There has been a lot of talk more recently that the HTC Desire S actually suffers from the major problem that the iPhone 4 had which was the Death Grip where your signal would completely drop out when you held your phone normally. I can confirm that this is partially correct – there is a lot of speculation as to what the actual problem is. I seem to see it more when you are connected to a wi-fi point where the signal will drop around 20 dbm when you move your hand across the phone. There are reports that this is also the same for the likes of your 3G & H band signals but it seems that the user case is different each time.

 

The major problem is that no one problem is the same. Some people are experiencing problems with wi-fi signals some with their GSM radio signal – the best thing to do is to monitor your findings over a long period of time, a couple of weeks to be exact so that you can see a patern and then decide on the best course of action. You will also probably be looking to install a wi-fi signal monitor that will accurately tell you the signal strength so that you can measure it at different times and with the phone in different positions. Once you find a pattern (if there is one) next you will need to do a little bit of research see if anyone running the same software as you with the same radio and model has the same problem. A lot of people seem to think it is a software problem which will lie in the radio updates, where as other think it is actually a design flaw in the phone. Especially since the main antenna is in your battery cover (little gold contacts – check them out).

 

To solve the issue is really up to yourself, there are some serious problems in identifying where the actual problem lies and you will need to do some serious research in to try and find out a solution for your problem. My gut instinct is telling me to solve the issue you will need to fully update all the software the phone is running, OS and radio. This at least  gets rid of one of the variables and leaves you with the hardware issue itself.

 

This fault has been reported on both stock and modified ROMS so be careful what you choose to flash and for the love of god make sure you flash the correct rom/radio for your specific phone. I will not be held accountable for silly mistakes you make like that – you have been warned!!