Optimus V 3G Drops (update 3/23/2011)

Today my 3G and my wife’s 3G are not working (both LG Optimus V phones from Virgin Mobile).

This phone is great when 3G works but… 3G frequently doesn’t work and this phone totally sucks when it doesn’t work.  It eats battery like crazy while trying to establish a 3G connection.  Totally bummer.  I would advise friends to not by a LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile until this 3G issue gets addressed.

There are tons of people having the same problem (google “Optimus V 3G drops”).  It does not seem to have anything to do with specific apps or defective phones.  This problem seems to be with *all* LG Optimus V phones from Virgin Mobile.

Before calling Virgin Mobile, I tried to toggle the CDMA setting using the mangelow Network tool.  I tried to reboot the phone.  I tried to pull the battery.  I tried to toggle 3G on and off.  I tried to toggle wifi back to 3G.  I tried all the tricks mentioned on the android forums and none of them worked.

I called Virgin Mobile and spoke with someone with a very thick accent.  She had me pull the battery out while the phone was on (seems like a bad idea).  Then they had me put the battery back in.  Then they had me open the browser and clear the cache and history.  Then when 3G still didn’t work they said they would open a ticket and it could take 8 days.  What a joke!  I think the only way to get Virgin Mobile to address this issue is to call customer service every time it doesn’t work.   When Virgin Mobile realizes that it costs more to NOT fix this issue (because of tons of customer service calls) than it does to actually  fix the issue, they will have some incentive to try to fix it. I plan to call Virgin Mobile back later today to ask for a credit for the 3G service that doesn’t work – seems nuts to pay for 3G service that doesn’t work.

Today I changed my wifi sleep settings to never sleep so that my phone will keep sync’ing via wifi even when the screen sleeps/locks.  Here are the steps to turn wifi sleep policy to never:

• Home, Menu, Settings, Wireless & Network, Wi-Fi Settings
• Click the Menu button and select “Advanced”
• Select “Wi-Fi sleep policy” and change to Never

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category: http://trillionth.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

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Optimus V 3G Drops (update 3/21/2011)

I have had drops a few times an each time I have managed to get it working again by rebooting, airplane mode, toggle 3g, toggle cdma setting, etc.  It seems to be happening less and less often but I still cannot come up with a consistent way to correct it.  Come on Virgin Mobile!! Please fix it or issue a patch to fix it!

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category: https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

Optimus V 3G Drops (update 3/16/2011)

Well maybe I spoke too soon.  I had no drops for a full day.  Then yesterday I had it drop me and my “work around” didn’t work.  I ended up rebooting the phone and toggling wifi on and off and that seemed to get it back.  I sure hope Virgin Mobile produces a fix or someone comes out with an app that actually works to fix it.

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category: https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

Optimus V 3G Drops

Update: This does NOT seem to fix the issue and it does not always restore 3G.  I have tried it several times and sometimes (like today) it doesn’t work at all.  You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category: https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

OK, so I finally found a work around that makes my LG Optimus V (from Virgin Mobile) not suck.  Before this work around I was constantly having my 3G connection drop and also burning through 50% of my battery in only a few hours.

After this work around I can go the entire day using about 60% of my battery and using 3G like crazy during the day with maybe an hour of actual talk.

My theory is that the 3G connection is confused so it keeps trying to connect to 3G which burns through the battery like crazy and it also causes the 3G connection to drop regularly.

To tell if you have the same problem run without the phone plugged in for an hour or two and then go to Home, Menu, Settings, About Phone, Battery Use, Cell Standby and see if the Time without  signal is anywhere near 50%.  Mine was always at 50% before this work around.

The work around is simply, albeit annoying.  Here is what I did to my phone and my wife’s phone and now they both work great:

• After rebooting the phone, use the Network app by Philipp Mangelow to toggle the network type from CDMA auto (PRL) to CDMA
• Back out of the app
• Go back into the Network app and toggle the network type back from CDMA to CDMA auto (PRL)
• Switch to airplane mode by holding down the power button for a second or two and picking airplane mode
• Wake the phone back up and switch airplane mode off
• Now, if your 3G isn’t working, use the Android Assistant app to toggle 3G back on
• That’s it

These steps are way annoying to have to do, especially since you have to do this every time your phone reboots.  But for me it is totally worth it.  The 3G drops and battery drain were so bad I was about to return the phone.   Luckily after googling around I found both of these tips and put together a sequence that actually seems to work for the 2 phones we own.

After this work around my Time without signal is zero – in fact it doesn’t even show time without signal = 0.

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category: https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/

Android Phone

I am trying out the WordPress app on my android phone to see how it works.  It works pretty good.  Now I can blog from my phone which is cool – not sure how much I’ll use it because typing on a phone isn’t nearly as fast as typing on a keyboard.

So far I’m pretty happy with my LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile.  The phone was $150 and the accessories added another $50.  I like that I can keep up with my personal email and business email from the phone and Facebook is nice too.  Blogging is just a small plus.

My only real gripe so far with the phone is the battery life.  I’ve been trying out apps like JuiceDefender and GreenPower and I do notice an improvement in battery life.

The only thing that seems strange to me is that you don’t exit apps.. you just back out of them and then they seem to keep running so you have to run some other software to kill running apps – strange.

Update:   The LG Optimus V with Virgin Mobile has major problems with 3G not working.  Unfortunately, it is not being resolved in a timely manner by Virgin Mobile.

You can follow my progress (and pain) in this category: https://montykamath.wordpress.com/category/optimusvsucks/