Vostro 460 Network Adapter MIA

As in the thread at http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/network-internet-wireless/f/3324/t/19425360.aspx, I have begun having the issue of the Network Adapter disappearing from the OS, requiring several reboots to bring it back to life.  Of course, this occurred right after the system is out of warranty by 2 weeks.  I placed a ticket to Dell, but have not received a response, nor do I expect to.  This has to be hardware related, as it disappears off the face of the earth.  If it were software, I would expect it to show up in device manager as an unknown device or with a bang on it.

It is unfortunate that Dell's quality has gone down so much in the past couple of years.  We also have several laptops that are experiencing various issues, just outside the warranty.  These machines were all in the $700 to $900 price range, so you would expect them to be pretty trouble free for the first 3 years or so.  One laptop I pulled totally apart, as the Bluetooth/wireless was not working.  Reassembled after reseating the card, and it worked for several months and is now back to not working.  I am making due without, as the whole laptop has to be disassembled to get to it. 

Another laptop when it arrived did not even have the bottom panels on correct - one tab was on the outside, of where it shoulod be.  Should have sent this back when it arrived.   All laptop that we have received have been slow and doggy, until we do a fresh OS installation.  And with this, you really have to dig for the correct drivers.  They certainly cannot be found on the site, without doing a search from Google to try and find what you need.

Dell, please step up and take care of your customers.  When there are so many people across the internet having the same issue with the motherboard, the right thing to do, is take care of them.  And it would bring a little more good will your way if you took care of the users that had a  system that was just out of warranty, when it is a well known/documented issue.  -Disillusioned.