Single Computer (Dell Inspiron 1545) on Wireless Network Suddenly Extremely Low Signal Strength

Hi Johnny,

Welcome to the Community!

Have you tried updating the Wireless Drivers? This action may help fix issue in the wireless inconsistencies. If Issue persist, we have to isolate any hardware failure. Run the PSA diagnostics by restarting the system and hitting F12 on dell logo. Using the arrow keys, select run diagnotics. You can send us the results of the diagnostics once done.

If you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.

Thanks and Regards,

DELL_Andrew F
Social Media and Community Professional

I already had the most updated driver for it. Still, I went ahead and downloaded the newest drivers from Dell just in case. It did not solve the problem. I ran the diagnostics as you asked, but there were no errors reported.

Have you done recent software updates with the system before it happens? Also, try turning off the system firewall or any security software and try connecting. Let me know if issue still encountered.

Thanks and Regards,

DELL_Andrew F

Social Media and Community Professional

For easy access to drivers, manuals and product updates, please visit our Support Site .

Hi Johnny,

Doing a follow up on your case. Hope all is well now. If you further questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us anytime and we're glad to be of help.

Thanks and Regards,

DELL_Andrew F

Social Media and Community Professional

For easy access to drivers, manuals and product updates, please visit our Support Site .

Disabling my firewall and Microsoft Security Essentials did not help either.

Two things I want to add.

Lately, instead of the signal staying at 1 or 2 bars, it will periodically stay at 4-5 bars, then randomly drop to 1-2 bars, sometimes killing the connection completely for a few seconds. I'm not sure why this is changing.

Also, when I ran the diagnostics, one of the things I found was a test for the touchpad. The test reset the touchpad, making it respond noticeably better than it has in years. So, thanks for the diagnostic suggestion!

Johnnymushio,

I would look atpage 38 in the Dell Inspiron 1545 Manual and see if the antenna wire(s) came loose.

Can you run Network Interface and post the results back here?

Rick

There is 1 interface on the system:

    Name                   : Wireless Network Connection
    Description            : Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card
    GUID                   : 72fe9d8f-4967-42fc-8302-f260a2da8617
    Physical address       : 00:26:5e:7c:88:87
    State                  : connected
    SSID                   : x
    BSSID                  : 00:11:50:98:d1:26
    Network type           : Infrastructure
    Radio type             : 802.11g
    Authentication         : WPA2-Personal
    Cipher                 : CCMP
    Connection mode        : Auto Connect
    Channel                : 11
    Receive rate (Mbps)    : 412316.9
    Transmit rate (Mbps)   : 412316.9
    Signal                 : 34%
    Profile                : x

    Hosted network status  : Not available

Johnnymushio,

Start, control panel, device manager, network adapters, double click on Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card, advanced. Look for Antenna Diversity. Change it from Auto to Aux.

If the problems still happens, try changing the wireless router to WPA-PSK(TKIP) Security(Personal) and see how the connection is. If you connect, then try WPA2. There may be a small issue with WPA-AES, so I would try that last.

I use these Recommended Wireless Router Settings I use channel 11.

Rick

So, I uninstalled the driver again, and restarted the computer. The computer automatically installed the wireless driver, but an older version. Last time I manually installed the newest version after uninstalling. I'm still getting 1-4 bars randomly, and sometimes 5, all in the same spot and location. I checked the WLAN utility again, and it still shows the speed at 11.0, not 54.0 like it should.

Also, I ran diagnostics again on the WLAN utility. Before, the hardware diagnostics all passed, now they all failed. Is this because the driver is no longer up to date? Also, as before, the connection diagnostics all passed up to "Internet IP Ping" which failed.

Thanks for the reply. Changing the antenna diversity did not solve the problem. Changing the routers security did not solve the problem either. My connection is currently at one bar. It was at 5 bars in the same location several minutes ago. Also, I notice when initially connecting to the router, the connection is one bar, and it takes several times to get it to connect. Once it connects, the bars shoot up to 4 or 3, and sometimes 5, but then periodically drops down to one or 2 bars, sometimes preventing web pages from loading.

I just checked the Dell Wireless WLAN card utility. It says the speed is now 2.0 Mbps. This usually says 54.0 Mbps. Actually, now it says 5.5 Mbps. Now it's back down to 2.0 as I am typing this and checking it. Now it's 11.0, and it shows 2 bars. Couple seconds later now its 18.0. Still 2 bars. Now its down to 1.0 Mbps. Few seconds later 5.5. Now 11.0 again. I'm waiting for this to go back up to 54.0, which is my routers max speed.

Anyway, I ran the interface again when it was back at one bar. Here are the results.

There is 1 interface on the system:

    Name                   : Wireless Network Connection
    Description            : Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card
    GUID                   : 72fe9d8f-4967-42fc-8302-f260a2da8617
    Physical address       : 00:26:5e:7c:88:87
    State                  : connected
    SSID                   : x
    BSSID                  : 00:11:50:98:d1:26
    Network type           : Infrastructure
    Radio type             : 802.11g
    Authentication         : WPA2-Personal
    Cipher                 : CCMP
    Connection mode        : Auto Connect
    Channel                : 11
    Receive rate (Mbps)    : 11
    Transmit rate (Mbps)   : 11
    Signal                 : 16%
    Profile                : x

    Hosted network status  : Not available

Johnnymushio,

Did you try, looking at page 38 in the Dell Inspiron 1545 Manual and see if the antenna wire(s) came loose.

Download the drivers and save them to your desktop.

Start, control panel, device manager, network adapters, right click on the 1397 adapter, left click uninstall. Tell it to remove the drivers and software.

Restart your computer. When you log in, the drivers will try to install but fail. Install the drivers you saved to your desktop.

Rick