Pipo M9 Pro wifi antenna modification instructions

[lunatictr]

Don't do it unkess you have connection issues

...Then as soon as the battery arrive I'll do all the soldering and cable mods.
Hopefully next week-end.

I had problems with the fist stock Rom like everybody else. After switching to custom Roms I did not have any connection problems other than the range. It has no where near my Hyundai T7s whish has no firmware support. I wanted to increase the range. Although I did not find it logical to use 2 wires as Wi-Fi antenna I wanted to give it a shot, as I have to visually check the board for possible damages done by a Chinese adapter (see below). Well, it seemed that it has a stronger signal level at the same distance, it was unable to blood an pages probably because of all the noises/interferences picked up by these wires. the patch antenna is optimized for WiFi signals. Shielded cable is there to conduct the signals picked up by the antenna to the board. I have not watch the yet video fully. They might have tested the signals at a location close to the router. If they go ahead and go away from the location they would realize it is not any better. My explanation for the cases for which this worked is that they had a problem with the coax cable or the soldering to begin with, which could have been solved by a proper soldering or a new coax.

And as for my experience with a third party chargers, I got caught off guard (read stupid). I ordered the adapter for my external HDD to connect it to my tablet. I did not have the Y cable yet so I tesd it on my tablet (dammit!). I don't know what I was thinking when I plugged it my in my tablet first, instead of letting it plugged in the outlet fist and measure the output with my DMM. Like 15 second later it blew on me. Now the tablet thinks it is charging all the time and draining the battery much faster. I suspected the control board of the battery, which could have been straightened out by a new battery. But nowI am thinking of the board of the tablet itself. Morals of the story is don't do what I do.
If you come accross funny words, I have to blame it on my slow keyboard and auto correction of it, rather than my rusty English.

[madsega]

Fixing wireless without changing the wires

Hey guys,

I had the same problem with the WIFI as everyone else. Couldn't stay connected for more than 15 minutes, sometimes it would drop after 30 seconds or 2 minutes. After reading all the posts here and other forums about replacing the wires, yesterday I thought I'd give it a shot.

Before replacing the wires, I wanted to try something I read elsewhere (where they said there's no reason to replace the wires).

I unglued (not unsoldered!) the wifi adapter from the case, cut a piece of thicker paper to fit between the case and the wifi adapter and placed it between the two. Then I put the adapter back in the original position (on top of the paper), put 3 stripes of insulating tape (image below) over it to shield it(?), and the original scotch tape that was over it.



I'm glad to say that yesterday, I had 6 hours with no interruption and today another 4 hours. Also, when connecting from one network to another, if I turn WIFI off while it's connected and then turn it back on, it connects instantly. As range goes, it's still good, I have 54Mb (router max speed) while in the room with the router, and about 36Mb while in other rooms with concrete walls.

Hope it helps for you guys who want to try something else before messing up with the wires.

Here is how you should open the Pipo (look for open pipo M9 01 17 part & open pipo M9 02 17 part)

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKJcthilKC1OJcrgO-YTV6Q/videos

Cheers

[Zeggi]

worked like a charm, thanks for this thread!

[rodentkj]

worked like a charm, thanks for this thread!

Which method did you use? Replacing the wire or tape insulation?

[picaye]

Hey guys,

I unglued (not unsoldered!) the wifi adapter from the case, cut a piece of thicker paper to fit between the case and the wifi adapter and placed it between the two. Then I put the adapter back in the original position (on top of the paper), put 3 stripes of insulating tape (image below) over it to shield it(?), and the original scotch tape that was over it.

ehm - got any picture or video of how this looked in the end? opened the case today but the wifi adapter (or what i think is the wifi adapter seems to be soldered onto the board? in any case it's rocksolid ON the board.. how did you unglue it...?

same applies for finless' non-soldering option

[picaye]

FYI for my tablet all I did was de-solder the ground/shield side of the antenna and this totally fixed it.

We had this very same issue on the MK808 TV stick and de-soldering ground fixed those too.

Now the best way is like the above procedure but I can tell you just desoldering ground also works and did for hundreds of MK808's as well as my M9 Pro

Bob

so the same could be achieved by simply cutting the black cable at the point where it's connected to the case shell and then eventually put a scotch tape around it to insulate it??

