Inspiron 17R-5720 + 1704 Wireless issues

Question

Had this machine delivered from the Dell Factory Outlet last week. Powered it on and it died after 30 minutes.

New motherboard fitted the next morning (excellent service Dell) and off I went again. Started copying some files over the network but the speed slowed to dial up internet speeds (20k/s). I ended up plugging it into my wireless access point to copy which seemed to work fine.

Carried on using the laptop (Windows 8 Pro) but was getting intermittent lockups on web pages, disconnections from the router and when I ran the speedtest.net, instead of getting a 60-70Mb download I was getting a very variable 2-22Mb speed.

I updated all the drivers on the laptop, carried on testing but wasn't getting anywhere with the networking issue. I also double checked that both aerials were attached to the card (which they were).

I then downgraded (or is it upgraded) to Windows 7 Pro, installed all the drivers from the Dell site but had exactly the same issues. Speed was variable with 5Mb - 36Mb indicated on the network panel, disconnections, network pauses and generally low speed from both the internet and my own servers. The machine would also lose the connection under hibernation and would require a power down and reboot before I could use the wireless again.

I then Googled the problem and found a lot of other users on here having the same or similar issues. I did the changes to power settings, the Antenna diversity to Aux, bandwidth to 20/40Mhz and even the Lenovo driver update (which did nothing). My old Vostro 1510 was getting a full signal, 20Mb download and 18Mb upload while this machine sitting next to it was struggling to get a 4Mb download and 8Mb upload. The wife's Inspiron was getting the full signal (the 17R-5720 was showing half signal at that time) with a download speed of 55Mb/17Mb.

I tried copying files off the server (<1Gb) and 3 out of 4 failed. This happened on both Win7 and Win8.

I tolerated the problem today as I had to work on a project but after a couple of hours of the internet pausing, I started getting disconnects from the router. When reconnecting, the internet was unresponsive but disabling the wireless with FN+F2, waiting a bit then enabling it sorted it. During this time, no other devices in the property (6 machines) had issues. Finally, the wireless wouldn't work at all although showing as connected so I've given up with it and plugged in a wireless dongle.

With the dongle, I've been using this machine for 4 hours now. No disconnections, full signal and download speed (62Mb/18Mb). Full network download speed, and it's all running perfectly.

I can only assume that I have either a dodgy Dell 1704 wireless adapter or that the firmware/drivers supplied by Dell have issues. I'm not the only one on the forums to have these exact same problems so I'm guessing it could be either.

Having already had the motherboard on this machine fail 30 minutes after delivery, I'm not feeling the Dell love at the moment. This is my 8th machine from the Dell outlet (fourth personal purchase) and the only one I've had issues with.

Are Dell going to admit to issues with the 1704 card ? Should I just return this machine and purchase from another manufacturer in the future ? I'll be contacting Dell tomorrow (it's nearly 10pm here now) but wanted to see if anyone had any other ideas ?

BBDom · Answer

For reference, the driver installed is the 6.20.55.51

BBDom · Answer

Today I thought I'd give it another chance. Booted up with the internal wireless enabled and three minutes later the wireless froze, the signal dropped and I lost all network connectivity.

Definitely something wrong here.

DELL-Amogh G · Answer

Hi BBDom,

I regret for the inconvenience. You may try to make the following changes to the wireless card settings. Please follow the steps below:

Open Device Manager
Expand Network Adapters, right click the wireless card and choose Properties
Click the Advanced tab
Disable 802.11b Preamble to Long
Change Receive Buffers to 300
Change Transmit Buffers to 500
Click the Power management tab
Uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power

Hope this helps. Keep me posted with the results. I will be glad to assist further.

BBDom · Answer

Copied a file from the server to the laptop. The servers are connected to each other via Gigabit ethernet and to the router via 100Mb ethernet. The router is a TP-Link 300Mb router.

I averaged 2.5MB/s speed for a 1.1Gb file.

I then went into the setting and changed the bandwidth capability to 20/40Mhz and my connection is now showing as 11.0Mbs in the network panel. Tried to copy the same file and the network bombed out almost straight away and lost the connection to the router and network. The card reconnected to the network and downloaded the same test file at around 2.8-3MB/s with constant pauses. The final download speed was 2.55Mb/s. Speedtest.net 31/17Mb/s

Plugging in the TP-Link TL-WN821N adapter gives the following results (I appreciate the 821N is a 300Mb adapter):

6.5-7Mb/s download from the network (no pauses)

Speedtest.net 63/18Mb

BBDom · Answer

Ok - the only thing that made sense in your above post was the Power Management tab bit - the other settings don't seem to relate to my card.

I've totally removed the drivers and reinstalled them with the Dell provided ones from the download section. Here are the settings as default on my card. The items in brackets are other options available. I am current showing connection rates varying from 5.5Mb to 58.5Mbs. Speedtest.net site reporting 30/17 download/upload (capable of 65/18 on a wired machine).

