Latitude E6400, Intel Wifi Link 5300 AGN Drops Connections

This did the trick for me in Windows XP:

Control panel

Network connections

Right click on "Wireless Network Connection" and select "Properties"

Next to Intel(R) WiFi Link 5300 AGN click on "Configure".

Under Power Management, deselect or uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

Under the "Advanced" tab, select Power Management, then deselect or uncheck "Use default value", then slide the arrow to "highest".

Then,  scroll down to "Roaming agressiveness" and deselect or uncheck "Use default value", then slide the arrow to "lowest".

I haven't lost my connection since making these changes whereas before, I was reconnecting every 3-5 minutes!

The fix above worked for me but only after I updated my drivers to the newest ones from Intel's homepage

This was a long thread with lots of potential leads, permutations, and fixes, but this was the fix that worked for us.  Our equipment: Dell E6400, 5100 AGN.  Wireless is delivered via a Verizon FIOS WAP (g), WEP 128-bit. No Bluetooth. No driver updates from Intel.

Making the Power Management -> Highest change was enough to keep the wireless connection from constantly recycling. We made no additional changes, and WiFi connections have been rock solid since.

So I just purchased a Studio XPS 16, which also comes with the 5300 AGN card.  I'm running Windows Vista x64 Ultimate. 

My home access point is a Linksys WAP4400N.  This is a very high-end access point.  My old XPS M1210 using a 4965AGN card had no issues (and continues to have no issues) connecting to this access point using N speeds.

My Studio XPS 16, is a completely different story.  I had my router to configured to run with B/G/N Mode, and WPA2 encryption.  I'm running the latest Intel Drivers for Vista x64.  I never actually "lose" the connection, but there is definitely something wrong.

For some reason, my laptop stays associated to the AP, but very soon after, my actual connection suffers from all sorts of errors from bandwidth issues to dropped packets, to full-out website and data transfer time-outs, which makes using the laptop wirelessly impossible.

The only change I have made is dropping the router down to B/G mode, and immediately my connection issues went away.  That being said, I still lost the benefits of using N.  This is definitely an INTEL problem, that evidently hasn't been fixed in the latest drivers.  This card is useless on N.

Any help is appreciated if anyone out there is running a setup like mine!

To cut this discussion: as I earlier described, I had the same problems. Last week, I upgraded to Windows7 x64 ultimate. Problems with the Intel card even seemed to get worse. On Wednesday, i called the DELL support for a new Intel WLAN card, which was in my postbox on Thursday (!). Changed it - works! (on all three wireless routers, I have).

So my conclusion: it is a hardware problem. Change your cards!

Regards

Claus

PROBLEM SOLVED.  In my case, I have Netgear Router WNR2000 .  It used to work fine with WEP but I changed the security to WPA to be more secure.  That's when I started having problems with the Intel 5300 connection.  It would disconnect me everything 15 secs or so.  Then it would reconnect.  If the connection was strong, then it may stay up a little longer.  At first, I thought it was Control Point.  Dell Service helped me to remove it.   But I was still getting disconnected.  By the way, I have the latest intel drivers.  Changing to use maximum performance on the battery power did not help.  So I went to the router configuration and there was a setting that allow for combination of both WPA and WPA2.  I used that and left the password intact.  So all my other laptops (having non-intel wireless card) still worked.   

Hi

I'm having similar problems to those desribed with a 5100 intel wifi card in a latitude 4300. The only reliable connection I can get is right next to the router, otherwise the connection drops and I can't reconnect.

I've tried adjusting the power management button as suggested on this thread and updating drivers/frimware etc but nothing is working.

Can anyone suggest a definite fix? I've spent at least 2 hours on to Dell support who are doing their best to tell me that are no known issues......they obviuosly don't read their community forums...

Thanks

It realy seems to be an "Intel with Dell" problem. I had my Wifi card changed by Dell support. Same configuration. But the drop out behavior seems to be different. But full performance could only be achieved when disabling the bluetooth adapter.

But I have two similar notebooks (exactly the same configuration) in my office which have no porblems at all with its wifi connection...

Regards 

I have a Dell E6400 running Win XP with the Intel 5100 card.  I was having the same problem with the wireless card.  I could get connected but within 10 minutes my connection would drop.  I was able to fix the problem but going to Dell's website and downloading the lastest driver (v13.0.0.107).  Here is the link:

I have Apple Airport Extreme Access Points that work fine with everything except the new Dell laptops with the Intel WiFi 5300 AGN. I have to use WPA2 Personal for security reasons. I can't disable Bluetooth or set it to not use N because that would affect the users elsewhere. I have tried right out of the box systems, removing the DCP Connection manager, unchecking the boxes on the Power Management tab, upgrading to latest driver from Intel, nothing works. When will Dell and Intel come up with a fix for this. I expect it to work right out of the box and have paid for it so I want it fixed by them. I even worked with Dell support and they couldn't get it to work correctly.

Hi Bob,

We were seeing this issue consistently on a Latitude E6400 with the Intel 5300 AGN card when trying to hold a connection over WiFi.  We managed to diagnose it as a power management issue and resolved the problem by disabling the power management features.

Here is a walkthrough of the steps we followed, hopefully they will be helpful for both you and others in this thread:

http://theonbutton.com/2010/06/27/fix-dell-latitude-intel-5300-wifi-connection-issues/

Best regards,

Neil Berman

theONbutton

I've been researching this problem _forever_ ! Tried the power control slider and all that other stuff. Finally, I think your suggestion to change the thing to just use 802.11b / g has done the trick. I was finally noticing that the connection dropping seems to depend on whether my computer is running on battery or not and whether I had it set to Max Performance or Max Battery in the power management quick settings. With this change though it all seems to be fixed (for the past 15 min anyway). Thanks hdxtac.

Just wanted to let you know that I have a very similar disconnection issue with an Intel Wifi Link 5300 AGN on a LG laptop and WRT54G running DD-WRT firmware. Seems that the issue occurs only sometimes, maybe from 30 mins up to a few hours between disconnect. I then need to repair the connection to get it back to work. I think this problem appeared with the latest Intel WIFI drivers. I am using Win XP SP3.

Regards,

Anguel

Sorry to drop in on a very old thread but we recently ran into this issue in our environment when we began doing upgrades and yearly maintenance to our laptops. The issue was occurring with the 13.3A08 Dell package (Intel 15.3.1 version). We dropped our users back to Dell's 13.0A01 package and it began working great. Hope this helps someone out there.