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September 23rd, 2010 18:00

DW1520 Wireless N WLAN half mini card issue driving me crazy - PLEASE HELP!

I have a Dell Studio laptop with a DW1520 Wireless N WLAN half mini card that is intermittently switching off wireless on start-up under Windows 7. If a connection is made at start-up it works fine however every one in three start-ups fails to initiate wireless (I see a red cross over the wireless bars in the system tray). To date I have tried the following however none of these solve the problem.

1. FN + F2. Nothing happens
2. Unchecked "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" under power management
3. Restarting the WLansvc service

At present my only solution is to repeat restarting the laptop until I regain a wireless network connection. I am also hearing a faint distorted playback of the start-up windows tune on start-up when wireless start-up fails and was wondering whether this is indicative of a hardware fault with my wireless card however this may be a red herring!

Is there any easy way to determine whether this is a hardware fault or software configuration with my network card? The problem is intermittent and does not happen on every startup which is confusing. Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated as this problem is driving me CRAZY! Thanks - Jabba

September 26th, 2010 12:00

Hi, After a bit more investigation I have found that I can launch the Dell Windows Mobility Centre by pressing [Windows Key + x]. This application has an option to switch the wireless hardware radio on and off rather than simply enabling\disabling wireless using [FN + F2] which does not work if the radio is off.

Whilst this is a workaround rather than a fix I thought I would mention it. I will probably call Dell Support tommorrow however would welcome any other ideas out there as this is still very annoying...

- Jabba

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September 26th, 2010 14:00

Jabba,

 

The program that you mentioned that uses the Windows key and the X keys is called Dell QuickSet and is usually found on laptops. Some computer4s have it setup that F2 turns on the bluetooth, so that may be the reason for the button change.

 

 

Rick

September 27th, 2010 07:00

Thanks Rick, Today I called Dell technical support who updated my BIOS to v10 and advised me to monitor the situation for the rest of the day. After three restarts the wireless radio was disabled on the third. As a consequence I have also installed the latest Dell Wireless WLAN 1520 Half MiniCard Driver (Version: 5.30.21.0, A01, Release Date: 10/7/2009) from the Dell Support Site and will monitor for occurrences of the same wireless radio problem for the rest of the day. Assuming this does not fix the problem does anyone have any further suggestions on the next course of action? Any help would be greatfully appreciated.

Regards, Jabba

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September 28th, 2010 03:00

Jabba,

 

The only thing I suggest is this...

 

 

Go to device manager(right click my computer, left click properties, left click hardware, left click device manager). Click on Network and then right click on your wireless adapter, left click properties, power management. Uncheck the box, allow computer to turn off this device to save power.

 

 

Rick

1 Message

January 9th, 2011 10:00

I have the same problem with the same card on my Dell Studio.  Thanks for the Windows+X tip.  Did the new driver help?  You sure are right about this issue being frustrating.  Turning off the power management properities didn't make a difference.

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February 8th, 2011 12:00

 trevalex,

 

Certain Countries have diferent restrictions. I think that IEEE 802.11 - Wikipedia explains things well.

 

 

Rick

2 Posts

February 8th, 2011 12:00

I have been having a few issues with my DW WLAN 1520 card. I actually also tried a different adapter (USB Dongle) and still could not see my home wifi network.

I could see nearly every neighbours network and yet couldn't see mine with my Dell E6410.

All my other wi-fi devices in my  house worked fine so was a bit frustrated with why I couldn't use my work laptop at home.

So I used this utility: 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

The DW WLAN utility allows you to get very detailed info about your card and driver and once I looked at it I found the solution.

Problem was my laptop was provided by a US company and is a US build with the @ key in the wrong place ;) (The @ key is not the problem but does annoy me:)

I had configured my home wifi network to use channel 13 simply because it had the least noise in my area of London (every one has wifi running on overlapping channels these days.. not good).

Check this article:  on types of wireless networks in different countries.

After looking at the WiFI utility I saw the driver was installed in United States mode.. Not sure how to change this yet, nor do I want to as its not my laptop.. but what the information tab of the utility showed by that channel 13 wasn't in this list.

 So I changed my home wifi network to use channel 11. and straight away it showed up in my available networks :)

In the last 10-12 years of tinkering with computers never had to troubleshoot an issue like this.. but you learn something every day!! :)

 

2 Posts

February 8th, 2011 15:00

Yes I had looked at wiki

But think you miss the point of why I posted my process of troubleshooting..was to help others rather than lmwtfy (let me wiki that for you)

Wikipedia is great for geeks etc.. and a self confessed one myself..but I think the content in the dell articles is more relevant.

1 Message

April 1st, 2012 01:00

Hello,

I am using dell studio 1558 and it has DW 1520 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card.

I tried to share wifi with my cell phone but this laptop can not.

Coud you tell me the way I can use my wifi to creat  a share wifi for my cell phone.

I want connect internet by my cell phone through this laptop.

I also tried use some program, ex: connectitfy but it couldn't run.

If you have solution, please email for me by

1 Message

July 21st, 2012 10:00

Hello,

I am using dell INSPIRON N 5010 and it has N 1520 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card.

I have installed windows 7  and i m trying to installed Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card

driver but it cannot installed in my laptop. plz help me....

if u have any solution, please mail me:

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July 21st, 2012 12:00

chetantalan,

 

When you reinstalled the operating system, did you install the Desktop/Notebook system software and the chipset drivers first? If not, the rest of the drivers will fail to install. How to Download and Install Drivers in the Correct Order

Start with the Desktop/Notebook system software and the chipset drivers and follow the list.

 

 

Rick

1 Message

July 23rd, 2012 06:00

hey,

I`m Trying to create an ad-hoc network using my E6410, but there`s no option to do that. Also when i go to wireless Network Connection properties / Wireless Networks tab/ Advanced  and try to tick on "Any available network (access point preferred)" dosen`t work and stick on "Access point (infrastructure) networks only" as shown in the attached picture.

Any Idea about this issue???

Regards

 

July 31st, 2012 10:00

I am having the same trouble as you had. Please let me know how you did resolve it. This DW1520 wireless mini card on my Dell studio XPS is driving me crazy too. thanks in advance

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