802.11h+d Loose 11h (Strict 11h)

Antenna Diversity Auto (Aux)

AP Compatibility Mode High Performance (Broader Compatibility)

Bandwidth Capability 11b/g 20MHz (11b/g 20/40MHz)

Bluetooth Collaboration Auto (Disable or Enable)

BSS Mode 802.11n Mode (802.11b Only or 802.11g Mode)

BT-AMP Enabled (Disabled)

Fragmentation Threshold 2346

IBSS 54g(tm) Protection Mode Auto (disabled)

IBSS Mode 802.11b/g Auto (802.11b Only or 802.11b/g/n Auto)

Locally Administered MAC Address Not present

Minimum Power Consumption Enabled (disabled)

PLCP Header "Auto (Short/Long)" (Long)

Priority & VLAN Priority & VLAN Disabled (Priority & VLAN Enabled / Priority Enabled / VLAN Enabled)

Rate (802.11b/g) Best Rate (Lots of options from 1-54)

Roam Tendency Moderate (Aggressive / Conservative)

Roaming Decision Default (Optimise bandwidth / Optimise distance)

RTS Threshold 2347

Wake-Up Mode Magic & WakeUp Frame (All / Loss of Link / Magic Packet / None / Wake up Frape / Magic Pkt & Link Loss )

WMM Auto (disabled / enabled)

WZC IBSS Channel Number 11(20MHz) (Channels 1-13)

XPress (TM) Technology Disabled (Enabled)

BBDom · Answer

Rebooted - ran speedtest.net again.

Hit 33Mb/s then slowly started going down in speed, the icon in the network panel changed to disconnected and I've lost all connectivity to the internet and LAN on the internal 1704 card. The control panel shows it's still connected to the router but it's not working at all. Currently posting this reply with the TP-Link dongle plugged in.

BBDom · Answer

Disabled the onboard WLAN with FN+F3, waited 10 minutes then re-enabled it. It worked for a couple of minutes - just long enough to download a couple of emails then locked up - the taskbar was showing as connected to both the internet and the router but I had no access to either the LAN or the WAN.

BBDom · Answer

I'll have a play with it tomorrow - I've already done all of the above before reinstalling the driver but I'll give it another go with the fresh driver install.

PudgyOne · Answer

BBDom,

Please continue with DELL-Amogh G

What happens when you change the Antenna Diversity from Auto to Aux?

Try these tweaks....

Start, control panel, device manager. Click on Network and then right click on your wireless adapter, left click properties, power management. Uncheck the box, allow computer to turn off this device to save power.

Go to the power options, and changed the Wireless Adapter Setting, from Maximum Power Setting to Maximum Performance.

Rick

PudgyOne · Answer

BBDom,

Have read people using the drivers from the website you mentioned above has given some good results.

I have made some notes, as they become available for Recommended Wireless Router Settings WPS can be an issue with some adapters and the note below about Coexistance may also help. I do not use the firewall in my wireless router. The computers all have firewalls, especially if you take them to a public WiFi, you should be protected.

Rick

BBDom · Answer

Ok - had a bit of time to try the changes you suggested RockSt☆r-Rick K

Power cycled the machine just in case after changing the aerial to Aux and the power settings. Just done a speedtest.net and got 5.3Mb down and 8.5Mb up - not good. While typing this reply, I thought I'd do another test and lost internet connectivity before I'd even clicked on the test button. Inssider shows no issues with channels during this time and my connection came back up on it's own after 20-30 seconds. Repeated speedtest and it's 32/10. Again, while typing this part of the reply I've lost internet and LAN and it's not come back this time. I have a yellow exclamation mark on the wireless icon on the taskbar,

The 1.1Gb test file is copying from the server at 1.1Mb/s - 1.6Mb/s with lots of pauses.

I may add that I'm an IT professional having run my own IT business supporting end users and businesses for the past 20 years so I'm not exactly "green" on computer issues. As I type this, the yellow mark has vanished but still no internet and a minute later it's back ......

Speeds are all over the place. Connection is terrible, My Vostro 1510 on wireless G hasn't lost a connection for months. The wifes Inspiron next to me is fine with full speeds (Intel Wireless N) and no disconnects. The other numerous wireless access points and machines have zero problems. It's just this new laptop that has an issue.

BBDom · Answer

And the internal wireless has gone again - showing as connected in the taskbar but cannot ping anything on the LAN or WAN. I was just browsing at the time - nothing strenuous at all so back on the USB dongle with the internal (or is that infernal) card disabled.

Do Dell accept Laptops back in pieces under the DSRs ...... ?

BBDom · Answer

My router is set up correctly (and securely) - I host my own web and email servers (Linux based) as well as remote backup facilities for numerous clients. There are 12 machines here 6 of which access the machine over the LAN and the other 6 devices wirelessly. The only device that has an issue is this new laptop on the 1704 card and this exhibits exactly the same issues as many others are having. This laptop has exhibited this behaviour from a factory fresh WIndows 8 installation then again with a new install of Windows 7 (from scratch - not from a Dell disk).

I've just about exhausted any "user error" from this end ...

BBDom · Answer

Ok - giving up for the night. Uninstalled all drivers and put on an earlier driver (.49) which made the problem even worse.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2769683149.png

I'll put the later driver back on tomorrow then call Dell tech support again to see what they suggest.

BBDom · Answer

Back to the newest driver, same issues regardless of settings.

Tried another access point (firewalled through a Linux server / Squid3 / Dansguardian etc) and it worked, briefly. After a period of time the speed slowed right down with long pauses between data transfers.

About to email Dell support a link to this thread.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Inspiron 17R-5720 + 1704 Wireless issues

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