Broadcom 440x 10/100 in a Inspiron 5100 will not connect to home network

Are you booting with the cable plugged in or plugging it in when the computer is on? My 3COM card by default with earlier drivers used to take around 15-20 seconds to connect if I plugged the cable in after booting. Have a look at some of the advanced settings in device manager. Do you have Dell quickset and Dell notebook system software updates from the applications and system and configuration utilities sections of Dell downloads? In addition to the driver, do you have the Broadcom Advance Control Suite Windows GUI Diagnostics?

This thing is strange..  I went into the advance settings of the broadcom through device manager and if I change the speed and duplex from auto to 100 mbps full or half I get a amber light on the back of the computer and when I change to 10 mbps full or half I get a green light.  When I check the ip address it is assigned 169.254.120.82 and that is not a regular linksys ip address and will not connect or ping anything.  I have the computer connected to a linksys wireless 4 port router that is uplinked from another linksys wired router.  I have 2 other computers wired into the 4 port linksys wireless router and they all work fine.  This is the only time I have ever had a problem connecting to this router via cat5.  The following are my advance settings for the Broadcom can someone please tell me what the heck is going on here..

Advance settings:

802.1p QOS: Disable

Flow Control: Enable

Wake up Capabilities: Wake up frame

The speed & Duplex : settings explained above..

Thanks,

Jay

Jay,  I feel your pain.  Sorry I won't be much help, but I posted a rather large acount of my trials with a similar set up yesterday ( My trials and tribulations...Nov 3).  I listed many suggestions that I had found searching this forum and other forums.  None solved my problem, but one may fix yours.  In the event that you find a fix, please post it here so that I might try it also.  I am considering returning my laptop to Dell since it is new.

 - - - Duane

Duane,

Thanks for your response, I just went and read your post from yesterday and now I'm glad I did.. You just saved me a night of pain trying to figure this darn thing out.  Now I see there is no answer, I also now understand why no one from Dell has responded to our posts.  I can't believe they do not have a fix for this... We can't be the only people in the world with home networks.  I own 8 computers right now 4 laptops and 4 desktops and have owned about 25 in the past 7 years. I have also fixed many computers for friends and family over the years and this is the first one that I have not just hooked up to my network and surfed away...  I have only owned one other dell in the past 7 years and I only owned that one for about 4 days before it went back to them.  When my wife called me today to tell me her friend was selling this one, I had my reservations but thought we would give Dell another try.  I guess the Dell is no go again.. Come on Dell step up to the plate and tell us how to fix this problem.  All we want to do is plug in and surf away.. Should be a pretty easy fix.

Thanks,

Jay

I just tried the Inspiron 5100 here at my office and it will not work here either... Dell this must be a problem that you guys were aware of what gives?  No ideas on how to fix this?  If it is a driver issue, you guys should be on Broadcom to fix it ASAP.. Please respond...

Thanks,

Jay

Did you try the other Dell utilities that I mentioned above?

Message Edited by tentonine on 11-05-2003 07:39 PM

Yes sir I've tried everything.. I spoke to Dell this afternoon on the phone and they want me to send it back in for repair..  Hard to believe there is not some sort of fix out there...

I still have the problem with my Broadcom 440x and I'm reading more and more post were people are having the same problem.  Can someone please get us an answer to what the heck is going on with this Broadcom 440x device.  All we are asking for is some sort of answer from Dell.  I've spent over 12 hours working on this problem and 3 hours on the phone with Dell and no luck anywhere.  Dell wants me to send my computer back for repair because they believe the hardware is bad, yet all diag. test pass.  My fear is I'll send my computer back and after 6 days of downtime I'll still have the same problem.  We just want someone to tell us if there is indeed a problem with the Broadcom device and WinXP.

Thanks,

Jay

I ran into the same problem yesterday with a Inspiron 5100 and the Broadcom adapter.  It would never recognize DHCP.  When I manually defined the IP address and DNS info, everything ran fine.  There is definitely a problem with the adapter or the driver.  I think it must be the driver. 

I have the same problem with my Inspiron 5150 and the Broadcom adapter.
With a static IP address everything works. When using DHCP, no DHCP server can be found.
The DHCP server itself is ok, all other clients get ip addresses, there is only a problem with the broadcom NIC.
I use the Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller, v.3.60, A02 drivers.

Has anyone found a solution yet?

Just to show closure to my deal, let me say I ended up returning my 5150.  I was sad because otherwise it was a great laptop.  I must confess that Dell was very good at the return.  After I expressed my dissatisfaction with the lack of network capability and the large number of hours I wasted trying to get the connectivity to work, Dell immediately offered to pick up the lappy at my house.  I got the tracking number from the carrier and was able to track the return to Dell on-line.  Four days later, a new "order" showed up in my Dell account, which was actually a credit to my credit card for the original purchase amount.  So, I must give Dell an excellent rating for satisfaction on the return process.  Now, if only I had not needed to use it...
 - - -  Duane

Thanks, you saved me a lot of time. I am facing exactly the same problems and apparently I am not the only one.....I will definately return my laptop....

I talked to Dell support today and they recommended installing the latest driver from the Del Support site.  I downloaded it and installed it on the 5100 and that solved my problem.  I was able to release/renew the IP information without any problems.

I was desperate and did a complete re-installation of my Inspiron 5150 system yesterday. I updated all windows XP components using windows update and afterwards installed all the latest drivers for everything from dell's support site. Now guess what - it's working now .
I don't know what messed up my old system.

I have done the reinstallation 4! times now, including the latest bios version, drivers from Dell etc. Every time the problems seems to be disappeared but after a while (sometimes the same day, the last time 9 weeks) it is there again. So reinstallation is only a short term solution. So far, DELL support are nor really cooperative. I requested them to return the laptop. No response yet...........