Dell Mini 10v drops wi-fi connection from Belkin F6D4230-4 v1 router.

barrydrake,

Have had an issue with a Belkin wireless N not being able to determine the difference between WPA-PSK(TKIP) Security (Personal) and WPA-AES. It seems that Belkins have an issue with this.

Did you try the Belkin with WEP, yes I know WEP can be hacked, or with no security?

Rick

I get the same result even when the Belkin hub is set to 'unsecured'.  Makes no difference what protocol is used, what channel or what wireless settings, so I'm certain the problem is in the Broadcom chipset and/or driver.

barrydrake,

Did you try the latest drivers from Drivers & Downloads or Broadcom Drivers?

Are you sure that the wireless card is a Broadcom adapter? What shows up in the device manager?

Rick 

Don't have a 'device manager' - I did say I'm on Ubuntu.  LSPCI shows the above adaptor, which is Broadcom BCM 4132.  I've tried Broadcom's own STA driver, the Ubuntu B43 driver (that uses fwcutter), and yesterday I downloaded the latest Windows XP driver from Dell downloads and used that with ndiswrapper.  As this is actually using the Windows driver as the core, I feel fairly sure that the same result would happen with Windows.  This is why I asked if anyone else has observed the problem.  It is specific to that particular Belkin hub in combination with the BCM 4132 chipset as far as I can see.  The wi-fi pci card works perfectly in all other circumstances.

barrydrake,

Sorry, sometimes I read too fast. I missed that.

You may want to try posting in the Dell Linux Forum.

Rick

Thanks.  Yes I tried that, but no interest so far.  There's never been a lot of activity on that forum.  Thing is, unless someone comes along who actually has the same Broadcom chipset AND knows the hub they are trying to connect to is OK, they are just going to think the hub at the place they are at is a dodgy one.  This happened to me at a conference centre a few months ago, and I thought the problem was a bad hub.  It was only while at OpenSource Expo last week that I had chance to find out.  When I got back, I went out and bought the same Belkin hub and found out that it is a real problem and repeatable.  It works just fine with my wife's Laptop, so I know the hub is OK. 

I'm sure this situation will keep cropping up, because while I was standing the exhibition a guy came up who had a netbook (not a Dell), but it had the same Broadcom chipset; he found the same problem!  Just something to flag up.  I did report it to Belkin (they said it isn't their problem) and to Broadcom (report it to your computer supplier) ..... kind of circular tour!  As for me, I shall carry a wi-fi dongle when I go to conferences just in case the only connection is a dodgy one!  I always carry an ethernet cable, but not everyone lets me use it.  Thanks for your interest anyway.  Does anyone from Dell monitor these forums?  If so, please just note this one down.  I don't expect action that will directly benefit me, and its not normally much of a problem.

barrydrake,

My suspicions are the Belkin not being able to determine th difference between WPA-PSK(TKIP) Security (Personal) and WPA-AES.

Had another member trying to attach a Dell 3300 Wireless Print adapter. The Belkin would not work with these Recommended Wireless Router Settings but a Linksys, using the same settings worked. Latest firmware in the Belkin? I've only had a Netgera and a Linksys routers. Both seem to work well, one has features that other doesn't but basically the same.

Rick

Problem solved for me by getting a wireless dongle.  This proves that the problem is the Broadcom BCM 4132 chipset.  The dongle connects to the Belkin router with no problem.  I think this ought to be flagged up within the Dell organisation as a definite problem.  Regards,  Barry.

Just thought I would enter my "suggested answer" to this post.  I just purchased the same series laptop and I had very similar issues with a Netgear WNDR3700 Wireless N Router.  All other laptops/desktops work fine on this wireless connection and the router does have the latest firmware.  After trying for days and researching the issue (WEP and no security did not solve it) I found out the the Wireless Multimedia (WMM) setting in the router needed to be enabled to produce a valid internet connection to this wireless adapter.  I could connect to the router with no issues using any security type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc...) and I could ping any site from the command prompt.  All internet browsers were not be able to display any web page.  After enabling WMM in the router I was able to browse websites.  Turing off and disabling WMM in the router reproduced the above described issue.

Just thought I would enter my "suggested answer" to this post.  I just purchased the same series laptop and I had very similar issues with a Netgear WNDR3700 Wireless N Router.  All other laptops/desktops work fine on this wireless connection and the router does have the latest firmware.  After trying for days and researching the issue (WEP and no security did not solve it) I found out the the Wireless Multimedia (WMM) setting in the router needed to be enabled to produce a valid internet connection to this wireless adapter.  I could connect to the router with no issues using any security type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc...) and I could ping any site from the command prompt.  All internet browsers were not be able to display any web page.  After enabling WMM in the router I was able to browse websites.  Turing off and disabling WMM in the router reproduced the above described issue.