays connected now without a problem. Although, it is a noticeably slower connection than on my Nexus devices. (I am almost positive this is just a Samsung issue at this point. Deal breaker.)

 

[Eclipse2K]

My WiFi has been strong but I've only tried to connect to my home (Asus) router.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

 

[Isc73]

Lol I did the same thing as the last posts said, besides that wifi is great and regular reception is good wherever I have it

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[Isc73]

I think you'll be fine as long as you uncheck the auto connect, this is because when other people are on the same wifi connection it gets weaker and so it takes you off of it and onto your mobile network for faster performance. Just uncheck it and everything works great, at least it did for me and a bunch of others

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[ctjones803]

I don't know if it was mentioned in one of these pages but if you just turn mobile data off it works fine. So from now on whenever I know I'm going to be on WiFi for a while I turn off mobile data AMD my WiFi never drops.

 

[ejmm22]

I am having the same issue with my note 3 and i keep reading about this solution, unchecking the auto network switch and it just seems like a wrong fix for the issue. If I uncheck this box wouldn't i have to manually connect to a wifi network? and then manually change to mobile data?

 

[Paul Walker5]

Re: How's your wifi connection on note3?

On My Note 3 is working good I have no any issue with network.

 

[desdroid]

I am having the same issue with my note 3 and i keep reading about this solution, unchecking the auto network switch and it just seems like a wrong fix for the issue. If I uncheck this box wouldn't i have to manually connect to a wifi network? and then manually change to mobile data?

No, it only auto switches if data is unavailable.

 

[missmawarlina]

Is this issue resolve with the new OS (kitkat) ?

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[oldgrowth]

If anyone is still having problems with their Wi-Fi being unstable and none of the solutions mentioned in previous post have helped, then pull the sim card out and test your Wi-Fi connection. If it solves the problem you have a phone with the Wi-Fi antenna and mobile antenna next to each other. This is a known issue with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that has been remedied by Samsung in later phones, however the bad phones in the pipeline are still being marketed by the carriers. As far as I know the only solution is to replace the phone with one that has the antennas spaced farther apart. If you get an earlier phone you may experience the same problem.

This test will never be suggested by technical support to see if you have one of the phones with the antenna problem. They may not even be aware of this or if they are, they will not admit it. You have to get past them and their supervisors to the top tech people before anyone will admit to this problem.

I got one of the bad phones twelve days ago and it took a lot of trouble shooting to figure out the problem. Hope this helps some of you.

 

[desdroid]

If anyone is still having problems with their Wi-Fi being unstable and none of the solutions mentioned in previous post have helped, then pull the sim card out and test your Wi-Fi connection. If it solves the problem you have a phone with the Wi-Fi antenna and mobile antenna next to each other. This is a known issue with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that has been remedied by Samsung in later phones, however the bad phones in the pipeline are still being marketed by the carriers. As far as I know the only solution is to replace the phone with one that has the antennas spaced farther apart. If you get an earlier phone you may experience the same problem.

This test will never be suggested by technical support to see if you have one of the phones with the antenna problem. They may not even be aware of this or if they are, they will not admit it. You have to get past them and their supervisors to the top tech people before anyone will admit to this problem.

I got one of the bad phones twelve days ago and it took a lot of trouble shooting to figure out the problem. Hope this helps some of you.

What was the behavior of your wifi problem?

 

[oldgrowth]

desdroid asked “What was the behavior of your wifi problem?”

The Wi-Fi connection was unstable. I could easily connect to my and other Wi-Fi connections but after a while (sometimes in as little as one minute and other times within five minutes) I would get a message that the wi-fi connection was unstable. Downloads would usually (but not always) complete. When they did complete it was slow because of continually losing my wi-fi connection but it would usually reconnect within a second or three, then continue with the download. Sometimes I would get a message that the connection was lost and have to restart the download.

I spent hours and hours troubleshooting this on two different Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phones and countless other hours researching the forums and self-help articles on the web and nothing I read or tried fixed the problem. The only thing that helped was turning off Mobile data in the settings menu. While it helped it did not by a long shot cure the problem. My wi-fi connection improved by maybe 50%. Removing the sim card made a 1000% improvement.

With the sim card removed the mobile antenna is not used so there is no conflict between the two antennas. Wi-Fi is stable, faster and never disconnects.

I did not read all post on this thread (probably only 10%) but reading the post above my first one, it was apparent for some users the problem still exist.

 

[nayan350]

I fixed my problem. I am using connectify in my laptop. But my note 3 shows unstable wifi connection. Then I updated my laptop wifi driver. Then in note 3 I off wifi power saving mode by dialing *#0011#. Then I unchecked all notifications in the wifi advanced menu. That's it. Now wifi works great.

 

[desdroid]

desdroid asked ?What was the behavior of your wifi problem??

