Inspiron 9100 w/ 1450 won't work with Netgear WGT634U Wireless Media Router

Thanks for the response.  Have already upgraded both drivers and firmware.  Any other ideas?

Start by getting the latest 1450 driver and the latest firmware for the Netgear.

No.  It is on by default.  I tried turning it off and then back on to see if that could be the problem but no luck. 

Does the Netgear have the SSID broadcast turned off by chance?

hi,

I have the Inspiron 9100 w/ TrueMobile1300 and a Netgear WGT634U Wireless Media Router and the same problem that you have. Have also the newest drivers - but no way!

Have you allready found a solution?

Thank you!

Best regards,

Bruce

I did finally get it working (partially) by manually entering the SSID to connect to in the Configuration panel of the TrueMobile Wireless Manager.  That finally got it connected.  However a new problem cropped up.  Now that it is connected - occasionally it will disconnect from the Wireless Router and present a "Wireless connection unavailable" message.  After about 3-4 minutes it will "sometimes" automatically reconnect to the router.

I still can not see the SSID in the wireless networks list until it actually connects. 

I am going to try and change my wireless MIni PCI to the Intel 2200 to see if that fixes the issue.  I too wish I had not chosen the 1450 now ... cost me an extra network card as well as hours of troubleshooting....

 

 

I've never had a problem with any other wireless adapter (3com, Intel, NetGear, Linksys) with any of the various APs I've connected to (Cisco, NetGear, Lucent, DLink, Microsoft) until getting one of these mini-PCI NICs in our two Latitude X300s. 

I also just bought a NetGear WGT634U and two hours of testing every combination of channel, speed, SSID (on/off), and the various XP settings, the 1450 simply will not recognize the WGT634U.  It does, however, see my older NetGear MR314 802.11b.

Now, there is another problem, though, making me quite frustrated with the fact I went this route, instead of the Intel B/G mini-PCI, because of the two X300s I am working with, one of them refuses to communicate with our campus DHCP server, while the other one does just fine.  I've just wiped and re-installed XP and am using the recently updated 1450 driver and it just simply will not get an IP, while if I hard-code the IP address, it is fine, so we can only determine there is something wrong with the laptop.  We connect to Lucent APs.

Let's see if Dell keeps this post...

 

So, will Dell actually let us swap the 1450 out for the Intel/Pro 2200?  I e-mailed out campus sales rep, but it usually takes 2-3 days for him to get back to us, meanwhile I'm not sure if Dell only gives us two weeks to return a product or 30 days - someone told me it was no longer 30 days, though.  :-(

I'm actually more miffed by the fact one of these simply will not work properly on campus with our Lucent APs, so add that to the fact the 1450s don't work with the new NetGear routers, this has been a huge waste of my time.

I also don't like that Broadcom offers no driver updates for their wireless products, while at least they offer driver updates for their wired NIC chips/cards, because it doesn't seem like Dell has any interest in getting us the latest fixes on a timely basis.  There could be a fix somewhere in the basement at Broadcom's offices, but who knows when we'd ever get around to seeing it.

 

FWIW.  I had very similar symptoms with an Inspiron 9100/Truemobile 1350 combination, including the disconnect every 3-5 minutes.  If you haven't tried this already you might review

Knowledge base article TT1088772.

The following Windows updates are said to be needed and when I installed them and upgraded the driver for the 1350 and the firmware for the 2300 router

Windows XP - Q815485

Windows XP - KB826942

After installation of all these, everything began to work normally, including wireless security.

I had all the XP patches and it didn't work.  I also installed the latest TrueMobile drivers and it didn't work... until, I added my router's SSID into an entry in the Preferred Network listbox.  Now, I had of course tried that during my first 2 hour marathon of frustration, it's one of the first things I did.  Why it worked this time, I suppose it could have been the newest driver patch.

I actually brought home a second X300 with the TrueMobile 1450, as a new test, and I was able to get it to recognize the WGT634U the same way, by adding a Preferred Network entry, so that appears to be what you have to do.  

SSID broadcasting doesn't work with the WGT634U, which is definitely a flaw somewhere in either the Netgear (Atheros) and/or the Truemobile card (Broadcom).  It all worked just fine with my older NetGear MR314, though.

I bought the Intel Pro 2200 and I'll have to install it tonight and see if it recognizes the SSID without me having to manually enter it, which defeats the purpose of the "hot spot" wireless networking concept.

 

 

 

We have a Thinkpad with the Intel 2100B Mini PCI and it saw the Netgear's SSID normally, connected no problem and no disconnect every few minutes.  It is definitely something with the TrueMobile cards IMO.

 

 

I haven't had any notable problems with a Netgear MR814, WGR614v1, WGR614v2, WGT634U, or FWAG114, with a TM1300 in either an i600m or an iXPS at this point. Running in Windows XP and relying upon their config/control, using both older and updated TM1300 drivers, on both older and upgraded router firmwares, WEP/router->WEP/card, WPA/router->WEP/card, or WPA/router->WPA/card [winxp wpa pack].

I do remember sometime last year the i600m+TM1300 to an old firmware MR814 ended up dropping connection every few hours and reconnecting, but traced that to an apt neighbor's access point that was just far enough not to be seen usually, but would somehow get a range boost at regular intervals and confused everything.


What are you going to to do with the removed truemobile mPCI, btw?

Now that I have it figured out, I'm going to keep the Truemobile in, because on campus we have switched to A/B/G ORiNCO APs, so the 1450 lets me use the A when at work.
The Intel Pro 2200 card is just a spare, I guess, but it was cheap enough and it is property of my work.  One never knows when it might come in handy, if not for me, for someone else on campus.

I still would like to know why the Netgear reply was "we've never had any problems with the Dell cards", when clearly they do not pick up the SSID broadcast.  I suppose most people just take routers back to their store, when they can't get them to work after an hour, instead of contacting the tech support.  In that case, companies are actually losing money and they don't even realize it.

- Tom T.

 

Btw, what is the firmware(s) on the wgt634u that this problem has been experienced on?

I've had a couple of sites that I support install and utilize these after a highly successful short test run personally. These locations are all using either netgear cards, or Dell's will the TM1300 [at this point, that's the only installed non-netgear card]. They haven't had a twinge of a problem, else I would've been called in to deal with these, but if this is a problem moving forward with the newer TM drivers or models, I'd like to see if I'm already in a problem situations firmware level there.