Hi Bob i find this in the liliputing site! MK808 mini PCs. In a nutshell, it involves opening up the case, removing the antenna, and attaching a 12 cm piece of wire to act as an external antenna, the process involves use of a soldering iron - and if you don’t know what you’re doing you could damage your device. But part of the appeal of these Android TV sticks is that they’re so cheap you might not mind if you break one in the name of science.
Big thanks. I was having problems with a WiFi extender with dropping the connection after an antenna mod and I checked the ground problem and it fixed it. Now it has a consistent strong conecction.
iasitu: you are a star. My MK808 was a nightmare and was sitting around because it was not usable at all. Hardly able to get wifi for 5 mins. Your trick worked brilliantly and watched a complete film through XBMC and connection did not dropped even for a second. so I can confirm that this trick worked like a charm. I think hawkeye1103 is right.. I think Antenna pads are the one which causing the problem. It would be great if hawkeye1103 can make a video of his custom pads. Thanks again!!!!
The antenna pads are the ones that are shorted out, and not the cable. I made some pads that are the same as the original with thin copper foil and double sided tape. The good thing is that they are not shorted out.
Solo que hay que modificar la conexión de las antenas como indica el Sr. iasitu, estas antenas están autocortocircuitadas, solo hay que desoldar la malla del cable en el punto donde esta soldada a la tablilla (no hacerlo del lado de la antena) en mi caso solo tiene cable en una antena, en la otra no tiene cable, esta conecta por un par de pines que hacen contacto al ensamble del equipo, resolví con tiras pequeñas de cinta de aislar pegadas en la antena donde hace contacto el pin GND. Saludos
I opened up my MK808 and upon investigation, found that, its not the solder pads thats shorted, but the antenna itself. You can test this by using a continuity tester on the antenna on the spring loaded connector side. if you test the pads on the antenna, where the spring loaded connectors connect, you see that its shorted. I think if we identify the short, and find the design of the antenna itself, we can cut the antenna patch, and remove the short. I am going to try this and will update soon
Not all antennas are a DC short and that one certainly isn't ... In the video you can clear see the break in the copper foil between the large ground plane and the driven element which looks to be about a 1.4 wavelength. Like the gentleman who made the video noted by cutting the braid it no longer acts as a 50 ohm transmission line but as part of the antenna. It also looks to be close to a 1/4 wavelength @ 2.2GHz which is probably why it still works well (Anything is better than a short)
awsome, thx alot for the hint. was trying to figure why i have such a poor signal while wifi router is about 4m right around the corner. this might fix it. thx alot man !
I have a similar issue with a tablet I bought recently. Unfortunately the electronics are a bit smaller there so it's not quite as easy to fix, can't really tell which solder to cut. Guess I'll have to wait for my electronics expert brother to visit, unless there is some way to measure it?
I got my mk808 got three here in all and the wifi does vary a lot on them all one of them shows 2 bars but it doesn't load the webpages very well and another loads them very fast and works a treat. What I am unsure of since instaling the finless 1.5a I no longer see a way to install pkg files.
I just took mine apart because I only get 1 bar when the router is in the same room. The front showed the connection as OPEN, thus good, but the back one was a closed circuit. For good measure I disconnected the grounds one at a time... and now they are both disconnected, I still only get 1 bar. So perhaps my short is in the board itself. I didn't think to check the circuit when I had the wire disconnected.
Hi Bob do you I am probably asking for too much but you talk about fixing it the proper way by putting new antennas do you think you can make a video about I've see some pictures of some MK808 with some trick out antenas on it so if you have time maybe you can show us how to do it. Thanks.
Hi Bob, thanks for the great tutorial. I have one small issue. Though my unit is an MK808, the insides look just like an MK808 B, minus the Bluetooth. The wires inside mine are not as clearly differentiated as they are on yours, making it pretty much impossible for me to tell which one is the antenna and which one is the ground. Can you provide some help with this issue? Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!
I'm looking to embed one of these in a Droid Bionic lapdock and heard they had WiFi problems but if this is all it is it's not going to matter with what I'm doing. In fact mounting a couple of foil antennas behind the bezel of the LCD and running some white Mil-grade teflon coax I have through the opposite hinge as the LCD wiring looks like it's real doable .... Just like a real laptop .... Then again a SMA jack and a 'Cantenna' and I have a long distance multimedia monster
for my case, my unit is shorted on the board it self... i remove the antenna cable completely & test for connectivity - It is shorted. (few member in freaktab also confirm this on their device) in the case the board is shorted, i dont think unsolder the gnd will now improve signal. can u test yours and let us know??
Hey everyone. My wifi speed is 208kB/s down and 106kB/s up. uplink is fine but downlink should be something like 2048kB/s. I've orgiginal mk808b from geekbuying. Which is the antenna for the downlink? one antenna is connected via 2 pins (not shorted) the other one is connected via a wire (2in1) which is shorted so i guess this antenna is for downlink. Is there any problem just using 2 wires for the antenna?