The Wi-Fi connection was unstable. I could easily connect to my and other Wi-Fi connections but after a while (sometimes in as little as one minute and other times within five minutes) I would get a message that the wi-fi connection was unstable. Downloads would usually (but not always) complete. When they did complete it was slow because of continually losing my wi-fi connection but it would usually reconnect within a second or three, then continue with the download. Sometimes I would get a message that the connection was lost and have to restart the download.

I spent hours and hours troubleshooting this on two different Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phones and countless other hours researching the forums and self-help articles on the web and nothing I read or tried fixed the problem. The only thing that helped was turning off Mobile data in the settings menu. While it helped it did not by a long shot cure the problem. My wi-fi connection improved by maybe 50%. Removing the sim card made a 1000% improvement.

With the sim card removed the mobile antenna is not used so there is no conflict between the two antennas. Wi-Fi is stable, faster and never disconnects.

I did not read all post on this thread (probably only 10%) but reading the post above my first one, it was apparent for some users the problem still exist.

Your problem sounds Very similar.

I haven't been able to consistently reproduce the behavior.

I've tried playing a 2 hr long YouTube video with no disconnects. Other times, just surfing the Web html causes the "unstable" msg.
Then I also tried the "WiFi Speed App" (not speedtest). This tests for phone wifi to Lan speed and no disconnects.

The disconnection patterns are very inconsistent.

 

[oldgrowth]

desdroid - I do not always get a wi-fi unstable message when wi-fi disconnects. If it just disconnects a few times per minute and just for a second or less the only way I know I lost connection is, I get a message that it has connected to my wi-fi network again. My best test is with my Fox News app. When I am reading a news article and have scrolled down on the page, it (the page) will jump back to the top of the article when I get a disconnect, even if it is for a very short time.

I don’t watch very many videos or listen to music on my phone. A video and I assume on line music buffers some of the stream so a short disconnect will not be noticed unless it gets so bad the video has caught up to the buffer.

Pull your sim. It is easy to do and if your wi-fi is rock solid, then you will know if you have the problem I described above.

 

[FBA]

I fixed my problem. I am using connectify in my laptop. But my note 3 shows unstable wifi connection. Then I updated my laptop wifi driver. Then in note 3 I off wifi power saving mode by dialing *#0011#. Then I unchecked all notifications in the wifi advanced menu. That's it. Now wifi works great.

I don't have that option - I only get WiFi status in the WiFi menu, no option to actually do anything except a ping test.

I think however, I may have resolved the "Wifi unstable" issue by reconfiguring my DNS server. It had a bad WINS entry and I was noticing some delays on DNS lookup's on Chrome on my Mac. Once I did that, the WiFi unstable message seemed to have stopped. My Mac browser isn't hiccuping anymore either, but I would still like to disable the WiFi power save mode on my Note 3. Are you on a S9008? Can you tell me where in the settings on your device the WiFi configuration menu is in service mode?

 

[pierre118]

If anyone is still having problems with their Wi-Fi being unstable and none of the solutions mentioned in previous post have helped, then pull the sim card out and test your Wi-Fi connection. If it solves the problem you have a phone with the Wi-Fi antenna and mobile antenna next to each other. This is a known issue with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that has been remedied by Samsung in later phones, however the bad phones in the pipeline are still being marketed by the carriers. As far as I know the only solution is to replace the phone with one that has the antennas spaced farther apart. If you get an earlier phone you may experience the same problem.

This test will never be suggested by technical support to see if you have one of the phones with the antenna problem. They may not even be aware of this or if they are, they will not admit it. You have to get past them and their supervisors to the top tech people before anyone will admit to this problem.

I got one of the bad phones twelve days ago and it took a lot of trouble shooting to figure out the problem. Hope this helps some of you.

It is the 1st time I read about this. But how can I identify if I own a bad phone or a good one? Can i do that by identify the manufacturing date? Or the country it is made in?

This is a very good app to see a lot of information about your Note 3 : https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ils?id=org.vndnguyen.phoneinfo&token=7-tpUXhg

 

[nayan350]

Hi FBA....I am using SM-N900.
Typing *#0011# on the phone dialer > Enter a hidden menu >Select Menu > Wi-Fi Setting > Turn off Wi-Fi Power Save Mode (Note: Reboot the phone then go back into *#0011# > Wi-Fi to confirm the Wi-Fi Power Save is OFF)

 

[oldgrowth]

It is the 1st time I read about this. But how can I identify if I own a bad phone or a good one? Can i do that by identify the manufacturing date? Or the country it is made in?

pierre118 – I don’t know how to identify a phone with the problem I have by build date or country it is made in. My phone was manufactured on the 21st of November 2013 and has hardware revision N900V.07. I don’t think all phones built around this time or before will exhibit the same problems I have. If you are not having a problem with Wi-Fi, don’t worry about it. If you are and the fixes suggested on this forum and your carriers tech support does not solve the problem then pull your sim card. If your Wi-Fi works then the antennas are the problem.