Dual band wireless on older Inspiron 1501

Question

I have an Inspiron 1501 (circa 2007) running Win 7. I have installed a new dual-band router (ASUS RT-N66U) in my house and need to set up this laptop to accommodate it (new access point). I think it has just a USB 1 port and standard Ethernet port. Was thinking of adding a USB 3.0 PCI card and then an wireless access point to that. Does this make sense? Any other suggestions? I found a StarTech 2 port ExpressCard USB 3.0 on the Dell website. Dell part A3337165 and Mfg Part ECUSB3S2. Again, does any of this make sense? Advice would be sincerely appreciated, including suggesting on the choice of wireless access point.

Philip_Yip · Answer

It has USB 2.0 and not 1.0. The wireless card and ethernet on the system should be fine, granted they aren't the best out there but personally I would preferentially spend the money on getting a SSD to speed up the performance of the entire system.

Billgw · Answer

thanks for the note. Your points are well taken. The Inspiron is used by my wife and mostly for word processing, so I do not need a screaming machine. The Inspiron did not come with a wireless card so I used a Linksys USB wireless receiver. I just upgraded the wireless router in my house to this Asus dual band job and now cannot connect the Inspiron to it. My sense is that the receiver does not support the new encryption methodology. The tray icon shows that the network is detected but when I type in the PW I get some kind of message that it can't connect. Hence my thought of getting a new wireless receiver.

Philip_Yip · Answer

The Inspiron 1501 should have came with a Broadcom Dell Wireless card installed by standard. If you can connect by Ethernet, theres usually some configuration page and you can change the settings of the router.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Dual band wireless on older Inspiron 1501