Did you use two actual power supplies or did you merely use one power supply and plug the other USB cable into a USB port on your TV or your computer? Cause that's what I did and it didn't do anything for me. Thanks.
do you have a link? I have the Imito MX1 thatI have removed the case to get a better wifi signal but the antenna is coming of the solder pad at the unit. The link would be a great help to me and other to solve the wifi issues that some of these devices have, thanks in advance.
hi bob, got my mk808 last december and i want to upgrade to your custom rom 1.6, can you help me? afraid to brick it. just notice also than wifi antenna is so weak sometimes signal drop sinificantly. thank you :)
hey guys after long trying i found a fix ! this anthenna problem is kinda bullcrap, i tried all Here are the 2 fixes i found : 1.just set your router to transmit at 11bg mixed signal mode amnd vualla ! from barley 1 mgbs running fully on my 10 ! good luck guys 2.disonnect any usb e.g mouse or keyboard . download the remote app and control it trough your phone. that gave my 3-4 mgps more o.O so i went from 0-1 mgbps to fully strong 10mbgs wich is my max ! good luck guys !
Great vídeo!! I need to solder an antenna cable to the embedded antenna on a baby monitor camera board to increase the range, should I solder the center core to one end and the shielding to a different end of the embedded antenna ? Tks. Here is the link to the board: ua-cam.com/video/zGsMKEwCqkU/v-deo.html
Awesome. Did this tonight on my mk809iii and worked brilliantly. Legend. Thanks
Hi Bob
i find this in the liliputing site! MK808 mini PCs. In a nutshell, it involves opening up the case, removing the antenna, and attaching a 12 cm piece of wire to act as an external antenna, the process involves use of a soldering iron - and if you don’t know what you’re doing you could damage your device. But part of the appeal of these Android TV sticks is that they’re so cheap you might not mind if you break one in the name of science.
Big thanks. I was having problems with a WiFi extender with dropping the connection after an antenna mod and I checked the ground problem and it fixed it. Now it has a consistent strong conecction.
iasitu: you are a star. My MK808 was a nightmare and was sitting around because it was not usable at all. Hardly able to get wifi for 5 mins. Your trick worked brilliantly and watched a complete film through XBMC and connection did not dropped even for a second. so I can confirm that this trick worked like a charm.
I think hawkeye1103 is right.. I think Antenna pads are the one which causing the problem. It would be great if hawkeye1103 can make a video of his custom pads.
Thanks again!!!!
The antenna pads are the ones that are shorted out, and not the cable. I made some pads that are the same as the original with thin copper foil and double sided tape. The good thing is that they are not shorted out.
Solo que hay que modificar la conexión de las antenas como indica el Sr. iasitu, estas antenas están autocortocircuitadas, solo hay que desoldar la malla del cable en el punto donde esta soldada a la tablilla (no hacerlo del lado de la antena) en mi caso solo tiene cable en una antena, en la otra no tiene cable, esta conecta por un par de pines que hacen contacto al ensamble del equipo, resolví con tiras pequeñas de cinta de aislar pegadas en la antena donde hace contacto el pin GND.
Saludos
Applied the same logic to an Lenovo Ideastick 300 and it worked.
I opened up my MK808 and upon investigation, found that, its not the solder pads thats shorted, but the antenna itself. You can test this by using a continuity tester on the antenna on the spring loaded connector side. if you test the pads on the antenna, where the spring loaded connectors connect, you see that its shorted. I think if we identify the short, and find the design of the antenna itself, we can cut the antenna patch, and remove the short. I am going to try this and will update soon
just opening the case has worked for me.. substantial difference...
Yes, but the ground cable is not connected anymore.
The antenna is working also without connecting its ground to the PCB ground.
Not all antennas are a DC short and that one certainly isn't ... In the video you can clear see the break in the copper foil between the large ground plane and the driven element which looks to be about a 1.4 wavelength. Like the gentleman who made the video noted by cutting the braid it no longer acts as a 50 ohm transmission line but as part of the antenna. It also looks to be close to a 1/4 wavelength @ 2.2GHz which is probably why it still works well (Anything is better than a short)
awsome, thx alot for the hint. was trying to figure why i have such a poor signal while wifi router is about 4m right around the corner. this might fix it. thx alot man !
thank you so much,this worked in a 100% for my mk808 ...GREETINGS FROM CHILE ¡¡
I have a similar issue with a tablet I bought recently. Unfortunately the electronics are a bit smaller there so it's not quite as easy to fix, can't really tell which solder to cut. Guess I'll have to wait for my electronics expert brother to visit, unless there is some way to measure it?
I got my mk808 got three here in all and the wifi does vary a lot on them all one of them shows 2 bars but it doesn't load the webpages very well and another loads them very fast and works a treat. What I am unsure of since instaling the finless 1.5a I no longer see a way to install pkg files.
