steven, it can be permanently disabled in the bios (press F2 at the dell screen).  you can turn off its radio in windows by pressing FN F2

Rebooted. Signal strength low. Unchecked the 'default' checkbox on the Transmit Power settings. Signal strength excellent.

So, the new drivers still have the same bug.

I don't think Intel is ever going to fix this.

Thanks. I just loaded the new drivers.

Had to manually reset the Transmit Power as usual.

Logged off and logged back on. Transmit power reverted to default (as usual), but with excellent signal strength without further resetting. (Using the b band).

Might be better. Hope so!

i downloaded that link file for 2200bg. i didnt install it yet still a little nervous to do so. let me know how reliable it is. also if i get an linksys wireless network card that slides in the side of the laptop how do i disable the internal intel card. i dont want conflicts between the intel and the internal nic (eithernet card) and the slide in card. seems to many network items on the laptop. I might also try to call dell for maybe to send out a new intel centrino card.

the drivers you are referring to were part of package 9.x.x.0 I believe.  check the actual driver version in my above post and you will see that they are more recent .

specifically the driver version is now .31 instead of .25

Message Edited by NemesisDB on 08-21-2005 12:15 PM

that's weird ...  I've noticed the following:

1) that if I change ANY setting manually to something that is the default value, then it will appear with the default box checked later.

2) i haven't had to redo the transmit power tab since the .25 drivers or these new ones.  i get excellent stregth without doing anything.  i definitely used to have to do this though

3) are you using the ProSet software? I thought it helped make things more stable, although I was very relunctant to use it at first/

4) lastly, I had vastly different experianes (with the .25 drivers) at home vs at college.  in a single access point environment the card performs fine.  when it had 5 access points with the same SSID in a noisy environment, it was a very unreliable card.

The beta 9.0.2.1 has got to be an earlier release than the 9.0.2.25 on the Intel site.

I'm not using the ProSet utilities (though I have tried them).

With every driver version I've tried (and I have tried just about everything available), the Transmit Power setting must be manually reset each time the device starts up.

I think Intel has this thing about conserving battery power or some such. Otherwise, I see no reason to reduce the Transmit power and to deny the user the ability to set it at maximum (and keep it there).

have you changed the power management setting?

I keep it set to maximum (and it stays set).