DW1501 Wireless-N Wlan Half-Mini Card

Hi Midnight251,

For the latest version of 1501 Wireless WLAN 1501 Half Mini-Card drivers please refer this link: http://dell.to/ZFSnRI

1) Please uninstall the existing Wireless 1501 WLAN drivers from the device manager, ensure to check the box “Delete driver software for this device”.

2) Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the uninstallation and restart the computer.

3) Install the drivers from the above link, and check the functionality.

Kindly reply for further help.

To know more about Dell’s products, services and drivers & downloads, please go to http://dell.to/YBlak6

Wrong driver my friend.  No compatiable hardware found.  Had to re-install original driver.  Does this adapter support wireless 'n' conectivity as the description says?

Midnight251,

The Dell Wireless 1501 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card adapter works on 2.4GHz ONLY. It uses dual streaming to get the faster speeds.

Please continue with DELL-Nikhil D and see if he can get your adapter to get the dual streams.

Rick

I have purchased 5 Latitude E5520's over the last year for our company, and all these have the 1501 card in them, and apparently will top out at 74MBS.  Our access points work in the 2.4 GHz range only. They are Trendnet TEW-653AP's.  Found this post:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/network-internet-wireless/f/3324/t/19340207.aspx?PageIndex=1

It looks as though Dell has had some issues with these cards.  I would like all of these cards replaced by Dell.  It looks as though a lot of people have been getting the run around. 

Just came across a Vostro 3300 I purchased for the company about a year and a half ago which has the same card. Getting a whopping 52Mbps on a 'n' network...........

Rick, thanks for the info.  Nikhil, any info on this?

Real easy question folks.  Can this card connect at N speeds?  

Hi Midnight251,

Specifications of 1501 wireless-n card.

Hope this helps.

Kjstech, your right on.  We had purchased some E5520's and according to the specs they supported 80211.n.  Imagine our supprise when we upgraded to 802.11n and the laptops would not support it.  Let's just say our company has not purchased another Dell product.

The spec sheet isn't what we are after here.

We need a solution to the problem!

I have a Dell Precision with this card and can't get over 30MB/s. This is not acceptable.

I have a Dell XPS 8300 that contains a DW1501 Wireless-N Half-Mini card. My wife & I recently moved to a location where my computer is farther from the router than it used to be. In our previous home, even when the XPS 8300 was directly adjacent to the router, even touching, the best reception displayed was 4 bars and now it is 1-2 bars. After reading the posts on various forums, I decided to replace the DW1501.

I bought a TP-Link TL-WN822N, which is a high gain USB wi-fi antenna system.  The signal strength was immediately healed; it now shows 5 bars versus the former 1-2 bars in our new home. I have Cox internet and when I run Speedtest, it shows anywhere from 15-40 M bits down and 6-15 M bits up.

The speed is fine but occasionally it misses packets for anywhere from 2 seconds to several minutes. In these situations, the link to the router is usually strong but is loses the internet. The customer support line at TP-Link said the problem was the system sometimes confuses adapters and sends the data to the DW1501 even when the USB based wi-fi is the one which is selected.

I've disabled the DW1501 and uninstalled the drivers. Also, I've unplugged the black and white wires that connect the DW1501 to the power supply. The frequency of these errors is now low but is extant. I think(hope) the remaining problems will be solved if I actually removed the DW1501 from the motherboard. Also, whenever I reboot, the DW1501 drivers automatically re-install. 

Does anyone know how to remove the DW1501 from the motherboard?

Thanks,

Glen

Its quite easy to remove, have a look at the Service Manual:

http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_xps_desktop/xps-8300_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

My Dell XPS-8300 Bluetooth stopped working after upgrading to Windows 10. This isn't the fault of its DW1501 WiFi card because the Bluetooth Assembly is separately installed on the front panel, and isn't supported in Windows 10. I sought a WiFi card that has built-in Bluetooth, works in Windows 10 and Linux Mint 20.1, and hopefully is faster.

Using the Windows 10 Ookla SpeedTest app on Bell Fibe with the DW1501 card my download speed was 36.76 and uploads 39.11 Mbps.

I removed the DW1501 card as per the service manual instructions. Note that this is physically difficult to do, because 2 fingers are needed to hold back 2 clips, and another 2 fingers to pull the card upward, but with the graphics card in place it is extremely difficult to fit both hands into that crowded space. After multiple tries I managed to do it, but it would have been easier if I had removed the graphics card. Installing the newer WiFi card was easy.

My newer WiFi card is one that I had in my spare parts collection: the intel 6230 Centrino dual-band wireless-N half-mini PCIe card model 62230ANHMW, which supports 802.11 A/G/N and has Bluetooth built-in. With this card installed, the XPS-8300 booted without any complaints.

Windows 10 and Linux Mint 20.1 both "just worked" with the new card, for WiFi and Bluetooth! New WiFi SpeedTest results: downloads 144.33 uploads 157.48 Mbps, or about FOUR TIMES FASTER! (With the Bell Fibe modem I can't tell if it's using 2.4 or 5 GHz to connect, and I'm given to understand that it switches dynamically depending on signal strength and interferences.)

I tested BlueTooth with my beats solo3 headphones and they work well. In Linux sounds broke up as long as I kept the BlueTooth device setup pane open, which continues to search for BlueTooth devices, but sounds were OK after I closed that pane.

Anyhow, I'm very happy that I not only got BlueTooth working, but also got a whopping big WiFi speed improvement.

Trying to do even better, I ordered an intel wireless N 7260 half minicard model "7260HMW BN", which was one of the highest intel model numbers made in the half minicard format.

This time I first removed the graphics card from the XPS-8300, but it was still extremely difficult to release the clips from the WiFi card and to get it to pop up.

In Linux Mint x64, the 7260 card WiFi and Bluetooth worked immediately, but the speeds aren't as good as I got with the 6230 card.

In Windows 10 x64 the 7260 WiFi failed to start (code 10), even with the latest drivers from intel manually installed. (The Intel Driver and Support Assistant reports that the card failed to start but offers no driver update.) Its Bluetooth does work after a driver update.

Searching the internet, I easily found several other frustrated people complaining about exactly the same problem --- this card works in various Linux distributions but doesn't work in Windows, despite extensive troubleshooting, and they report that moving the card to a variety of other manufacturers' PCs results in the same failure to start WiFi. Too bad that I didn't check for such problems before ordering this card --- I actually purchased a total of 4 cards that are now useless to me. I should have left well enough alone.