I just took mine apart because I only get 1 bar when the router is in the same room. The front showed the connection as OPEN, thus good, but the back one was a closed circuit. For good measure I disconnected the grounds one at a time... and now they are both disconnected, I still only get 1 bar. So perhaps my short is in the board itself. I didn't think to check the circuit when I had the wire disconnected.
Hi Bob do you I am probably asking for too much but you talk about fixing it the proper way by putting new antennas do you think you can make a video about I've see some pictures of some MK808 with some trick out antenas on it so if you have time maybe you can show us how to do it. Thanks.
Hi Bob, thanks for the great tutorial. I have one small issue. Though my unit is an MK808, the insides look just like an MK808 B, minus the Bluetooth. The wires inside mine are not as clearly differentiated as they are on yours, making it pretty much impossible for me to tell which one is the antenna and which one is the ground. Can you provide some help with this issue? Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!
I'm looking to embed one of these in a Droid Bionic lapdock and heard they had WiFi problems but if this is all it is it's not going to matter with what I'm doing. In fact mounting a couple of foil antennas behind the bezel of the LCD and running some white Mil-grade teflon coax I have through the opposite hinge as the LCD wiring looks like it's real doable .... Just like a real laptop .... Then again a SMA jack and a 'Cantenna' and I have a long distance multimedia monster
I have an mk808 also and i noticed the same problem. But the problem is not the cable but the antenna pad.
Easy way to fix WiFi drop is that select your WiFi channel between 8-11 2.4GHz. The channels between 1-7 are horrible with MK808.
It worked 4 me :).Thank you.
The ground is still there. Ground comes from the usb power cable.
Maybe you can make a video about this?
You can do "pigtail mod" like me. It's quite easy on MK808B. My signal raised from -85dBm or -90 dBm to -65dBm or -70dBm
for my case, my unit is shorted on the board it self...
i remove the antenna cable completely & test for connectivity - It is shorted.
(few member in freaktab also confirm this on their device)
in the case the board is shorted, i dont think unsolder the gnd will now improve signal.
can u test yours and let us know??
Is that you, Joshua Topolsky?! ...
Hey everyone. My wifi speed is 208kB/s down and 106kB/s up. uplink is fine but downlink should be something like 2048kB/s. I've orgiginal mk808b from geekbuying. Which is the antenna for the downlink? one antenna is connected via 2 pins (not shorted) the other one is connected via a wire (2in1) which is shorted so i guess this antenna is for downlink. Is there any problem just using 2 wires for the antenna?
Did you use two actual power supplies or did you merely use one power supply and plug the other USB cable into a USB port on your TV or your computer? Cause that's what I did and it didn't do anything for me. Thanks.
So does the mk808 have heat issues at normal operation or just over clocking? is the ug802 any better as far as heat? thanks
I have a router where they soldered the shield right to the antenna. So the short was not at the base but right on the copper plate itself. wtf
do you have a link? I have the Imito MX1 thatI have removed the case to get a better wifi signal but the antenna is coming of the solder pad at the unit. The link would be a great help to me and other to solve the wifi issues that some of these devices have, thanks in advance.
won't the device brake down if there is no ground?
whats a good update that doesn't overclock or max out the cpu?
hi. is there a quick fix for the mk808b model as well? thanks!
What problem do you have at the antena pad? Did you fixed it?
Anyone with a MK808 know if it can stream 1080p movies without problems over WiFi ?
Anyone knows if you can solve the Wifi problem on the MK808B by using a USB Wi-Fi Adapter ?
did u figure out if u could?
hi bob, got my mk808 last december and i want to upgrade to your custom rom 1.6, can you help me? afraid to brick it. just notice also than wifi antenna is so weak sometimes signal drop sinificantly. thank you :)
hey guys after long trying i found a fix !
this anthenna problem is kinda bullcrap, i tried all
Here are the 2 fixes i found :
1.just set your router to transmit at 11bg mixed signal mode amnd vualla !
from barley 1 mgbs running fully on my 10 ! good luck guys
2.disonnect any usb e.g mouse or keyboard . download the remote app and control it trough your phone. that gave my 3-4 mgps more o.O
so i went from 0-1 mgbps to fully strong 10mbgs wich is my max ! good luck guys !
Many times is just the typical chinese price war. They are trying to sell more by lowering the price and this is done by lowering the quality.
If PIFA antenna is used, 2 pads are actually shorted. In this case, you can't use multimeter to check continuity. Watch this video watch?v=7HCCi6oWfBs
i still dont get this quick fix... lol
i have the same problem !
:(
Great vídeo!! I need to solder an antenna cable to the embedded antenna on a baby monitor camera board to increase the range, should I solder the center core to one end and the shielding to a different end of the embedded antenna ? Tks. Here is the link to the board: ua-cam.com/video/zGsMKEwCqkU/v-deo.html
What I did to solve mine I stop buying garbage from China