6 Posts

February 22nd, 2006 16:00

I am having this EXACT same issue with a Inspiron B130 notebook and the 1370 internal wireless adapter.  Not only that, it's for my mom!  See "getting nervous" post below.

I'm at wits end.  Good luck.  I'm just about to send it back, this should not be so difficult, I've done it numerous times.

3 Posts

February 22nd, 2006 18:00

Could you provide some more info? Router config? Any security sw? Let's try and find a common denominator...

Let's keep our fingers crossed...

6 Posts

February 22nd, 2006 19:00

I have disabled all encryption.  I am using a Netgear router.  No set IP's or anything like that, all dynamic settings (adelphia is my ISP), standard stuff.

My Thinkpad T42 w/built in adapter works fine with this wireless network, as does an old Sony VAIO notebook using a Netgear PCMCIA wireless adapter.

I have disabled all firewalls.  I did have a Logitech mouse installed but have since uninstalled it. I did install the Asian language pack, that's still installed.  Also a driver for an HP printer.  That's it, no other software installed on this computer.

I have not tried changing the router channel, it is currently on 11 (default).  That will be the next thing I try.  Have you tried changing the channel (1 or 6 would be the other non-overlapped channels)?

I will keep you posted, please do the same.  I am not sure when I will be over there to try anything else.

3 Posts

February 22nd, 2006 21:00

Changing the channel crossed my mind... I'll try and let you know

6 Posts

February 23rd, 2006 01:00

Strange.  I have my mom's notebook at my house now and it seemed to work fine from the time I turned it on over here.  THen again, who knows,  the way it was dropping in and out all the time.
 
Anyway, I then updated the driver for the Wireless device.  I noticed the one that was installed originally (sorry, I don't have the number) was from 2004.  I just installed the latest one on the Dell website, it's timestamped from 11/2005 and the release date according to the website was January 2006, so fairly recent.
 
I won't know til tomorrow when I take it back over to their house if it works any better.  The fact that it worked fine here makes me wonder about interference at their house, even though two other computers worked just fine on the wireless network.
 
I will post if it still fails, or if I have any kind of confidence that its working.  I plan on using it here for the remainder of the evening.

6 Posts

February 23rd, 2006 20:00

The driver update did not help but changing the router's broadcast channel did!  So far anyway...

Should've tried this earlier, I had thought about doing this ever since the problem started but I was limited to doing all the troubleshooting during my lunch hour, so I was only able to try one thing per day which made the process very inefficient.  Anyway, I went to channel 6 and it has worked perfectly since (fingers crossed).

It would have been nice if the Dell wireless phone 'agent' or the online chat dude would've pointed this out from the symptoms I had described, but oh well.  They aren't router experts ;-)

I hope this worked for you.  I was starting to wonder if the common denominator here was that it was our mom's who were using the computers (she's not exactly computer literate). :-)

 

No Events found!

Top