This post is more than 5 years old
1 Message
0
81198
Limited Or No Connectivity
Hi, I've just bought a Dell Inspiron mini 10 for only 1 week and my wireless network has been working perfectly in my house, my school, and even mcdonald until today. I was trying to go online in my college as I always do. However, the Wireless network connection icon has shown that it has Limited Or No Connectivity. I've tried to repair the connection, disable and enable the network, restart my computer, reinstalled my WLAN drive, typed in the internet IP, subnet mask, Gateway, and all the internet detail myself, and even tried system restore at last but nothing has worked. I first thought that it was a problem of the school internet but not mine. However, my friend has easily connected to the internet with his sony laptop unlike mine. And also, after going back home, I could connected to the internet through my router, so I am just wondering if it has appeared to any other Dell user and what I can do to fix the problems, Please let me know, thanks!!!
KnutH
2 Posts
1
March 30th, 2009 04:00
An update:
I finally decided to de-install the Intel WirelessPro program and then re-installing it from my original Dell "Drivers and Utilities" CD. It took forever, but when I restarted afterwards I was back to normal: A full wireless connection including a valid IP address :emotion-2:.
One noticeable difference from before the reinstall: The standard Windows wireless icon on the task bar now disappears after Intel has made the connection, displaying its green "fan" symbol. When I was having trouble, these two symbols were side by side, both programs seemingly trying to establish the WLAN connection.
PudgyOne
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
30.3K Posts
0
March 26th, 2009 02:00
hkmomo,
I would first check my firewall settings as you said, I can connect at home. I hope you home has these Recommended Wireless Router Settings. You could try, start, control panel, networking and sharing, view statis, diagnose and see what happens.
Are you using any type of peer to peer programs, like Limeware, BearShare, etc...?
Rick
KnutH
2 Posts
1
March 27th, 2009 08:00
I have had very similar problems recently. Here are a few observations, some of which may be significant:
The problem is that the WLAN does not assign a proper IP address. I end up with a 169.... something, which I guess is some internal (useless) address, not the IP to be assigned by my router
Some times, switching the radio off (using the hardware switch on my laptop) and then back on has helped, but not always. Some times I have been succesful using Repair, but most times that does not do it, like you have experienced.
Lately, I have set Properties on my Network connection to "Use Windows to configure wireless settings" or some similar text (I have a non-English version of XP). That diables the Intel driver/program for the wireless card. It seems to do the trick, but I have only been doing this for a short time. Disabling Intel Proset Wireless should really be unnecessary, however, as everything worked fine using the Intel driver directly until about a week ago.
I have noticed, using a downloaded utility program, that two Intel programs are called at start-up: Intel Wireless (iFrmewrk.exe /tf) and IntelZeroConfig (ZCfgSvc.exe). I have asked Dell support whether both should be activated or only one. My personal theory is that there is a conflict between different drivers/programs trying to talk to the router at the same time after start-up, causing a confused IP assignment dialogue.
Some geek fora discussing similar problems suggested de-installing Windows Zero Config, which evidently is the built-in program for handling wireless connections in XP. I have not tried that (yet), seems a little drastic before everything else has been tried. Others suggested de-installing the Intel utility - I don't like to do that, either. After all, it did work fine for a long time!
If anyone has the definite solution, it would be greatly appreciated!
PudgyOne
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
30.3K Posts
0
March 30th, 2009 16:00
KnutH,
GREAT JOB! :emotion-21: Thanks for posting back. If you could click the verify answer buttom on your post where you installed the drivers from the CD, that way if someone else searches the forums, they can see what you did to fix your problem.
Rick
ElGalloRojo
1 Message
0
February 12th, 2010 11:00
Thanks for the tip. It was very helpful.
I received a new Dell 10 Mini last night and had the same issue. I knew the hardware was fine because I could reach the Internet by booting from a live Linux USB. Dell Support eventually agreed with me that the problem was with the Dell or Windows 7 software, but they wanted to charge me to help troubleshoot it. Its a new "web" notebook - it ought to be able to connect to the web on most access points right out of the box, right. So I declined the offer for paid "advanced support."
I verified problem today at 3 different access points, then found this solution. I actually only uninstalled the Dell NIC software and did not reinstall it - just let Windows manage it and now its working fine - as expected. I probably should have ordered it with Ubuntu and saved myself the hassle of troubleshooting Dell's poorly QA'd software image. In any case its now working, so I'm not shipping it back, but I feel sorry for those less technical folks whose only two options are to pay Dells extortion fees, or give up and send the thing back.
z1vqr
5 Posts
0
April 4th, 2015 18:00
In some ways it sounds as if you were making your own computer, rather than using one you bought "ready to go." My experience has been much more frustrating--and I don't have a CD to re-install the drivers from, either.
Microsoft's Surface is the only one of my five computers that can now connect to the internet. The others are all Dells. Does that sound like a problem to anyone but me?