BRAND NEW Inspiron 7000 WiFi is Horrendous!!

Rick,

As much as I resent having to be a beta tester for these companies, I don't give up easily. I come from an IT background and really enjoy any kind of problem solving.

I tried all of your useful suggestions in your previous posts. These included rolling back drivers to the base Microsoft one where you don't get the option to uninstall the drivers. Then from there installing older drivers in compatibility mode as well as trying all the other drivers (Dell and Intel) out there.

I never had the installation fail as there was always the default driver.

I also reset the machine rolling back to Windows 8 and again tried all of the above with same problems.

I have a12Mbps line. Symptoms again were 12 next to the Netgear router dropping to under 6 only 6 paces away.

From 1 to 3 using the Linksys router maybe 10 paces away. In both instances speed test using wifi on my phone at the same location showed a full 12.

samsat,

I make notes as I find information. In my Recommended Wireless Router Settings one setting was...

***SPECIAL NOTE***

Uncheck a box in the Advanced Setup for wireless.

(uncheck) Enable 20/40 MHz Coexistence

Netgear explains:

Disabling this option allows your 2.4GHz wireless to stay in supporting the max speed. Enabling this option [coexistence] may reduce the max speed of your 2.4GHz wireless to the half when there is another wireless network detected in your environment; this is to avoid inteference between wireless networks and to get along with other wireless networks in the environment.

Rick

Rick,

My Netgear does not have this setting. However as mentioned earlier, we have a number of laptops, desktops and handheld devices connecting perfectly without any need for router modifications. Only the 7000 had this problem.

GF, try and persevere with different drivers. You can call Dell and let them take control of your laptop to see if it's anything obvious.

Swapping out the wifi adapter wont help. Only you can make the decision of keep or return. I never had any dropout only very poor and fluctuating signal strength. If you will be using this laptop away from home where you cant get close to the router then this could be a problem.

I have returned mine and will be monitoring the various sites to see what Intel and the other interested parties come up before I decide what to get.

I just bought a Dell inspiron 15 and I cant stay connected to a wireless signal for more then 10 minutes at a time.  All my old laptops had no issues, my android has no issue, the other computers at my place have no issue.  This POS can't hold a connection. I have changed my settings over and over again trying to get it to get the right combination.  It is just one failure after another.  Thank you dell for using a garbage wireless card and a driver that isn't compatible with it. There is no reason after buying a new laptop you should need to go through so much work just to get a wifi connection.  Terrible.  Now i have to find my receipt so I can return this POS.

You should probably post in the right area if you want assistance. The Inspiron 15 and Inspiron 7000 are two different models entirely, and the 15, which is older, has known WiFi issues.  The 7000 line is brand new and doesn't.  Mine has been perfect. Post in an Inspiron 15 thread and I bet you'll get lots of help. Good luck.

so after repeated attempts to get help from dell tech support.... last saturday they've told me that they will replace the network card from "Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-N 7260" model to some other older model. They have not even told me which model they are going to replace to. 

it's terrible that a brand new system is faulty and all they can do is replace a part for it. I have already waited 45+ days after payment and i need the laptop urgently as all my works are lagging behind because of the absence of my personal laptop. Therefore i have agreed to their proposal.

So finally if this gets solved by replacing the network card to some older model, i will not be getting what dell has advertised and printed on the invoice of this laptop and what i have paid for but instead i'll have to adjust with whatever they give me.

looks like i have no other option!

All

If any of you are having wireless performance issues with your Inspiron 7000 and would like for me to look into it, please send me a private message.  If you prefer you can post here and ask me to send you a friend request.  In your message please include the service tag and troubleshooting steps that you have performed. I will be happy to take a look.

Rick

Thank you as always for the help, and for pointing this out to me.

GirlFridayNY

I thank you for making the original post and for helping out on the thread. I am sorry that I missed your post.

TB

Due to the lack of further response from anyone at Dell in getting this problem solved I decided to post on their FB site.

The post remained for an hour or two and then got deleted. So I posted again and it got deleted again.

Seriously Dell? You ship an inferior product in the first place, we give you valuable feedback, you make no further effort to resolve the problem and then dismiss our further efforts to reach out to you.

