Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
6 Posts
0
57900
Dell 14 Ultrabook (L421X) wifi issue
Hi everyone,
I have been experiencing the same wifi issue (bad performance) as other Dell 14 Ultrabook owners. To call it bad is an understatement - its terrible for the affected owners. Thus I have performed a test using my M11x R1 WLAN card.
Ok so today I swapped by Broadcom card from my M11x R1 and installed it onto the L421x ultrabook. The speed wifi performance was now 3 times faster however it still had issues detecting surrounding networks (it was missing about 8!). Still however, the further I got from the router (2 to 3 metres), the speed dramatically decreases.
I put the Intel 6235 on my M11x R1 and the speed great (faster than the Broadcom), no problems whatsoever and detected even more networks.
Can safely say (with the testing I performed) that there appears to be a design flaw and something is stopping the performance of the Intel 6235 from maximum speed.
Whether Dell will identify this no one knows. I contacted Technical Support yesterday about the wifi issue and they told me that it is a hardware fault and will get an engineer to diagnose and possibly replace any defective hardware (not surprising - I would have at least expected the support chap to be aware of the current issues surrounding the L421x) . I will wait and see what they say again after I report the results I found...
PudgyOne
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
30.3K Posts
0
November 19th, 2012 15:00
disigma,
Try the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 drivers first.
Rick
PudgyOne
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
30.3K Posts
0
November 19th, 2012 15:00
disigma,
I would first try...
Go to Drivers & Downloads enter your service tag number, then select your operating system. Under Network, download and install the latest drivers.
Try these tweaks....
Start, control panel, 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.
Go to the power options, and changed the Wireless Adapter Setting, from Maximum Power Setting to Maximum Performance.
You can also try the Intel drivers and see if there is an improvement. Intel® Driver Update Utility
Rick
disigma
6 Posts
0
November 19th, 2012 15:00
Hi,
Thanks for your response. I am already using the latest drivers(I tested both the ones from Dell's driver site as well as Intel's) but to no success. Also the power settings are set to max performance on all power profiles for the wireless adaptor settings.
I also performed a fresh install of Windows 7 Professional and still the problems occurred. After that I installed Ubuntu 12.04 and Fedora, both Linux distributions also had problems with wifi speeds and detecting access points in my area.
When I swapped the cards around between the 2 laptops, both were using the same (most recent windows 7 Pro) drivers, and the M11x R1 performed a hell of a lot better with the Intel 6235 card.
Its just strange that the card just wont work to its full potential on the XPS 14 on the unit I have, and I am beginning to think a replacement wont make a difference.
Hopefully Dell will come up with a solution soon, as it pretty much loses its ultrabook mobile appeal if its wifi strength is this poor.
americano
1 Message
0
November 29th, 2012 08:00
The problem is related to wifi antennas, only with them. This is a hardware problem. When connecting an external antenna, everything starts to work just fine.
javaguy11111
1 Message
0
May 10th, 2013 17:00
I have the same exact issue with a brand new xps 3 day old laptop. After googling it for 3 days i see there are countless people with this problem. I have tried all suggestions. Changing power settings, at least 10 different drivers, uninstall and reinstall and no luck. I am getting less than 1mb speeds with 2 different routers. one is a verizon fios router and the other is with an older linksys wrt54gl router which has ALWAYS been rock solid. I finally have a decent connection with my ATT MiFi. But still, thats not my primary home router. plus you can clearly see this is going to be problematic when attaching to different routers. signal strength is poor and speed is abysmal. I love the laptop but wireless is a pretty important feature. How can this be overlooked? not sure what to do.
princeosita
1 Message
0
August 12th, 2013 15:00
I just bought a dell 14 3421 laptop...and it doesn't have a backlit keyboard. and I wanna find out if I can order a backlit keyboard that will function with it...and also where I can order it too.
DELL-Ravi Ch
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
7.1K Posts
0
August 12th, 2013 19:00
Hi princeosita,
There is no option for a backlit keyboard on Dell Inspiron 14/3421 model. It comes with normal non-backlit keyboard.
k0k0k0
5 Posts
0
November 9th, 2015 05:00
I am not getting any responses in my own thread so I'm asking here.
I have an L421x with random crashes that I have narrowed down to the WIFI module.
Can I only use the Half-Mini WLAN cards that were originally sold with my system or how does the white listing work? Covering pin 20 and pin 50 on Intel's 6300 and 6205 did not make them work with my system.
It is REALLY difficult to find the specific cards as only two have Windows 10 drivers listed.
Qualcomm Killer Wireless-N1202 which is known to be troublesome and Dell Wireless 1901.
Any other options available?