Wifi location wrong ?

I have a 64gb Playbook that loses the signal at 6 feet from router.Because of the way it acted I suspected that the wifi antenna was at fault.To test my suspicion I swapped the motherboard to another playbook that picked the signal up from 60 feet away (outside house) and sure enough the swapped motherboard picked up the signal just as good as the motherboard I had removed.Since I couldn't find a wifi antenna anywhere I got a playbook with a cracked digitizer and boken case.This playbook worked perfect even with the boken digitizer and housing and picked up wifi excellent.So i took the wifi antenna and motherboard out and put it in the one with the poor wifi strength and guess what???? Still doesn't pick up wifi over 6 feet away from source.Is everyone wrong about the antenna in the upper left hand corner being the wifi antenna.If that is the wifi antenna then what else could be causing the loss of signal when away from router.I've been repairing Playbooks for over a year and never failed to get one working right until this one. FRUSTRATED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The following thread gives a description of the antennae on the PlayBook:

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...ocated-723312/

If the problem is with the wireless N antenna, that is on the top right. The top left antenna is for wireless G.

Perhaps testing with the wireless router for a "G" only signal and then an "N" only signal rather than a "BGN" configuration or "GN" configuration could help you narrow down which is the troublesome antenna.

Interesting,but there is only one antenna at the top.There ARE two antenna at the bottom,one is bluetooth and other is gps or at least every source i've found shows that arrangement.Now I'm beginning to think everyone is wrong from my experience.I'm going to replace the other two antennas one at a time and see what happens.If that doesn't fix it I'll be at a total loss as to what is causing the problem.

Are you sure there is no antenna at the top right just below the earphone receptacle? The Tech Republic teardown images show one there. (image shows a Playbook face-down with the back open)

BlackBerry PlayBook Teardown: Removing the battery connector screws | 16 of 80

Here's what I've captured regarding antenna locations:

The GPS antenna is in the lower right corner

Top-left: 802.11G

Top-right: 802.11N

Bottom-left: Bluetooth

Bottom-right: GPS


When you hold the PlayBook in landscape mode, generally your hands will "cup" the bottom two corners (left and right), obscuring the BT and GPS antennas partially. My experiments suggest that the Bluetooth antenna is able to cope with a fair bit of blockage (though this would depend on how far away your bridged phone is), while the GPS antenna is affected by almost any blockage.

The WiFi antennas (G and N) are in the top two corners, up near where you can see the two little microphone holes. If you held the PlayBook in portrait orientation, you'd block either G or N or both, depending on the position of your hands and whether you'd rotated it so the front-facing camera was on the left or the right.

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Further to the antennae at the top, perhaps it is good to trace the wires coming off the motherboard from the top where the wireless module sits.

BlackBerry PlayBook Teardown: Peeling back the tape on the blue antenna wire | 33 of 80

I can see three wires with brass plugs/contacts coming out of that. Two are very easy to trace. The white wire goes to the wireless "N" antenna, the blue one down to the BlueTooth antenna at the bottom and there is a black one which is hard to trace in the image but does lead to the outer edge of the motherboard before disappearing from view. I suspect it leads to the wireless "G" antenna.

Wow! With all those antennas etc, how safe are pb's to use on an everyday basis? I wonder

Well the GPS antenna only receives a signal. Unless you are hooked up to a BlueTooth device, the BlueTooth is not transmitting either. That leaves the WiFi. It transmits a signal no more powerful that what your router might send or a WiFi capable mobile phone.

If one is at all concerned about radiation from a PlayBook, then they should get rid get of their wireless router, wireless computer and printer, bluetooth devices, mobile phones and move to an area not served by cell phone service or GPS satellites.

I've had over a hundred of these tore down completely and there are only three antennas.Black wire from upp right hand corner is the speaker wire.I said the heck with it and changed out the whole battery pack which includes all the antennas and speakers from the unit that had excellent wifi reception but cracked digitizer and STILL get poor signal.Put everything back in broke unit and signal strength back to excellent.This is really frustrating since there's nothing left with battery pack out except sreen, digitizer,power button with cameras and headphone jack.

Originally Posted by Enyigma

Are you sure there is no antenna at the top right just below the earphone receptacle? The Tech Republic teardown images show one there. (image shows a Playbook face-down with the back open)

BlackBerry PlayBook Teardown: Removing the battery connector screws | 16 of 80

Dont know who the tech is tearing down the playbook but he has it oriented wrong from all the techs I know He's describing everything from the stand point of loking at the front but when tearing down should have the bottom of the playbook towards him if he's going to say left speaker-right speaker like looking at it from the front.

Well I have to eat some crow here.When I first started working on playbooks I got a Tech journal for them.It specifically stated that the black wire on the (looking from front)left speaker is a speaker wire but looking at Bill detwilers teardown where he stated that black tape held the antenna to the speaker I looked at the unit I have tore down and found that the wire attaches to a metal tab on top of the speaker not to the speaker itself So even though it looks nothing like the other three antennas it has to be an antenna.I apologise to all who said there were Four antennas and I insisted there wer only three.Can't believe all this time and all the units I've disassembled that I didn't notice it.Just goes to show you can't always trust tech journals,even Rims.Now iI still have to figure out what the heck is going on with this blasted playbook.

hudeout:

Let us know what you ultimately find and thanks for reporting the, ahem, user error!

Well, when nothing else works, it is always good to look at our assumptions again. Glad you were able to trace the fourth (wireless "G") antenna. I hope the information helps you get the reception problem fixed.

Why not switch the screen of cracked unit to a good screen and problem solved?

As for the issue it could be the motherboard of the unit that has the issue with dropping signal at 6 feet from router.

Also is it the same OS on all the units?



Posted via CB10, BB10, Z10

Originally Posted by xamdam

Why not switch the screen of cracked unit to a good screen and problem solved?

As for the issue it could be the motherboard of the unit that has the issue with dropping signal at 6 feet from router.

Also is it the same OS on all the units?



Posted via CB10, BB10, Z10

Thats what I'm trying to do.Unit with good digitizer has a 16 gb motherboard and one with broke digitizer and case is 64gb.Unit with good digitizer has very weak wifi reception.Unit with broken case and digitizer has excellent wifi reception.When I put the motherboard from the broken unit with strong wifi in the unit with the good digitizer it loses wifi just like other motherboard did so it's not a motherboard issue and there both latest OS.Even tried swapping the entire battery pack with antennas and speakers from broken unit to unit with good digitizer annnnd WEAK wifi reception.This makes no sense at all.

I'm going to swap the LCD's out next to see if there's some type of frequency interference.Only thing I haven't swapped out besides the digitizer.

Originally Posted by hudeout45

I'm going to swap the LCD's out next to see if there's some type of frequency interference.Only thing I haven't swapped out besides the digitizer.

Yep that was what I was going to suggest, also make sure no metal is interfering or any other cane or wires.

Posted via CB10, BB10, Z10

Problem solved.Swapped LCD and reassembled and now have strong wifi reception.Makes no sense whatsoever buuut that worked.Something with the lcd providing interference with the wifi.Add this to the list of playbook trouble Quirks.Thanks everybody for your input.Kept me grinding away at this and I learned a lot.