Samsung Galaxy Note 3 - Update did not fix distorted calls - please help

[MichaelNote3]

I am on my 3rd pair of note 3s with Verizon. The update all carriers received to fix this issue did not fix all phones. To date I get conflicting information from Samsung and Verizon. Both agree that the update did not fix all phones but neither will even give me as much as a rumor as to if/when another update will be pushed. The most recent update did improve my current pair by about 50%. Yesterday Samsung told me to take the phones to Best Buy, even though I purchased these phones from Verizon, and a Samsung tech there could try a clean reinstall of the entire updated 4.3 OS. Unfortunately this did not make any difference, nor could the tech give me any definitive resolution.

For your info as I noted this a cross-carrier remaining issue and you can find posts by individuals still experiencing the problem. To date they have replaced my pair of phones 3 times and they came from different warehouses. The Verizon corporate store has also tried new sims, and it does not matter where in the U.S. I am I still have the issue.

If anyone has comments and/or additional information please let me know. I am 7 weeks into this problem with $1500 invested and can not make a simple phone call. I may be ignorant but I want to stick with this phone due to its potential to be a "flagship" phone.

Thanks!

 

[Gator352]

Have you tried to play with the adapt sound, clear, etc.?

 

[MichaelNote3]

Have you tried to play with the adapt sound, clear, etc.?

Thanks for your response. I have set up the Adaptive Sound setting to personalize the audio frequency response but that is an entirely separate issue. My problem is the occasional garbled, distorted, sound with electronic chirps etc. that many of the pre-upgrade phones experienced. The upgrade did not fix this issue 100% on many customer's phones such as mine.

 

[minoch]

See if it improves with wifi off. I had a similar problem and it turns out that turning wifi calling off may not actually turn it off

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[Gator352]

Also, you could try doing a factory reset. It can't hurt that bad

My brothers MotoX decided it wanted to lose all data connectivity. 2 Calls to Sprint and doing everything possible...including re-provisioning did nothing. After I factory reset it (only thing left to do), it worked...go figure.

 

[CehowardNote7]

I had that garbled voice issue with wifi on about 10 days after purchasing my Note 3. I was going to return it, but after reading forums, a lot of users were having the same problem. Most of the comments were that this was a software issue and most likely would be fixed with an update. About a week later, a Samsung Rep did an update on my Note 3, and that problem went away. My voice is clear with Wifi on or off.

If this is happening with 3 different phones, the chance of you getting 3 defective phones right in a row, sounds almost impossible. I think some other issue is working here.. Have you went to different areas, could be the signal strength from where you are at..

Mind you, I am a layman here.. So, my comments should be taken lightly. .. However, I did have that issue, and mind is cleared up, that is why I commented. Hope, yours is fixed by the time you read this...

 

[MichaelNote3]

See if it improves with wifi off. I had a similar problem and it turns out that turning wifi calling off may not actually turn it off

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Thanks but unfortunately it does not matter if wifi is disabled or not on mine.

 

[MichaelNote3]

Also, you could try doing a factory reset. It can't hurt that bad

My brothers MotoX decided it wanted to lose all data connectivity. 2 Calls to Sprint and doing everything possible...including re-provisioning did nothing. After I factory reset it (only thing left to do), it worked...go figure.

Your response about a factory reset is not without merit. I tried a factory reset but it made no difference, however when I used the Note 3s built in Odin I booted into that and did the wipe data/cache then the factory reset option also in Odin and did get about a 10% improvement on all phones. You would think the normal factory reset would perform the wipe data/cache just like the note 3's Odin but that methodology did provide the slight 10% improvement. If it was not a contract phone I would root and install the entire OS.

 

[MichaelNote3]

I had that garbled voice issue with wifi on about 10 days after purchasing my Note 3. I was going to return it, but after reading forums, a lot of users were having the same problem. Most of the comments were that this was a software issue and most likely would be fixed with an update. About a week later, a Samsung Rep did an update on my Note 3, and that problem went away. My voice is clear with Wifi on or off.

If this is happening with 3 different phones, the chance of you getting 3 defective phones right in a row, sounds almost impossible. I think some other issue is working here.. Have you went to different areas, could be the signal strength from where you are at..

Mind you, I am a layman here.. So, my comments should be taken lightly. .. However, I did have that issue, and mind is cleared up, that is why I commented. Hope, yours is fixed by the time you read this...

Thanks I agree about the number of phones, especially since I said 3 PAIR of phones. That is 6 phones. Believe it or not Verizon sent me two new phones yesterday and they exhibit the same issue so I now am on the 4th pair (8 phones). This last pair are better in that the electronic chirping has yet to occur but I continue to hear the drop out and distortion on some syllables of the folks I am talking about. The only difference in phones is this last pair has a code that may be a date of Chinese manufacture on the white label under the battery. All previous phones had 13.10 and these slightly improved phones have 13.11. Perhaps this means Oct. 2013 and Nov. 2013. The newest phones did not have the update already installed since I noticed they installed the update when they booted up for the first time.

You mentioned different areas and yes I have used the phones as far as 100 miles from my area and still had the problem and it did not matter when in some of those areas I could only get 3G as opposed to my good 4G strength at home. A couple of weeks ago I was suspicious of my sim card so I went to the corporate store and one of the reps there put their sim card in and the phones still had the issue. At that point they tried the only two note 3s they had in stock and those phones were also distorted.