dell wireless 1450 USB network stuttering

Question

Hi,   I have a number of Dell PC's and a linksys b/g wireless router.   My dimension 4100 uses a Agere (AT&T) 802.11b card (PCI adapter for PCMCIA card plug in). My new XPS gen 4, uses a Dell 1450 USB 802.11b/g network adapter.   My problem is that the XPS network connection seems to 'stutter' -- meaning that I never fully drop a  network connection, the network seems to pause for a few seconds. Either with VPN tunnelling, or live games (Guild Wars), I constantly get a stutter every now and then.   The 4100 *never* has this problem. I've phsyically swapped the location of the machines just in case there is some interference that may be causing the issue. But I pretty much get 54 Mbps in the network connections dialog -- SNR ~50db. (signal -50db, noise -100db). The signal is excellent.   So my question to anyone reading is whether anyone has ever seen this phenomenom? Are there any work arounds? driver updates? Any kind of setting at all that would alleviate this?   It is a very, very annoying behavoir.   Thanks,   Wim

wimcolgate · Answer

... I should add that the driver version is 3.1.12.0 -- and that the 1450 actually supports a/b/g, but I only have b/g.   Wim

wimcolgate · Answer

I upgraded the 1450 driver to 3.1.14.0 -- behavior is the same -- no joy.   Wim

wimcolgate · Answer

After a live discussion with a technical specialist, we tried the USB adapter on my 4100 -- it too showed the same problem; the determination is that that adapter is faulty. Dell is sending a replacement adapter -- and I will report what happens here.

I 'saw' the pause/stutter happen using ping from the command shell -- which the tech used as the determining factor that infact what I was claiming was true.

For example:

C:\> ping -n 100 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255

Request timed out.

Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=255

Where my wireless router's IP is 192.168.1.1

Wim

wimcolgate · Answer

I got the replacement 1450 USB wireless adapter. Same results with ping.... (see below).

My final solution is to scrap this piece of junk, and buy a linksys PCI adapter for $50 (WMP54G).

Wim

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

wimcolgate · Answer

Addendum:   I installed the WMP54G adapter from linksys (its a V4 board). I ran the 'ping' test. curiously enough every 61 to 64 seconds, a single ping was >700ms! none ever timed out.   upgrading the linksys driver from 2.2.3.0 to 2.2.7.0 made the problem disappear completely. Now all pings are <5ms, normally <1ms.   So I suspect there is a fix that can be applied to the 1450 USB driver should Dell every sleuth out the problem with linksys; I believe it is just a incompatibility problem (or they got their drivers from the same source ;-)).   Wim

chrad44 · Answer

i am having the same problem with my linksys g router and the 1450 usb adapter. never quite drops the connection, but lags in games and slows to a crawl during speed test. then speeds back up to normal.     help

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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