Problem with 1390 Mini-Card on Inspiron 1521

Hi JCMTemple,

The above error code may occur due to a corrupt driver. You may follow the steps below to uninstall the wireless drivers completely and then update the drivers :

• Click on Start -> Control Panel -> Uninstall a program and uninstall the wireless drivers
• Open the device manager and right click the wireless card and click uninstall the driver.
• Place a check mark on remove the driver software and click on OK to uninstall the drivers and restart the computer.
• Download/install the wireless driver from Here. Follow the onscreen instructions and restart when prompted.

Please reply with the findings. Will take it further from there.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I followed your instructions, but the problem is not solved.  After restarting, Windows tried to install the wireless card, but was unsuccessful.  So, I continued and installed the driver that you linked to, but it said that it could not detect any corresponding hardware.  So, I installed another recent driver for the card (the one that I linked to above), and everything is the same as it was before.  The card is listed in device manager, but there is still a code 10 error.

Hi JCMTemple,

Dell has not tested this computer with Windows 7 operating system and the drivers for same are not available for this system. I did some research and found the wireless drivers for Windows 7 which I shared with you earlier. However, if those are not working, you may try installing the Vista drivers (shared by you initially) in compatibility mode and see if that fixes the issue.

• Right click on the downloaded file and click on Troubleshoot Compatibility
• Next, click on ‘Troubleshoot Program’
• Click on Program worked in earlier versions of Windows
• Click on ‘Windows Vista’
• Click on ‘Start the Program’
• Do not hit ‘Next’ until the installation completes
• Once the installation completes, click on ‘Next’

If the issue persists, you may uninstall the drivers and try to manually update the Windows 7 drivers (shared by me earlier). You may follow the steps below to update the wireless card drivers manually :

• Download the driver file and extract to a specific folder. By default it will be extracted to C:\Dell|Drivers\R295615
• Open Device Manager
• Right click on Network Controller and Click on update driver
• Click on Browse my computer for driver software.
• Click the Have Disk... button
• Click the Browse... button
• Navigate to the folder that you extracted the drivers to. Default is C:\Dell|Drivers\R295615\Drivers\Win7\WL
• Select the driver file and click on Open
• Click on Next and wait for driver installation to finish
• Once done restart the computer and check if the wireless works.

Hope this helps. Please reply with the findings.

I have tried both of the above solutions - neither worked. However, sometimes when I can uninstall the device and when I restart Windows will detect and install it.  That typically makes it work for some period of time, then I lose it again.  Sometimes just no connections are detected, other times I get the code 10 error back.

Here is something that I just discovered and found peculiar:  My wifi only really works when my laptop is positioned a certain way - on my lap and tilted slightly downward to the right.  This seems to be the case whether I'm in the same room as the router or the next room.  Any thoughts on this?  It strikes me as a hardware problem, but I don't want to open it up without some confirmation.

That you very much for your replies and appreciate any further insight.

I am kind of at a loss at this point.  At this point, my wireless card is not even detected in device manager.  I have restarted the system several times, but it is not recognized.  The only other solution that I can think of is to replace the wireless card.  Any other ideas?

Hi JCMTemple,

Apologies for the delayed response. I appreciate your technical expertise. You are on the right track. It appears that the wireless card is loose as it only works when held at a certain position. I would suggest you to try re-seating the wireless card. You may refer to the service manual from Here.

Do reply with the findings. I would be glad to help you.

Thanks for your reply, DELL-Sundeep B.

Unfortunately, the card did not appear to be loose and removing and re-seating it did not change anything.

Right now, there is still a code 10 error.  Also, when I uninstall the card & drivers, I am unable to install the driver through Windows Update (which was the only thing that at least temporarily worked in the past).  The part that Dell gives for my system now is the Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN card.  I might try replacing my card with this one, if I can find it cheap on Amazon.  Could a faulty card give a code 10 error? I only ask, because this problem came out of nowhere.  I have had Windows 7 on my laptop for years now and have not messed with the drivers and all of a sudden, there is a driver error?  I don't really know what else to try.

Any other ideas?

Hi JCMTemple,

As we have exhausted all the troubleshooting steps, I would suggest you to re-install the OS and then install the driver in correct order as mentioned Here. A fresh installation of OS will take care of software issues if any and it is recommended to try that before isolating the hardware as the point of failure.

If the issue persists even after operating system re-installation, you may replace the wireless card.

Hope this helps. Please reply with the findings.

Thanks for the reply, Dell-Sundeep B.

I have been having some trouble trying to re-install Windows 7.  I get a message that says, " ... the unattended answer file contains an invalid product key ..."  From what I can gather, I get this message because I had originally upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista, but am now re-installing fresh (not from an upgrade).  The only solution that I have seen is to first install vista, then upgrade to Windows 7.  This may be a longer process than I had first thought, as I am not sure that I still have my OS cd (or whether I ever got it with my system).

I will reply when I come to a resolution, but I'm kind of stuck right now.

It also just occurred to me that you were most likely referring to a clean install, wherein I would lose all of my data.  Of course I have backed up, but I have software from my school installed on my computer that would not be easy (or in some cases even possible) to get a hold of again.  So, I will at least hold off on re-installing the OS until I can get some answers.

Hi JCMTemple,

I understand that re-installing the operating system is a time consuming process and considering you have Windows 7 upgrade from Vista, it might consume more time. I agree with you that all the data on system will be lost during the re-installation, however, as we have already exhausted all the troubleshooting steps, it is recommended to re-install the OS before isolating the issue with the hardware as OS re-installation takes care of all software related problems on system if any.

However, if you do not wish to go that route, you may try installing a good known wireless card in your system and see if that works. For installing wireless card you may refer to service manual shared earlier.

Please reply with the findings. I would be glad to help you.

Hello again Dell-Sundeep B,

Thank you very much for continuing to offer your assistance.  I have been trying to re-install the OS; however, I am getting the error message mentioned in my above post.  Do you know if there is any way to re-install Windows 7 (with my upgrade disc) without first installing Windows Vista back onto the system?  Everything that I have found seems to be a hack and I would rather not go that route.

Hello Sundeep B,

I greatly appreciate your continued assistance with this matter.

I was finally able to successfully do a clean install of the OS.  I followed the instructions on the correct order to install the drivers; but, when I got to the wireless network card, I ran into an error.  I tried installing the original driver recommended from Dell through my system's service tag, the driver that you recommended earlier in the thread, and another that I had found and mentioned in an earlier post - in all cases, I got the following message: "No compatible hardware found. The software you are attempting to install is not supported on this system. The software will not be installed. Setup will now exit."  Also, the 1390 card is not shown in device manager - the only item under Network Adapters is my Broadcom ethernet controller.

Where do I go from here?  Thanks in advance for any help.

Just to update, I have ordered a new wireless card.  I will post an update after I receive and install it.