1505 802.11n wireless mini-card using 802.11g and not 802.11n

Question

Hi,

I have an Inspiron 1525 that has the 1505 wireless 802.11n wireless minicard. I have no problem connecting to my wireless network but my router shows the connection as 802.11g instead of .11n. My router is the Dlink DIR-625 which is a 802.11n router, and the wireless network is shown to support .11n in the dell wireless WLAN Card Utility. The driver version on the 1505 NIC is 4.102.15.61 - Dec 19, 2006.

I'm wondering if there is a setting or something to get it to use the .11n standard instead of .11g? In the Configuration options for the NIC there are options for .11b-g but doesn't mention .11n anywhere.

Any advice on getting it to use .11n?

Thanks,

Scott

tester25 · Accepted Answer

The funny thing is, while in 802.11n only mode, my connection on the routers wireless status page still showed .11n.

Did you mean to say "my connection on the routers wireless status page still showed .11g." ?

I just found something interesting: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935279

Also, make sure you have the latest firmware for your DIR-625. Take a look at the webpage below and select the correct revision of your DIR-625. I'm not sure if you have the REVC or non REVC version of the DIR-625. The REVC version has a firmware that came out in March 2009. The latest non REVC firmware mentions something about a fix for enhanced compatibility with Broadcom clients. The Dell 1505 Wireless adapter is actually a Broadcom adapter. It is possible that there is a defect with your router saying that the connection is 802.11g when it is actually 802.11n. Perhaps D-Link has fixed the potential issue with a new version of firmware. It's worth a try.

http://www.dlink.com/products/default.aspx?pid=DIR-625&tab=3

scottcampbell00 · Accepted Answer

Hey,

Yes - I did mean it was still showing .11g.

BUT... we have a winner... I updated the firmware to the latest revision - the Rev-C version. At first, it still showed 802.11g so I changed the mode to .11n only. When I tried to save the config change, it gave be a dialog saying that the Cipher type TKIP was invalid - the setting was actually set on TKIP and AES. So I changed to to just AES and saved the config and then when the wireless reconnected it was showing as 802.11n. After changing the mode back to allow b,g and n, it again reconnected as 802.11n - and my PS3 connected with 802.11g.

So, problem solved. I'm curious that if the problem all along was the Cipher type and just automatically downgraded to .11g and the only thing the upgraded firmware did (for my problem at least) was to show that dialog to warn me about the configuration problem.

Thanks a lot for all of you help. I really appreciate it.

Scott

tester25 · Answer

In the Wireless Settings page on your DLink router web configuration page, what is the "802.11 mode" setting set to? It has the following options:

802.11g Only - Select if all of your wireless clients are 802.11g.
Mixed 802.11g and 802.11b - Select if you are using both 802.11b and 802.11g wireless clients.
802.11b Only - Select if all of your wireless clients are 802.11b.
802.11n Only - Select only if all of your wireless clients are 802.11n.
Mixed 802.11n, 802.11b, and 802.11g - Select if you are using a mix of 802.11n, 11g, and 11b wireless clients.

scottcampbell00 · Answer

Hey, Thanks for replying. It is set to Mixed 802.11n, 802.11g, and 802.11b Scott.

tester25 · Answer

Excellent. The title of this thread says 1505 but there's no such thing as an Inspiron 1505. On the Vista driver download page for the Inspiron 1525, all the drivers listed for Wireless cards are from the year 2008. If you've got Vista on your system, I would choose the appropriate driver for your wireless card from that webpage and install it.

Here's the page:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?os=WLH&catid=5&dateid=-1&impid=-1&osl=EN&typeid=-1&formatid=-1&servicetag=&SystemID=INS_PNT_PM_1525&hidos=WLH&hidlang=en&TabIndex=

After installing the newer drivers, reboot your system and hopefully you'll get an 802.11n link.

scottcampbell00 · Answer

Hey,

Thanks for responding again.

The 1505 for the title in the thread is for the wireless mini card. I do in fact have an Inspiron 1525. I've looked at the link you provided and downloaded and installed the update for the 1505 wireless mini card. After rebooting, nothing changed. I followed the installation instructions on the page with the download, except the last step where it says to go to start, run and execute the path to the folder that was created - that just opened up an explorer window to the folder, so I executed the setup.exe myself and went through the wizard and then rebooted. The driver I downloaded is for the 1505 wireless mini card, release date 3/31/2008, version 4.102.15.61,A15-2

The driver version of the card properties still says it's version 4.102.15.61 Release Date: 19/12/2006 after the install.

The final piece I can give you is that in the Advanced properties of the card, I saw that the IBSS Mode was set for a/b/g auto so I changed it to a/b/g/n auto and rebooted but my router still shows me connecting with 802.11g

Any other advice you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Scott.

tester25 · Answer

The driver version of the card properties still says it's version 4.102.15.61 Release Date: 19/12/2006 after the install.

Yeah, you're right. You had the latest drivers installed already. Sorry for the churn.

The final piece I can give you is that in the Advanced properties of the card, I saw that the IBSS Mode was set for a/b/g auto so I changed it to a/b/g/n auto and rebooted but my router still shows me connecting with 802.11g

IBSS Mode only applies to the speed at which to connect to an ad-hoc network. I doubt you're using an ad-hoc network. But that setting change will not hurt anything...

Let's try the following changes to advanced properties:

Afterburner - Set to enabled
BSS Mode - Should be set to 802.11n Mode

I'm doubtful that those two setting changes will make a difference. But let's try anyways...

After that, if those setting changes didn't solve the problem. Disconnect from the wireless network. Move your laptop as close as possible to your wireless router and setup the connection again. See if it is changed to 802.11n.

Then, if that doesn't fix it. Change the channel number that your network uses. First try channel 1, see if that makes a difference, then try 11 if 1 didn't fix it. And finally the last one to try would be 6. (See page 25 of your router manual)

Then if that doesn't fix it. Set your router's 802.11 mode to "802.11n Only" and see if your laptop can make a connection. After you change the settings to your router, make sure that you apply the settings and reboot it. The wireless radio in your router needs to be reset and rebooting it will reset the radio.

Here's the link to your router's manual:

ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/dir625/Maunal/dir625_manual_101.zip

scottcampbell00 · Answer

Hey,

Thanks for responding again.

So... the short story is no changes made any difference.

The long story is that I made the changes to the wireless NIC and rebooted after each change but made no difference. Same thing with the router, I changed channels from 1, 11 then to 6, rebooting the router after each change. Then changed the mode on the router to 802.11n only and rebooted. The funny thing is, while in 802.11n only mode, my connection on the routers wireless status page still showed .11n. And the dell wireless utility still showed my network as b/g/n. But while in .11n only mode, my PS3 couldn't connect (it is only .11g compatible). When I switched back to b/g/n mode, the PS3 was able to connect again. So I'm thinking that there isn't anything wrong with the wireless nic on my laptop at all.

Do you know of a tool that I can run on my laptop that will tell me the mode the the connection is using? the only thing I'm going by right now is the wireless status on the router which always reads .11g. With the dell wireless utility, the only thing to give me a clue would be the channel width field but it shows 20Mhz even in n only mode. And the router doesn't have a setting to set the channel width to 40Mhz only

Scott

tester25 · Answer

Great.  I'm glad you finally got a solution.  Can you mark this thread as solved?

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1505 802.11n wireless mini-card using 802.11g and not 802.11n

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