Draytek Vigor 2800G and Dell Laptops

 Hey everyone, I have been experiencing some problems with some of our Dell Laptops and their wireless connectivity to our Draytek Vigor 2800G, the problem is fairly complicated so I’ll try my best to explain it. Our entire network is comprised of Dell workstations, servers and laptops, some laptops have the Intel based wireless cards installed, some have the Broadcom adapters installed. There has never been a problem with wireless signal, its a small building and each laptop has "Excellent" signal strength when it connects. Upon connection each wireless client receives an IP address via the routers DHCP, the security on the router is just set to 128-Bit WEP, authentication has never been an issue.


All but one of the laptops with the Intel wireless card experience no problems at all, they can be anywhere in the building and receive a great wireless signal + internet connection. The laptops that have the Broadcom wireless adapters will get an equally good signal and obtain an IP address however unless the laptop is within 5 meters or so of the router it will not communicate with the router at all. I cannot ping an internet address or the router its self, if i move the laptop closer then it performs fine.



We had a new Dell Inspiron 6400 last month; it came with the Broadcom wireless adapter. Dell came out on site and changed the motherboard and replaced the wireless card with another Broadcom adapter, it made no difference. The engineer then ordered an Intel 3945ABG wireless adapter, I installed it and it worked fine. We have a couple of XPS laptops with the same adapter installed (mix of Vista and XP) and they have worked without fault.

So on the face of things it looks like a wireless signal problem, but other laptops (newer and older) have no problems. So then it looks like an incompatibility with the router, but I can't see how this could be, we have used Draytek for many years and I use them at home as well, I have spoke with Draytek and have tried all the usual things like a firmware update and changing the level of wireless security, all to no avail. Any ideas off anyone would be appreciated, or if anyone has similar experiences with any of the draytek range, many thanks, Jason.