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Help Constant Slow Mobile Data?

Whoever made that chart has obviously never taken middle school science. You can't poll 13 cities and expect it to accurately reflect anything about the over 30,000 incorporated cities in the USA. I don't doubt that you may be getting poor performance from your phone, but that chart is terrible.
 
I've had two elites too, but I've never had those problems. 3G is just slow for me (but then, it's 3G, isn't it supposed to be rather slow?).

its not the fact thats it's slow (its really not terrible), its the fact that it only chooses to connect 50% of the time.

when it connects, its acceptable. the problem is, it does not like to connect when its told to. its like the data connection goes to sleep and has to be shaken awake.

i try to go the the play store and get a no connection/retry error. the 3g arrows just remain grey. so i fire up a web browser and the 3g arrows fire up. all of a sudden the play store works fine.

same crap when im just trying to view a web page. i fire up the browser and hit a favorite and it just sits there doing nothing (3g appears dead, just grey bars, no activity) just spinning trying to get a connection. so i stop and retry, do that 3-5 times in a row and finally it connects.

edit: actually maybe i shouldnt even be posting this in this thread. i just assumed it was part of the same issue. ive down speed tests and gotten some mixed results, but overall the speed is not the problem for me. it just seems like the 3g dies and comes back to life with regularity. way too often to be reliable at all.

trying to play an online game with this phone is impossible for me because the 3g connection constantly fails every 30-60 seconds or so.
 
its not the fact thats it's slow (its really not terrible), its the fact that it only chooses to connect 50% of the time.

when it connects, its acceptable. the problem is, it does not like to connect when its told to. its like the data connection goes to sleep and has to be shaken awake.

i try to go the the play store and get a no connection/retry error. the 3g arrows just remain grey. so i fire up a web browser and the 3g arrows fire up. all of a sudden the play store works fine.

same crap when im just trying to view a web page. i fire up the browser and hit a favorite and it just sits there doing nothing (3g appears dead, just grey bars, no activity) just spinning trying to get a connection. so i stop and retry, do that 3-5 times in a row and finally it connects.

edit: actually maybe i shouldnt even be posting this in this thread. i just assumed it was part of the same issue. ive down speed tests and gotten some mixed results, but overall the speed is not the problem for me. it just seems like the 3g dies and comes back to life with regularity. way too often to be reliable at all.

trying to play an online game with this phone is impossible for me because the 3g connection constantly fails every 30-60 seconds or so.

I'm glad you posted this. I was about to come in this thread and share similar experiences. Now I know its not just my particular phone.

When 3g connects, it works fine, even beyond expectations. I've gotten speeds as high as 2.5mbit. It usually ranges from 400kbps-1700kbps depending on time of day. Uploads consistently from 400kbps-900kbps. The problem is staying connected. This is in New York City.

I've observed that once its in 3g and there is consistent data being transferred, it will stay in 3g with no problems. Examples of this is when I stream a video online or tether the connection to my computer and play an online game (such as world of warcraft). The phone will stay in 3g and I get pings anywhere from 100-200ms. Awesome.

The problem comes when the phone returns to idle. When the video ends, or I close my game, the phone will quickly go back to 2g mode. In 2g mode, I get 128kbps max and about 800-900ms ping. Too slow really to do anything other than sync email. Sometimes it jumps back to 3g after 10 seconds or so. Other times it takes a minute or more before it goes back to 3g. I don't know what prompts it to reconnect to 3g. All I can do is stare at the 3rd party 2g/3g status indicator that i installed into my status bar until it decides to reconnect to 3g.

Unfortunately, if it is in 2g when I first start transferring data, it will stay in that mode until whatever program I'm running stops trying to transfer data. It wont reconnect to 3g until it is idle again. This is my main problem with this phone.

As expected, this causes major problems when you're using programs that download with idle periods in between, such as when I'm browsing websites. If I start loading a page when the phone is in 3g, its beautiful. Just like my home broadband cable connection. But if im unlucky and its in 2g when I start loading a page, its so slow my web browser times out. If I keep trying to transfer data while its in 2g, it will stay stuck in 2g until I stop what I'm doing. Once the connection is idle, it will eventually go back to 3g.

