Slow Wireless Connection

I haven't seen this issue.  You might check your power profile in Windows.  Maybe the slowdown you are noticing is the processor slowing down while on battery power?  As an experiment, you might try setting the power profile to "always on" and see if that has any effect.

What wireless are you using?

Thanks for the reply.

I'm telling you, it's the wierdest thing!  I can have the notebook inches from the router (netgear w/ dsl) and everything works great when running off AC power.  As soon as I switch to battery power, the internet browsing comes to a crawl/halt.  I have no idea why this might be.  I have a Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection and the connection strength is always "excellent".  I tried the power options to "always on" and the same thing happens. 

Anyone else w the Inspiron 700m notice anything like this??

What is the model number of the Netgear router?  Is there upgraded firmware available?  Do different channels make any difference?

What driver version of the Intel 2200 are you using?

Are you using Intel Proset to manage the connection, or Windows XP Zero Config?  If using Intel Proset, try opening the utility, clicking on the Adapter tab and setting the Power Management to "Manual" and "Maximum Performance".  I have no idea whether this will help, but it is worth a try.

Thanks for your help.  I changed channels and changed the settings to manual and max. performance just like you suggested, and guess what?  It works! Not sure which one it was that did it, but I'm now about to browse without having to have the notebook plugged in.  Hopefully it will continue to work...thanks again!

I have the exact same problem! I just got my 700m last night and when plugged into AC power it the wireless connection is lightning fast. As soon as I unplugged it, it was crawling... can you tell me what you did exactly so I can try the same thing when I get home from work?

Just wanted to thank the posters in this thread - it solved my problem. I had to change the Intel wireless network adapter settings to maximum - it was defaulted to minimum consumption under the 'power management' option to save battery life but it was causing major problems in my web browsing and networking. I made that change and upgraded the firmware on netgear 814v2 router and all is good now. Thanks!

I wanted to add a few more notes to help anyone else out who may have this same problem.

Problem: Dell Inspiron 700m with Netgear Wireless Router M814v2 works fine with network and web browsing when the AC power is plugged in but when it is running on batteries only, the internet slows considerably as does any network connectivity.

Solution: I called Dell support and they said there was a known issue with the Netgear Routers M614, M624, and M814 and their compatibility with the Intel Centrino chip. The firmware upgrades should fix this problem and you can get the upgrades at the netgear website. Before I performed the firmware upgrade, I actually fiddled around with the Intel Wireless Config Utility. Under the configuration options there is a power management setting (this is different that the power management setting under the desktop properties). By default, this setting was set to LOWEST - this means that during battery operation it maximizes power to the battery and minimizes power to the wireless adapter... well with the known issue with the netgear router it basically rendered the adapter useless. I changed the setting to HIGHEST - sending all the resources to the adapter and voila! - the internet was humming again on the battery power. The problem was that then what's the purpose of the centrino chip when you have to waste all the battery power to operate the wireless adapter and max efficiency. This is where the firmware upgrade comes in. After I upgraded the firmware and rebooted, I set the power management down to LOWEST and I had the same problem so I figured the firmware upgrade for the router had nothing to do with it. But after 1 day, I experimented again and slowly lowered the power setting down to LOWEST again and the internet still was lightning fast. Maybe the firmware took a few hours to kick in but now I have the wireless adapter running on lowest power consumption and the router firmware upgraded and everything is working great. The one other thing I should mention is that I did change my channel from 6 to 9.

Hope that helps anyone who is having this problem. This infuriated me for a whole night but this forum helped me out alot so I'm passing along all the information I have.

Thanks.
wahoo