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Thread: Lenovo yoga yt3-x50f tablet wifi problem

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    Default Lenovo yoga yt3-x50f tablet wifi problem

    Question to people who experienced similar problem and familiar with Lenovo tablets.

    I have lenovo yoga yt3-x50f tablet with wifi problem majority of times seen lately. (it has been working perfectly for few years).
    When I try to turn wifi On the button flicks back to Off position by itself after few seconds (trying to initialize the wifi module as I suspect).
    Sometimes it works fine but mostly wifi cannot be turned On and obviously no connections could be found.

    The things I tried so far without much success:
    1. Turning the tablet Off and On
    2. Restarting the tablet
    3. Clearing network settings
    4. Factory reset. After reset it worked for about 10 minutes.
    5. Open up the tablet and reset wifi antenna cable. After that wifi worked while tablet was open. After closing the case wifi disappeared again driving me nuts.

    I realize there could be one problem, either motherboard with the module or wifi antenna. Neither part I have to test with.
    I found online antenna for sale in US but something tells me if antenna was faulty I should still be able to turn wifi on. Trying to buy motherboard just to try seems like the most probable course of actions but not sure if it is worth spending money for the tablet without guaranteed result.

    I am looking for suggestions here from people who faced similar problem and know more about the tablets to confirm my assumptions above.

    Thank you for reading and appreciate your comments.



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    I found online antenna for sale in US but something tells me if antenna was faulty I should still be able to turn wifi on.
    I'm not familiar with that model, but I can comment a little -- if the wifi chip/module is bad, it can do this sort of thing. Depending on what they have done, a shorted (or out of spec) wifi antenna can cause the wifi section to turn off.

    I have seen a -lot- of (cheap) tablets with this sort of fault. There are a few things that can go awry and cause this.....SDIO lines between SoC and wifi module, PMIC section is bad somehow (power management IC)...in both those cases, wifi is actually fine and not where the fault lies.

    I think given the age of the device (and more specifically android version used), I'd be looking for a newer device.

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    I'd be trying a live version of whichever OS you choose, just to make sure that mickey hasn't "updated" your drivers.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    I'd be trying a live version of whichever OS you choose, just to make sure that mickey hasn't "updated" your drivers.
    Sorry, I failed to mention it's Android 6 tablet and after factory reset everything would go back to original, including drivers.

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    Quote Originally Posted by fromaron View Post
    5. Open up the tablet and reset wifi antenna cable. After that wifi worked while tablet was open. After closing the case wifi disappeared again driving me nuts.
    What changes when the case is closed?
    If Australia is a democracy why, then, is voting compulsory?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Guiseppe View Post
    What changes when the case is closed?
    The only I can suspect is that pressure changes to either motherboard or antenna which could cause possible microcrack to open wider.

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    Quote Originally Posted by fromaron View Post
    The only I can suspect is that pressure changes to either motherboard or antenna which could cause possible microcrack to open wider.
    Actually, if the antenna circuit goes open circuit, that often doesn't cause the wifi module to shut down ~ they tend to stay active and display no signal (if the antenna circuit goes shorted, that can cause a current drain that'll cause the PMIC to shutdown wifi power supply). In fact, the widget in settings->network that you use to turn wifi off/on. sends a (typically I2C) command to the PMIC to turn the wifi module phase on or off, and it's either PMIC or the wifi chip tossing back a flag to cause that widget to slide back to the off position. This is where you start debugging this sort of issue at board level - check the wifi phase of PMIC (usually 3v3) is working as it should ; if PMIC is shutting down that phase, decouple it from the feed to wifi module, and inject required voltage and limit/monitor current draw to determine if the wifi module is behaving itself...and don't just think of cracks in the usual sense of the word - disconnected balls under the SoC is where I ended up a lot of the time (and being flipchip SoC devices, you can't easily/successfully reflow them).

    I still wouldn't recommend using Android 6 'in this day and age', but that aside I might be able to help you out here ~ the wifi antenna connects to PCBA using a surface mount UFL socket. You can use pretty much any wifi antenna assembly from 2.4ghz wifi setup, to at least determine whether it is just the (custom) wifi antenna they use in them -- if you measure the O.D. of the UFL socket, I may actually have something to fit, sitting in a box here...easily sent in a standard envelope, won't cost you anything (got hundreds of the things from recycling tablets and the like), but not sure of the size you need -- it would help eliminate any 'speculative' buy on a replacement antenna.

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    @wotnot. Great suggestions, thanks a lot for your comments.
    Once I have a bit of spare time I will open up the tablet and have a look following your advice.

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    on Windows 10, I've had similar issues. Sometimes, the buttons are grayed out just refuses to remain on the on position. Usually Windows will deploy another update with a fix, or so I assume as the problem usually does away within a few days.

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