You need to set the power management settings on the wireless network card to always supply full power (or never turn of the wireless card)  how these options are set depend on which wireless network card you have in that computer.

Steve

Thanks for responding. I have spent the last few days, tweaking the settings,but
nothing works.

I have an Intel PRO/Wireless ABG networking card, diabled power managment and
anything else that I could including the 10/100 card, the 1394 adapter, and
have set System Hibernate and sleep off.

I have another problem which may or may not be involved in the network problem.
The monitor remains on all time time, will not go into screen saver mode or
turn off.

I guess that I'll have to start screaming at Dell.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Al

Disabling the 10/100 card and the firewire port (1394) really does nothing to help.   In fact, it now eliminates many other troubleshooting modes.  I would suggest that you reinstall the disabled devices, then do a repair installation of Windows.  See the following:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Steve