Dell/Broadcom 1505 wireless card problem

System: Inspiron 1520

Bluetooth installed: No

Wireless Card: Dell 1505 802.11n Draft

Hi, all. I am having some difficulty with the Dell 1505 wireless card. Most days, it works fine. Sometimes, however, it will disconnect from my home network, and no amount of power cycling the router, resetting TCP/IP and network settings, or disabling the wireless card can bring the connection back. I just have to wait it out until the card decides it's ready to reaquire the network, which has been anywhere from 30 seconds, to over 5 minutes. Reinstalling the latest 1505 drivers, lowering the router's speed to 802.11g standards, and changing various settings have had no effect.

My home router is a Netgear RangeMax Next WNR834B v2. I don't think the router is to blame, due to various reasons.

• Each time the connection is dropped, I check on the status of the router, and everything's good.
• I eventually bought a Linksys-Ultra RangePlus WRT160N, in order to run some tests. Within 10 minutes, the wireless connection was dropped, just as with the Netgear.
• The card functions perfectly within an 802.11g environment. Both the school I work at, and the one I attend, have different 802.11g networks, and I have never lost connection while at either location.
• Finally, I have had my notebook computer hardwired to the router through an Ethernet cable for months, and my desktop for over a year; again, the connection has yet to be dropped.

I have read other stories of people having the same exact same problem with this card. I saw the sticky in this forum about disabling the Bluetooth collaboration, however, my notebook does not have Bluetooth installed. I will still give it a try, however.

Does anyone have a suggestion or something they've already tried? Perhaps this is just because of the unfinalized standards, and a fix will come next year. I also am not sure of what to look for to see if my router and wireless card are "compatible" in terms of their Draft N quirkiness.