Poor wifi reception?

[mista22]

I just got my Droid Charge and noticed that the wifi reception in my house is terrible. It would get 1 bar, while my ipod 3rd gen would get almost full bars reception, from the same location.

The ipod also blew the Charge away in a speedtest, with the Charge getting about 4kbps download. It's so bad I have to resort to using 3G in my own house.

Any ideas?

[BeefJerky]

It sounds like your Charge may be defective. I have no problems with Wi-Fi reception or speed.

[mista22]

My wife got a charge the same time I did. I've run speedtest on both phones, from the same locations. The results are equally poor. The only time when it's good is if I'm right next to the router.

Do you think it's just how the phone is? I mean the chances of getting two defective phones is pretty low I would think.

I may get a wifi extender and see what that does.

[BeefJerky]

It's possible it's just a weird compatibility issue between the phone and your particular model router. Even though there are "standards," sometimes a particular Wi-Fi card and Wi-Fi router/AP just don't work well together.

Also, if your router is an N model, there are sometimes settings that can help performance and compatibility with older non-N devices such as the Charge. I don't remember what they are, but a Google search can probably pull that information up.

[mista22]

Hmph go figure. I had naively assumed that since the Charge was the latest greatest thing, that it had wireless N.

Wait I just checked... the Charge is wireless N....

But yeah maybe it is an incompatibility issue between the router model. I'll see what the wireless extender does.

[BeefJerky]

You're right, I just assumed the phone was not wireless N. Here's a thought, can you try it on a friends router to see if it works better?

[Shurple]

I have the same problems with mine. I even had it replaced and it's still the same problem. The wifi signal is either non existent or goes from full to one bar to full as if it's going nuts.

When I am at work there's a few wifi locations but the phone does not see them. I installed WIFI Analyzer and it sees all the wifi locations around.

SpeedTest shows horrible speeds on wifi, and almost NO connection on 3G.

[BeefJerky]

That is a very weird issue you guys are having. I've checked a few times, and the Charge seems to detect and show the same networks that my laptop sees; and I consider the laptops Wi-Fi reception to be quite good. In addition, I've used it at work, where it has to switch AP's as I move around to different locations, and it handles that switching fine as well. I still have had no issues with speed on any of these networks.

At home I use a Netgear WNDR3700. At work, they use a variety of Cisco AP's.

Shurple: Are you sure the replacement isn't defective too? It happens.

[Shurple]

No, unfortunately I'm not sure.... but after going through 3 iPhone4s because of phone issues (and well AT&T), I sold that for the Charge and to come back to Verizon. I really would rather not go through this again.

[TJF2011]

I also have the same problems.. Right now my wifi has one bar.. My wifes incredible has 4 bars snd droid x also has 4 bars.. This happens everywhere i go.. The range on my wifi router is the best range i can buy without buying pricey extenders

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