[picaye]

hm - cracked my screen while opening the thing for the third time (tried the antenna fix with a cut business card piece underneath the antenna). found the antenna amongst some black tape. Anyhow - that's it with this pad for me. going back to my ipad 4..

morale of the story - dont try this when you're annoyed with the pad...chances are you will be even more. and careful with china pads ...

[madsega]

ehm - got any picture or video of how this looked in the end? opened the case today but the wifi adapter (or what i think is the wifi adapter seems to be soldered onto the board? in any case it's rocksolid ON the board.. how did you unglue it...?

same applies for finless' non-soldering option

I don't know how finless did it, but the wifi adapter should be glued to the board not soldered. And by board, I mean the plastic case of the pad, not the circuit board it self. It takes a bit of force to get it unglued but it will eventually get out. You have to unglue it gently but firm (if that makes sense) and it will get out. I used a very small screwdriver to unglue the edge of it and then just pulled until it was all off the case.

@picaye: sorry to hear about the screen. If you had a look over the video link I posted, there should be now problem opening the case with ease and safely. I'll try to make some pictures or video of how I did it and how it looks now.

EDIT: I made a video, just need to compile it. The quality isn't great as my thumbs were all over and the camera lost focus I'll post is here once it's ready

[dothedew]

Just tried madsega's method, but unfortunately it does not work for me.
My antenna looks different than in the picture, it's just a piece of aluminium foil, is this normal?
The piece of aluminium foil was glued on 2 'metals', one on each side, so I put the piece of thick paper in the middle of the foil, so that it still hast contact with the metal. Is this wrong?
I thought that if I would use a paper as big as the foil it would not make sense to leave the foil in the tablet anyway..

It's unbelieveable that they use some foil as antenna, they shouldn't use only the cheapest material available :-(

Thanks for your help

[madsega]

Hey mate,

I just uploaded the video. Since I already had it fixed, I can't show how to make it from scratch, although I tried to cover all the angles. Here it is: http://youtu.be/d4rEhR01kuY

The adapter should look like this: http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9797/vjgm.jpg
I colored with blue the place where the paper should be under the adapter. You can also see this at 1:55 in the video. Unfortunately, the adapter being black and the paper I used is also black, you can't see clearly the adapter. Even though, I think you got the point.

Cheers.

[dothedew]

Thank you! The video is great.
I actually unglued a complete different thing and put it back in with some paper under it Going to remove it asap. The thing left to the antenna which looks like some kind of cotton in your picture is really just aluminium aluminium foil in my tab.
Now I'm getting it, will do it properly now.
This tablet steals my sleep

[madsega]

Thank you! The video is great.
I actually unglued a complete different thing and put it back in with some paper under it Going to remove it asap. The thing left to the antenna which looks like some kind of cotton in your picture is really just aluminium aluminium foil in my tab.
Now I'm getting it, will do it properly now.
This tablet steals my sleep

Glad I could help
Let me know how it goes

[manao]

Here it is: http://www.screencast.com/t/nADecV2n7bA

Hello, your video works 5mn ago and now it doesn't work: "we are unable to connect.......".

[dothedew]

It was really easy to do after I've seen the video. The antenna was qite easy to remove and using duct tape is always nice
No disconnects till now, but only used it for 1-2 hours since doing the modification.
Hope it stays like this

I will edit this post after some more hours of usage :-)

Gotta say Thank you one more time, you're great madsega



Edit:
After 7 hours of use I can say that I'm still getting some reconnects, had 2 or 3 in this time, which really isn't too bad. I even flashed finless 1.5 with which I have been getting reconnects like every 4 Minutes before this modification.
I'm happy with this solution, a reconnect every 3 hours doesn't disturb me too much.

[madsega]

It was really easy to do after I've seen the video. The antenna was qite easy to remove and using duct tape is always nice
No disconnects till now, but only used it for 1-2 hours since doing the modification.
Hope it stays like this

I will edit this post after some more hours of usage :-)

Gotta say Thank you one more time, you're great madsega

I'm glad I could help Let us know after a while if this fix worked for you permanently
Full credits go to a guy from a french forum who suggested this (can't remember where), I just shared it with you and made a video

@manao: I uploaded the video to a private account and the 2GB bandwidth has been reached (in only 1 day )

I uploaded to youtube and fixed the original link. See if it works now.

Cheers