Testing Environment:

Sorry for the wall of text. Hopefully this information helps someone. All of this testing was done in a location where the phone is stationary with 4 bars of signal strength (max bars for sleipnir theme?) and the phone flashed to the latest build of Sleipnir (including the Dec. 31st one). I'm officially done with this phone and putting it up along with my grandfathered $25 plan for sale (PM me if interested). I love everything else about this phone and the 2800-3000 score I get in Quadrant. I don't have any heat problems but the data is just too unreliable. Goodbye Virgin Mobile.

EDIT: One thing I tried to solve the problem was going into diagnostic menu and selecting EVDO Only. However, with this setting on, the phone will instead toggle between 3g and "no signal". This is even worse than when it toggles to 2g because at least the phone will still allow me to make calls when its on 2g.
 
Testing Environment:

Sorry for the wall of text. Hopefully this information helps someone. All of this testing was done in a location where the phone is stationary with 4 bars of signal strength (max bars for sleipnir theme?) and the phone flashed to the latest build of Sleipnir (including the Dec. 31st one). I'm officially done with this phone and putting it up along with my grandfathered $25 plan for sale (PM me if interested). I love everything else about this phone and the 2800-3000 score I get in Quadrant. I don't have any heat problems but the data is just too unreliable. Goodbye Virgin Mobile.

EDIT: One thing I tried to solve the problem was going into diagnostic menu and selecting EVDO Only. However, with this setting on, the phone will instead toggle between 3g and "no signal". This is even worse than when it toggles to 2g because at least the phone will still allow me to make calls when its on 2g.

It sounds like you have great speeds (lucky), the issue is the usual Elite data issues, I get the same thing, that wasnt present on my other VM phones. I doubt its actually Virgins network in your area. It might be worth to try a better VM phone,
 
Jacer, thats exactly the issue my Elite had. The sticky up above in this forum explains how to identify exactly as you did, I saw the same issue with trying evdo only having it lose signal completely over and over. You should submit the survey in the sticky with your details, more ammo to use someday to make them recognize the problem.

I eventually got Virgin to replace it with an HTC One V, which I then sold brand new on Ebay. I went and got the black friday $39.88 Optimus Logic on straighttalk/at&t and I love it.

Troubleshooting this phone problem with Virgin got me to hate the company so much because even their "engineering" support in the US are a bunch of monkeys. All they ever did was tell me "we did something on our end, its fixed" I'd then reboot and tell them its still doing it and I'd have to wait 48 hours for them to get back to the level 3 i was working with. This repeated over and over about 6 times (with all the weekends/48-72 hour delays it took over a month) then I was fed up and requested a different model. They wouldn't let me keep my $25 plan with the replacement phone either which is pretty pathetic since they replaced my eligible phone due to bad service and required me to go to the $35 to use it.
 
You can change it from the 1xrtt to go into 3G by dialing *#*#4636#*#* and go into phone information

scroll down to the drop down window called "Set Preferred Network Type"

then in the drop down window choose "EvDo only"

your phone should go into 3G Mode within a few seconds after.

It worked for my LG Optimus Elite (Virgin Mobile)

Hope this helps some of you!
 
When I do this (which I've done previously) the elite drops data when it would switch to 1x and it over heats even faster than normal. It works well if I put it in 1x only though.

My newest elite works decent when I don't have a 104 error. Much better than my previous 4, but still not acceptable.
 
Has anybody with this issue had it resolved without having to change to a different model of phone? I ask because I've been dealing with VM's poor excuse for tech support for a month now to get it resolved. I'm on my 5th Optimus Elite, and they're sending me yet another replacement. I asked them about a different model and they offered a few different ones instead of the elite, but all of them were cheaper phones. The ones they offered were Optimus Slider ($71 on amazon.com), Kyocera Rise ($75 on VM's website), and the ole Venture and Chaser (both $40 on their website). I asked about the HTC One V, which is $12 more than the Elite on their website, and they said I would have to pay an arm and a leg to get it, as well as lose my grandfarthered plan.

