Option Globetrotter GTM380 internal card, not picking up any

Hello.

I have the above 3g card built into my computer. I cant seem to pick up a signal from O2, despite my phone getting 3/4 bars in the same locations, it randomly gets a weak signal from another network but even that isnt stable.

Is the card just rubbish or is there a software issue? The card itself is unlocked, I'm using a Packard Bell connection manager (it aint a PB comp) as the O2 one doesnt even notice the card is a 3g modem.

I!'m stumped, unless the cards just guff... any ideas?

Can't speak for the piece of kit that you have, and I'm not sure whether this is useful or not - but in the absence of any other ideas

What you could do is look up the base station location (unless you already know it) at Sitefinder.org.uk and then get in your car and take the thing along to the cell and see what the signal strength is then. That might help to narrow it down. On the other hand if it's a desktop that might be bulky to do.

And if it is a desktop, I'm not sure why you'd use an internal 3G card - case in point: here we get 5 to 6Mbps down with the modem outside the window, maybe a bit more, most of the time, with 50% signal strength.

If I put the modem down near the back of the computer - which is only about five feet away from where it is now - it would struggle to achieve half a meg and the signal strength would drop markedly. So given it's very position sensitive, a modem and USB lead (or router in the middle) is the way to go.

Yeah the card is in a tablet computer, same issues in a few locations.

Thats a good site that one, turns out theres an 02 radio transmitter just 500 meters away, its actually the closest to me just now, the other networks I seem to be picking up are further away but offer a better 'line of sight'.

Guess thats my issue then.

The card itself looks legit from what I've seen around the web, used by a few companies.

Is your phone also on O2?

At a location where your tablet PC struggles, if you look at your phone handset, do you see a G, E, 3G or an H in the little title bar at the top of your phone indicating the type of connection?

Where we are we're near to one O2 cell which I think is "G" only (GPRS) and further from one which is HSPA ("H") - generally an O2 device here will latch to the "G" one (very slow, something like 384kbps at best)

Which makes me wonder if your data card will only do 3G and not GPRS, which is why despite the presence of an apparent signal you have no data.

At 500m even with stuff in the way (unless it's a power station or something like that) I'd have thought you'd see very good signal strength. We're 2.7km away with near line of sight to the Three HSPA cell and get about 50% strength.

says 3g, in gprs mode its maxed at 5 bars. the tablet card itself should be able to pick up the gprs at least, which is why im now wondering if theres a software issue.

the connection manager has an edge/gprs only option but it doest find a single network, the options site says their data card should be up to the task.

just to make things worse.. the next transmitter from here in the other direction is another o2 only one!

cant be a hardware issue, itd be all over the net with the number of netbooks/tablets using it.

At this stage I might be tempted to try:

- Download and update the firmware for the data card if available
- Speak to O2 about the Connection Manager issue - they may have heard of this before with that device

You'll probably need to be a bit persistent with the latter, giving examples of where your phone works but the tablet doesn't, to avoid being fobbed off with "it's the receiption".

I seem to be running firmware version 2.12.0hd, from may 27th 2008(!)

I'll email Option for an update as google isnt helping, theres a real art to google searching and I havent got the skills.. thanks.

In reply to a post by spacecat:

I seem to be running firmware version 2.12.0hd, from may 27th 2008(!)

I'll email Option for an update as google isnt helping, theres a real art to google searching and I havent got the skills.. thanks.

Did a bit of searching for you

http://www.option.com/en/support/software-download/e...

** Check yours is the "E" one first! **

Also see

http://www.3g.co.uk/3GForum/showthread.php?t=41893

This doesn't seem to be a widespread problem, but perhaps there might be a nugget of info on that page.

cheers man

that second link is interesting, ill get into it in the morning.