GPS so slow

[Guest Carbonize]

Am I the only one who's GPS seems to take a really long time to get a lock? I started GPS Test on my GT540 and my partners Orange SF and her phone had a lock within about 30 seconds and down to 30 foot about 20 seconds after that. My GT540 took about 2 minutes just to get a lock and even then it's error was over 700 feet and stayed that way for a few minutes at which point I got bored of waiting.

[Guest max-greece]

Mine's now so unpredictable (since the last upgrade) that nothing surprises me.

I have taken 10 minutes to not get a lock at all - I re-booted in the end.

I have gotten a lock in less than 30 seconds - to within 9 meters (er.....30 foot?) - fortunately that was this morning whilst sitting with a friend who is a huge Apple fan. He was impressed too.

The weather perhaps? High winds? Too many tall buildings in the area? Usually if it tells me it has just updated the AGPS then I know to go get a coffee.

[Guest elkay62]

Initially I found my GT540 locked on impressively quick. Recently, it started taking significantly longer. I have not upgraded, I am still on 1.6.

However, the last couple of days I think I have found a "system" for getting a quicker lock. I do not switch on GPS until I am outdoors. The couple of days I have tried this, I have got a quick lock.

I suspect that when you switch on GPS, it starts looking for satellites in the same area of the sky as they were when it was switched off. If you switch GPS on indoors, it won't find them there, will start searching, and will "forget" where it was. When you go outdoors, it will still be searching "from scratch". If you are outdoors when you switch on, it has a rough idea where you were when you switched it off, and locks on pretty quickly.

This is just my theory - can anyone back this up as factual, or at least try their own experimenting?

Les

[Guest Carbonize]

I have noticed that before. I do a five minute warm up walk before I go jogging and have GPS Test running to try and kick start the GPS but sometimes it's still not locked on and I have found turning the phone off and then back on seems to rectify the issue.

[Guest SrkeeOSK]

Same problem here. sometimes he needs almost 3-4 minutes to lock on, sometimes 20-30 seconds. and i'm on the same location.

clear weather. guess its just system-ish stuff. but yes, rebooting phone makes lock-on time less than 1min

[Guest Carbonize]

I went for a run today and I use RunKeeper. I started GPS Status so that the phone should have a lock by the time I had finished getting ready. After 10 minutes it was still trying to lock on. It took a further 15 minutes and 3 reboots to get a lock. Stupid thing is it can be getting the signal from 10 satellites and still be unable to get a lock. I suspect it's a software or driver issue.

[Guest flyboyovyick]

I was in wales Geocaching (if you no what i mean) And i still didn't have a lock in 20 minutes. My uncles £35 Binatone SatNav got a lock in under 1 min.

WTF????

Anyway my phone is off for repair, because the screen is unresponsive on the right hand side.

Can't believe it.

Carphone Warehouse

woman: "so the screen is unresponsive?"

pause

woman: DROPPED MY FU*KIN PHONE ON THE FLOOR, ABOUT 1METER AND HALF DROP!!!!

woman: "so where is it unresponsive?"

long pause, while i was thinking to say "well the whole FU*KING SCREEN NOW!"

me: "just along the right hand side"

woman: "have you got a phone for the meantime?"

me: "ye"

in my head: "ye, my 7 year old, trusty, never break, never give up, never defective, fu*kin solid HTC HIMALAYA (02 xda II) WINDOWS MOBILE BRICK!!!!!

woman: "so your phone should be repaired i about 14 days"

Sorry, about that. Just a little rant about faulty sh*t and carphone warehouse.

[Guest Carbonize]

OK whilst not being able to get a lock quickly is annoying having it actually lose the lock after getting it down to 30 metres and then take 15 minutes to get it back is more annoying. I was sat here playing with Latitude and it said it was down to 30 metres accuracy. Next thing I know it's looking for a GPS lock again and has resorted to using my locale mast as my location point :|

I am severely tempted to be a prick and go and take out a second contract just to get a Desire :|

[Guest flyboyovyick]

i got it down to 3 meters accuracy while on the great orme in north wales.

[Guest Carbonize]

See that's the main problem. The GPS is irratic and sometimes it's brilliant and others it's dumber than an American President born in Texas.

[Guest pepi74]

See that's the main problem. The GPS is irratic and sometimes it's brilliant and others it's dumber than an American President born in Texas.

I made update to 2.1 but has no difference in getting GPS fix. Sometime it will lock on satellite in the building in seconds , and sometime even get ten satellite on open space cannot make lock in 5 minute.

As I can see, there is no fix fot that. Nokia has supl.nokia.com server , and that server assisted in GPS lock, and Nokia has very fast lock. Has LG anything like that?

Edited December 2, 2010 by pepi74

[Guest Carbonize]

Yes the GT540 has A-GPS. I have a feeling the issue is more to do with either a cheap GPS module or LG's programming.

[Guest pepi74]

Yes the GT540 has A-GPS. I have a feeling the issue is more to do with either a cheap GPS module or LG's programming.

I know that LG540 has A-GPS , but server I mentioned is for improving GPS lock on Nokia phones.

I put generic rom so it is not LG programming

[Guest Carbonize]

I tried it with supl.google.com and it didn't make any difference. I even tried with the Orange UK supl address and it's still as slow.

[Guest pepi74]

I tried it with supl.google.com and it didn't make any difference. I even tried with the Orange UK supl address and it's still as slow.

As you say before "The GPS is irratic and sometimes it's brilliant and others it's dumber than an American President born in Texas"

This morning ( 1 AM) I do a hard reset. Install only one application for satellite status, LG 540 collects A-GPS data and got lock in 8 seconds. I was so happy.

After that I made one more hard reset, do the same thing, and go out ( time difference from first time was maybe 25 minute)

No lock even I got 9 satellites for over 10 minutes. So GPS receiver is good enought but something in ROM stopped and LG 540 was unable to made fix.

Maybe update to 2.2 fix this .... when it come.

[Guest pepi74]

I think I found why is slow GPS fix. If you use GPS Status and start it, you will find that LG is "lost in space" or in another word: he doesn't know where is South or North. Because that he cannot find satellite even knowing his position, and of course cannot get GPS fix. Even with AGPS data it is impossible to find satellite since he search for them in wrong side.

But when you calibrate compass LG find satellite pretty fast, but has no GPS fix again.

[Guest Stefan 67]

got the same problems with GPS. Sometimes great, sometimes (lately more often) useless.

I am using Ndrive, which came with the phone :-) and often it looses GPS signal whilst driving, i.e. past a tree.... Sometimes takes ages to get signal back.

I thought the problem might be with Ndrive, so I tried Sygic/Aura, but same thing. Also other gps test/programs have problems.

In the past I owned an acer phone (win6.x) with much better gps... there was an option to update satellite data. I fear the satellite data might be out of date. Does anybody know how to update it?

Re. Compass, is it correct that simply rotating the phones around its axis a couple times will calibrate the compass again?

[Guest despotovski01]

Am I the only one who's GPS seems to take a really long time to get a lock? I started GPS Test on my GT540 and my partners Orange SF and her phone had a lock within about 30 seconds and down to 30 foot about 20 seconds after that. My GT540 took about 2 minutes just to get a lock and even then it's error was over 700 feet and stayed that way for a few minutes at which point I got bored of waiting.

I have very fast gps lock - 20-30s. I'm on CyanogenMod 6.1.2.

[Guest Carbonize]

Yes I stated in the Cyanogen thread that their ROM fixed the GPS issue which makes you wonder what LG were doing so wrong.

I have mine overclocked to 825 and seems to be running stable.