Wifi issues anyone?

[mono]

I always had Wifi connection-Problems and poor speed with my GC-Pandora 512MB


Just found out that in my case those issues are not relaited to the PCB components like an broken chip or whatever nore is it software-related. It all seams that it just depends on my Wifi antenna witch is abolutely proper pluged.


therefore I thought, lets make an upgrade and leave that problem behind - Nope!


I installed a new 1Ghz Board and had the same bad connection


So I took my girlfriends Pandora and changed just the upper Display-part of the case et voila, everything is going fine,


no connection problems, "Full" speed etc. :lol: . Her board with my antenna -> BAD


I checked with Systhem Info: The connectionsignal is around 10-15 dBm better with the working antenna.


I will try to open up the display-part and have a look if I can find any obvious problem.


I think there are plenty of other users having wifi-issues, so have a look for yourself and lets find a way to solve that!


Any other tips or experiences ???

 

[mono]

well, I opend it up and everything is working gread now. (so far)


It seems as if a piece of aluminium-Tape covered some leads on the antennamodule next to the screen. I could reproduce the problem by covering them again, so I´m pretty shure about that. can please someone who has those issues confirme that or maybe someone of the assambling team could try to reproduce the problem? This could help others if this is a "real" fix


Here is what I`ve donne:

 

[bukkit]

Very interesting. My WiFi is also very poor. Bought an external adapter. I might try this.


- What did you use to watch the signal strength?


- You just opened the display housing?

 

[mono]

I used pandora system info for the signal strenght


link: http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=sysinfo.wb


The displayhousing is hard to open, I hope you finde a good way without scraching to much... I don`t know if there is a tutorial.


Pleas try and proof it, but don`t hit me if its not working, as I said, it could all be happen just by accident.

 

[_wb_]

It would be very interesting if this would be the explanation why some people have very bad wifi and others have relatively good wifi.


Also nice to see that my little utility was helpful for you .

 

[mono]

It would be very interesting if this would be the explanation why some people have very bad wifi and others have relatively good wifi.


Also nice to see that my little utility was helpful for you .

Would be great if this could help someone, your sysinfo is great! Loving it! Even though I do not really know what dBm means


Its always helpfull to have some counts

 

[_wb_]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm


It is the signal power of the wireless connection, the higher it is, the better (note that it is a negative number, so higher in this case means lower absolute value). If you had a -77dBm signal before, and you have a -59dBm signal now, that means the signal has become about 50 times more powerful since this is a logarithmic unit: an increase of 10 dB means it is 10 times more.

 

[notaz]

well, I opend it up and everything is working gread now. (so far)


It seems as if a piece of aluminium-Tape covered some leads on the antennamodule next to the screen.

That's interesting, did you check how dBm was affected after gluing antenna to LCD? I always found that LCD part strange (LCD is full of noisy signals), MWeston said it's some wireless magic but I don't have any idea why it has to be done.

 

[bukkit]

The displayhousing is hard to open, I hope you finde a good way without scraching to much... I don`t know if there is a tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/l8GfjAsbmK8?feature=oembed&start=284

Ed calls it the brutal and hard part...

 

[bukkit]

Also nice to see that my little utility was helpful for you .

A really nice tool. I was about to build a tool to watch the battery more closely, but this totally eliminates the need.


I just played with it a short time, is it possible to put it in a window, so you can watch it while you're actually doing something?

 

[mono]

well, I opend it up and everything is working gread now. (so far)


It seems as if a piece of aluminium-Tape covered some leads on the antennamodule next to the screen.

That's interesting, did you check how dBm was affected after gluing antenna to LCD? I always found that LCD part strange (LCD is full of noisy signals), MWeston said it's some wireless magic but I don't have any idea why it has to be done.

I had the impression that putting the alu-tape already increased the signal strenght same for the display, even holding the antenna in your fingers seems to give some extra strenght ... but no numerbers here, so I suppose it keeps being a miracle.

 

[Loonie]

Interesting find, mono.


I'd be interested to hear MWeston's take on this. Alu tape across any contact points would be a problem in my humble layman's understanding, unless the tape were insulated. Even then it's possible for insulation to become pierced.


Mine suffers some minor issues on this front. Not that serious, the connection is at least pretty consistent, but I do get fluctuations in speed. When I get the chance, I'll take a look inside mine, and I'll check if that tape is actually able to cause a short-circuit.

 

[_wb_]

Also nice to see that my little utility was helpful for you .

A really nice tool. I was about to build a tool to watch the battery more closely, but this totally eliminates the need.


I just played with it a short time, is it possible to put it in a window, so you can watch it while you're actually doing something?

Thanks! Just press F to toggle full-screen.

 

[EvilDragon]

Wow, VERY interesting. I've got one GC Pandora with bad WiFi here (only one though) and will test that.


Thanks for the info

 

[Loonie]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/l8GfjAsbmK8?start=284&feature=oembed

Since you're only concerned with the antenna board, the work involved should be less severe, since you aren't having to dismantle the base or remove the LCD cable.

 

[fusion_power]

I also thought about how good or bad the actual Pandora Antenna is. Maybe some of the WiFi problems are caused because of the Antenna instead ot the actual Chip or other influences? h34r:


"Pandora 2" of course should use another WiFi chip, just to be sure it is a better one than in the Pandora 1. I have a cheap WiFi Stick on my PC and there is a much much better signal andf full speed compared to my Pandora which is usualy used in my room, 2m away from the Router and the WiFi is comparable poor to the one from my PC and my PC is 2 rooms, 1 floor and some wood walls away from the Router. ^^"

 

[WizardStan]

Since you're only concerned with the antenna board, the work involved should be less severe, since you aren't having to dismantle the base or remove the LCD cable.

In order to open the lid, you pretty much need to dismantle everything, unfortunately.

 

[Loonie]

In order to open the lid, you pretty much need to dismantle everything, unfortunately.

Really? I'm quite surprised, it looked in the video as though the only reason ED had dismantled the base was to unplug the LCD cable from the main board. It's still necessary to do all that dismantling just to get at the back of the screen?

 

[mono]

Wow, VERY interesting. I've got one GC Pandora with bad WiFi here (only one though) and will test that.

Oh, please do that... I´m also very curious.


the sticky side of the alu-tape also becomes conductive if it gets a bit twisted and rubbed of. I suppose that will extend the antenna via the backside of the screen, but could also produce short circuits. Proof that, ED!

 

[mono]

you pretty much need to dismantle everything, unfortunately.

I opend the right side of the top just wide enought so I could get out the small PCB.