Go HERE. Scroll down it the the last listing at the bottom of the page

This does not work. If you download the file and run it it says its for a 1395 not a 1397 and also that it is for vista and not XP.

And if you give it a go anyway, just in case it does work, it doesn't!

Have spoken to Dell about this and they say that there is no XP driver for the 1397.

The only way around it is to change the wireless card for one which does have an XP driver.

Am presently trying to determine the right one and will post again when and if I get this to work.

BTW a new wireless card is only about £30.

That sounds interesting.

Which "Dell branded XP driver installer package for a different model" did you use?

Do you mean a different model laptop? Which laptop?

Thanks

It is true that there is no Dell branded XP driver for the 1397 card on an Inspiron 1545.  But thats because the Dell installer does a check to see what laptop you are and prevent's another model's Dell XP driver from installing.  So I got around that by:

1. downloading a Dell branded XP driver installer package for a different model.
2. Extracting the package to the local drive
3. Launch Device Manager (from compmgmt.msc) and manually upgraded the driver by using the .inf file in the extracted package.

With that I have the 1397 card working with XP on an Inspiron 1545.

GB

Okay, I used the driver from http://www.laptopdrivers.net/dell-inspiron-1545-laptop-download-vista-to-windows-xp-drivers/

and ran it.  It says it is for a 1395 wireless card not a 1397 and for Vista not XP but it does work!

It didn't work immediately and only started working a few days later, or perhaps I just didn't notice because I was using my USB wireless device.

Anyway, it works which is great!

Thanks.

Okay, I can see this is an old post, but I've just had trouble finding the same driver for my wife's Dell Inspiron Mini 10 after a clean system reinstall, and I'm sure I not the only one. First of all, there are a couple of drivers up on the Dell support site, but neither seems to work. (Incidentally, it's not the only duff driver up there - I'm rapidly losing patience with this company). After much fruitless googling I took the thing apart to find out the actual manufacturer of the card, which turns out to be a  Broadcom (model number BCM94312HMG). Although Broadcom don't seem to post the drivers on their site, I eventually found one here: http://www.uploadcity.com/?f=11959620&t=Broadcom_BCM94312HMG_WLAN.rar& . I can only assume that somebody else with a similar problem had a friend upload the files to rapidshare for them, and luckily they're still up there. Whoever's they are, please don't take them down!

The procedure for installing is as follows: download the files, extract them to a folder somewhere using winrar or winzip, then open the start menu and right-click on My Computer and select properties, then the hardware tab and device manager. Double click on the question market by "network controller", and click on the update-driver button. Work through the driver install screens always selecting the option to choose the driver yourself, until you reach the option for "have disc". Click on "browse" and navigate to the folder where you extracted the files to. Click on the file that is displayed, click okay, and a list of drivers will be shown. Select and install the last one in the list (Broadcom 802.11 b/g). All sorts of pop-ups will warn you not to install it, but go ahead anyway.

That's it. A thousand curses on Dell for not providing this very important driver on its support site. Hope this will prevent others from wasting half a day like I've done on this.

I am currently in the middle of performing an XP install on the Dell Inspiron 1464.  Encountered the same issues as above, but also I am finding the system is running very slow after fresh install.

I can't quite figure out yet what the cause could be.  The system runs like as if there's an ambient 30% load on CPU even when its doing nothing.

I am sure the system is doing nothing as its a fresh install.

I have it triple booting Ubuntu and Win7.  The responsiveness is great on Ubuntu.  Not as great on Win7 but still looks good.  Its really bad on XP and I don't know why.