So they don't have any phones that are the same price, and they will only send out another non-working Elite or a cheaper phones. I'd like to know if there is any hope at all for getting an Elite that works.
 
I fixed my data issues by going to T-Mobile with a nexus 4. I too had 5 elites with no resolution. They flat out refused any kind of phone swap. I was trying for a G2 or One V.

I am currently trying to get a refund for my elite paperweight.
 
Are you on prepaid? A Nexus 4 on a $30 plan sounds beautiful and I can't believe I haven't thought of it yet >_<
 
It's sad to see so many people jumping ship on this phone because of the poor dada issues. Is it possible that the recent tower upgrades will help? My phone is pretty quick at my home, and bearable when I'm at work but I've never had the disconnect/overheating problems some people describe. Maybe we'll get lucky and things will smooth out once the upgrades are in place.
 
Are you on prepaid? A Nexus 4 on a $30 plan sounds beautiful
I am prepaid. Data is fast and reliable, I left my hspa+ on all day today and am at 39% battery. My elite would have died just after lunch.

The 100 minutes is tight. I never used much more than 80 a month but I liked having that padding if needed.

Before On my elite my wife would open four square on her optimus v after me and be checked in before me. Now there is no contest, I'm always first.
 
Although the data issue is very annoying (I get it occasionally) I am willing to bet it has more to do with the network than our specific phone model. I used to have the same trouble with a Samsung Galaxy phone on a Sprint monthly contract.
 
My wife has an Optimus V on Virgin and she has great data speeds. I did have better speeds when I was near Richmond va, but again hers were better.
 
Nice. Sucks we had leave Virgin to fix our problems. I wouldn't have minded paying the extra $5 a month to keep the 200 minutes I lost a month.

Really wish CDMA carriers were required to allow any device on their network.
 
I must say this is good to hear that Virgin Mobile is saying that they are willing to look into this problem and possibly take care of it . I have a few friends that have V.M .. I most definetley will tell them about this .
 
They've been looking at this issue for a while now! I don't think they want to admit there is an issue or they haven't a clue!

It almost has to be a phone issue. I had the Optimus V before the Elite and had no issues. Then had 6 Elites and countless calls to everyone imaginable at Vm and Sprint followes by an Fcc complaint which got me moved to the One V and no more data issues. Now I'm on the Evo V and have yet to see any data issues.

The elite is a nice little phone and it'd be nice if they'd work out the issue.
 
Wow... I thought things on my phone were slow... but I never realized the issue. I also had great batter life... but some days the batter drained very quickly and the phone was hot.

It wasn't until I recently got my son and then later wife the iPhone 4S on Virgin that I realized how slow my data was. I had my son run speedtest on his iPhone sitting right next to my phone and he is getting 1.5Mbps while I get .125Mbps.

Put that 2G/3G status thing on my phone and it is showing 2g all the time. Argh... no wonder the thing is so slow.

thanks for all this info people. I have been lusting after the Nexus 4 for a while now and hope to move to that in May... I can't wait.
 
Are you in one of the areas being upgraded?
It's still unreliable for me.

No idea I live on the IL/Wisc border. I did have one afternoon this week where my data completely stopped working it was the day my bill was set to autopay though so maybe that had something to do with it.
 
VM is getting Nexus 4 or you're going to another carrier?

Wow... I thought things on my phone were slow... but I never realized the issue. I also had great batter life... but some days the batter drained very quickly and the phone was hot.

It wasn't until I recently got my son and then later wife the iPhone 4S on Virgin that I realized how slow my data was. I had my son run speedtest on his iPhone sitting right next to my phone and he is getting 1.5Mbps while I get .125Mbps.

Put that 2G/3G status thing on my phone and it is showing 2g all the time. Argh... no wonder the thing is so slow.

thanks for all this info people. I have been lusting after the Nexus 4 for a while now and hope to move to that in May... I can't wait.
 
Well, I'm in Madison, so maybe that's reassuring news for me. Maybe not.

No idea I live on the IL/Wisc border. I did have one afternoon this week where my data completely stopped working it was the day my bill was set to autopay though so maybe that had something to do with it.
 
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