I recently bought a new wireless router, a NetGear WNR3500.    This router supports the  WPA2-PSK [AES] encryption option,

which I have selected as the "strongest" security option.    My other non-Dell laptop (running Vista) works fine with  WPA2-PSK [AES].     

My daughter's Dell Inspiron E1505 contains a Dell 1390 wireless minicard, and it runs Windows XP sp3.    Recently when

she visited us, I tried to get her laptop to connect to my wireless router, but could not, as the Dell wireless admin tool

(or the driver) did not support the needed WPA2-PSK [AES] encryption option (at least I could find no way to select that).

I went to the Dell suport site to look for a later driver for the E1505, but the latest Dell-provided driver was supplied by

file R174291.exe, which corresponds to driver version 4.170.25.12.       I installed this driver, and tried again, but no joy.

 

In searching the Dell support forum, and the Web, I found a reference to file R242906.exe, which corresponds to driver version

5.60.18.9 (whew! driver time-warp).     I installed this version, despite misgivings that the E1505 was not listed as a model

that needed/supported this update.     The driver installed OK, provided the new choice of the WPA2-PSK [AES] encryption option,

and we were able to set the encryption key and sucessfully get logged in and using the wireless network......

until 5-20 minutes of use later, a BSOD pointing to "bcmwl5.sys", the name of the Broadcom device driver.   Repeatedly.

 

My question:  is the latest Dell-supported driver (the official one, embedded in R174291.exe) supposed to support

WPA2-PSK [AES] encryption option correctly?     Is this a known problem?    Am I missing any other piece of this puzzle?

 

Thanks for any assistance,

Terry