We have to put up with poor service from your field technicians, spending hours on the phone with support staff who are difficult to understand and who hangup on you and you are quite happy to leave the problem be without coming up with a solution that works.

I guess there's no further option now than to bring this to Michael Dell's attention.

I too have this or similar issue, for no reason even in the middle of downloading a file it comes up limited connectivity even though it still has an ip and defaut gateway.. 

Tried all of the driver revisions available including the base driver from MS to no avail, got power settings set to never sleep wifi etc.. its a right pain when im trying to stream films to from laptop to a tv upstairs and it keeps doing it...

Just purchased the Inspiron 7000 15 i7 8 GB 1TB from Best Buy today.  As soon as I turned it on and got it set up, I tried to get online via wireless.  I was able to, but was very disappointed at how slow the computer was moving.  I hooked it up to the Ethernet cord and it worked perfectly.  After that I realized there was obviously a problem with the computer's wireless connection. (I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and an older Dell Inspiron that connect perfectly to the internet)  I came upon this thread and started trying some of the suggested solutions.  Initially I tried to update the drivers, however whenever I attempted to do this, my computer would search the internet and then state that my current driver was up to date.  After that I saw another suggestion of using the roll back feature and using an older driver.  So from there, I went into my control panel and did a search for 'drivers'.  From there I clicked on the icon labeled 'Device Manager'.  It populated a list of all my drivers, I scrolled down to 'Network adapters' and clicked on it.  It then populated a list of all my network adaptor drivers.  I clicked on the 'Intel Wireless N-7260' and clicked on the 'driver' tab.  If you look down, you should see a tab for 'Roll Back Driver'.  I clicked on this and it rolled back to the version labeled 16.1.1.3 from 7/19/2013.  After I did this, my wireless worked perfectly.  I even unplugged my laptop and walked around the house running long youtube videos.  It maintained the download speed and has been operating just as fast as it was when I had it plugged in to the Ethernet.  I do think it's a shame that you should have to make an adjustment like this on a brand new computer, but I do feel relieved knowing my wireless is finally working properly.

I have an Inspiron 15 7537 & here is my observation with the Intel Dual Band N 7260 wireless card.

There are two problems ...

1. Connection Drops even if sitting right next to the router
2. Signal drops after 20ft away, in other words, if you are two rooms aways and your cell phone picks up a 4bar signal, your laptop might not even detect the wireless signal.

Problem 1

This is mainly due to the Intel Driver and Intel have released a newer version to fix this problem, however the problem still persists, not sure if 8.1 has anything to do with it as the problem started after upgrading to 8.1. To fix this issue i rolled back to the standard Microsoft Driver.

Upgrading to the latest Intel Driver for this card results in Connection drops once again, would just have to wait and see for now.

Problem 2

This i suspect is the casing for this Laptop, I replaced the N7260 card with an older one from my Studio 1555 and the issue still persists. I then realised that my Studio Laptop is plastic casing, while this one is way thicker. So either its the antenna or the casing which is causing a problem with the range for this Laptop.

Weaker signals do not get recognised.

Is there a solution to this wifi problem? Can this be fixed or not? I am thinking to buying the 15 7537 model, but this is the only thing that stopped me from purchasing.

I think you better hold off, if your router is in the same room as the laptop then this problem should not concern you, for Connection drops just use the Microsoft Driver, for Weak signal issues, i am not sure what can be done.

I think my issue is resolved since my post yesterday.. After the post I reverted the driver to the microsoft signed driver, I then reset my router to defaults, once I was back up and running online I ran windows update and it found a new driver stating it was specifically for windows 8.1 version 16.5.3.6, although newer drivers are available.. I also disbaled bluetooth...

result Wifi has not dropped out once

Also people who are saying they have weak signal issues I have the 7737  17" model and it works on the 3rd floor of my house and always has when other devices pickup no signal so not sure if its going to be a casing issue.

Right, 16.5.3.6 does seem to be a good release.

Interestingly, I'm now back up at 16.6.0.8, courtesy of Intel update, and it now seems ok, having had various other driver updates over the Christmas period, including WiDi for 8.1, which had its own issues it seems.

ive had the same damn issue with mine. Wireless Card is acting up If the driver update doesn't work I guess I will have to get Dell to send me a new PC with a better wifi card