Lumia 830 - Mfg Remanufactured - behavior

[Auggybendoggy]

Hey all,

I just bought my wife a Lumia 830 after her 920 began dropping signals which I could not resolve. After Ting reset the data and connection the phones seems to have stabilized and hasn't dropped the signal once.

However there is one issue I'm uncertain about. The phone is a RM 983 ATT version and when I search for networks it only shows Ting 4G. There is no LTE on the list. But when I turn on cell data, the phone shows LTE by the bars.

Is this right? She won't care about LTE but perhaps I should send the phone back to Amazon.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

Well it started dropping the signal again just for a split moment. On the other hand once I dial, it stabilizes. Guess it's time to return it.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

Well before returning the phone, I decided to place my sons H2O Wireless sim into the 830 and it works. Turns out the sim wasn't seated properly. So far, so good,...So What (Dave Mustaine).

 

[Auggybendoggy]

Ok, after about 20 minutes it was fine after being reseated and started up again dropping signal and chancing bars like mad.

I place my sons H20 Wireless this time all night and today and so far not one dropped signal - it's steady most of the time with a few bar fluctuations.

So I'm now convince the 830 is fine. There's no sim port issue else H2O wouldn't work. Ting is sending me 2 new sims to test and my next attempt is to begin a whole new account with a new phone number. If that should stabalize things then I'm going to assume that my wifes account is messed up with ting. It's one of the few things I can think of EXCEPT the antenna in the phone picks up H2O just ine but not ting. But that does not make sense to me since she's been on Ting since Nov with no issues. The suddenly dropped signals like mad.

So I'll post up and see if that solves the issue.

If it doesn't then either I return the phone or I keep it off ting and stick with H20 which sucks because Ting is a shared system. What point is it to share with my wife if she can't be on it LOL.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

Well I pulled the ting sim from my phone, which does just fine, and her 830 dropped the signal like mad suggesting that the phone is the reason.

Returning the lumia 830.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that each phone can have it's own signal strength. On the other hand my wifes 920 did fine for 6 months and then started dropping the signal.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

So I set up the return for the first one. The problem was not just a dropped signal but also the screen flickers so that has to be returned. However, Amazon sent the replacement from another distributor and while it functions properly regarding hardware (the screen is fine) it does the EXACT same thing leading me to conclude it's not faulty antennas.

Both phones run fine on H20 wireless so I'm keeping the latter 830 and moving the phone to H20.

Too bad, I really liked Ting.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

Ok, so after upgrading them both to Windows 10 to test, the Ting 830 phone stabilized once I place in the APN settings. I don't quite understand how they would affect the phone signal. One side note, when I turned on data the cell signal never dropped. In fact, when data was on, the signal was much stronger - 4 bars.

The ting support guy made the observation that because of the erratic changes in the signal, it seemed the phone was switching bands. He then suggested that it seems the 2G band was problematic and that was also supported in the fact that when data (LTE) was on, the phone did great.

He was having tech support check the 2G broadcast in the inland empire (so cal) area where I live to see if any faults were listed.

I'll just keep posting my findings.

 

[Auggybendoggy]

I believe I've finally solved the signal dropout on the 830 on Ting's network (T-Mobile). I have very little experience so if this is common knowledge then please forgive me for all the rambling.

There was a major indicator that data has something to do with stabilizing the signal because once data was turned on, the signal never dropped but increased to about 4 bars.

Once the APN internet setting is manually set, over-riding the smart sim's auto program, the signal stabilized.

I verified this by taking the Ting sim into the 2nd 830 that Amazon sent and, as usual, it began dropping the signal. I then proceeded to manually set the APN (internet and MMS) and once again the other 830 stabilized the signal.

I hope this is helpful to anyone who has similar issues.

If the phone begins dropping signal again, I'll post up. Otherwise, for the time being, SOLVED!