Two months ago I purchased a Dell Inspiron laptop through Walmart. I had issues connecting to the wireless in my home other than on the floor the router was located. I work in the IT field so I updated all the drivers, the BIOS, and checked the wireless settings – all were good. I thought it was my older router so I purchased a network extender for the other floor. However, when I started taking the laptop out of the house it would not connect to WiFi spots.

My first call to Dell I ended up with a Hardware Tech who thought the card was bad (and I agreed) but wanted me to reseat the WLAN card. No problem but it was late so I said I will do it the next day and call back. The net day I reseated the card and the issue remained. I called back and this time I got stuck with a Software Tech who refused to send me to hardware – said it was a software issue. I reviewed what the last tech said and after a 5 min remote session he said it was software settings and wanted me to spend $239 for a software warranty. I said I would call back.

The next day I purchased a USB WLAN card and installed – wireless worked great, no issues. I called Dell back and explained what I did. Tech said it was still software. I spoke to a supervisor. She was very condescending and instead her techs were right and it was software. I hung up.

Next day I purchased a new internal WLAN card. A week later it arrived, I installed, and the wireless works great. I turned off the network extender in the house and I can connected to WiFi spots. The first tech was right; it was hardware a hardware issue and there was no need to spend $239 for a software warranty.

 So, over a $25 WLAN card Dell lost a customer.