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Inspiron 1720 Wireless Connectivity & Speed Issues
Hello,
I have been receiving extremely poor wireless connectivity and speeds on my Inspiron 1720 purchased in Sept 2007. I recently switched my ISP, and thought the Router was the problem. However, after taking my laptop to another location and experiencing the same issues, I have realized it is more likely internal to this PC.
Exactly what happens:
-Wireless network is not established until 5 minutes after computer is in Windows
-Speeds will at some point immediately drop to what I had once tested to be 0.318meg download speeds
-Speeds will sometimes climb back to the normal speed of 20meg download
-The wireless will often drop out after I have been using it regularly
-Sometimes the wireless will reestablish, other times I have to shut down
-When the wireless drops, when I try to reconnect I get various error messages, usually saying either:
The wireless network point has low signal / The wireless access point is not responding
or
The capability of your network adapter does not match the requirements of this network
-Oddly enough, on two occasions when I knock very hard on the inside of my laptop, the wireless has reestablished. Probably a coincidence though.
I have the latest wireless drivers.
Please let me know what I can do to further troubleshoot this, or fix this issue outright, as it is EXTREMELY irritating.
Also, I am running Vista 32-bit.
Thank you for any assistance!!
Enceladus
297 Posts
0
March 1st, 2011 09:00
Make sure your router has the latest firmware. And check the channel setting. If yours is set to channel 1 then try 6. See is there any improvement. If not then try 11.
Are you using WPA2, WPA or WEP? If you get nowhere with the channel then try using WPA instead of WPA2 and see does it improve, that would mean a driver issue or it could still mean the router firmware.
CC222
6 Posts
0
March 1st, 2011 11:00
Go to your ISP support site and see if they have support software available. For instance AT&T has wireless connectivity tools you can download that will
check your firmware, check the settings of your laptop, and will diagnose your problem-- other ISPs also have those tools. AND go to the ISP's forums for
information about tweaking your settings.
If you're experiencing the same problems connecting to any network then it may be your wireless card is defective or not seated properly-- they're not expensive comparatively. But I would try rolling back to older drivers etc. and if you don't have Dell Support Center installed then download the newest version. Then run
PC checkup on your hardware--let it check for errors on all your hardware. Also right-click on "Computer" in the start menu-- go to "Manage" and open the Event Viewer. Sometimes there are problems with DNS -- etc etc.
There are also a lot of freeware tools for checking your settings and connectivity problems-- even download.com has freeware for that purpose.
podonnell319
3 Posts
0
March 1st, 2011 12:00
Thanks for the heads up. I suppose I could try an OLDER Dell driver, but I'm worried it could possibly be a hardware issue.
I am 100% positive it is not my ISP or Router, as I have tried in multiple locations with the same results.
Where can I get older Dell Drivers? Is there anyway to reseat my wireless card if this is a laptop? I figure it would be integrated.
Might just buy another wireless adapter if I have to. Sounding more like a hardware problem.
Thanks.
podonnell319
3 Posts
0
March 2nd, 2011 05:00
So I checked out the event logs immediately after getting kicked from the wireless network and I found some errors regarding a .dll file that could not be found. I'm not at home currently so I don't have the exact file, but I ended up searching the web about it and found a ton of complaints about it. Most of them had a common denominator -- my same WLAN card, a similar DELL machine, or Vista with SP1.
Looks like after SP1 something is looking for a particular .dll it shouldn't. By altering the registry to disable that, most people were able to fix their problem. I did the same, and haven't been kicked yet. Granted I wasn't on it for long at all, so I'm not certain by any means that it is solved. Hopefully it is.
Anyway, if anyone is searching and finds this thread -- check out your event log. Then google the errors. Hopefully it will fix it.