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Dell Wireless 1500 and Draft-N - Page 4

post #61 of 139
8/15/06 at 3:32am
Yay! They both shipped. Will have them either Tuesday or Wednesday.
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post #62 of 139
8/15/06 at 12:42pm
I tried to order as well -- sold out as of Tuesday AM....
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post #63 of 139
8/15/06 at 12:58pm
W00t! I can go pick them up from 2pm CST. I was out when DHL came to deliver them. That was fast! Less than 24 hours to my door. I'll be reporting back later!

Sorry they're sold out for you, carlab.
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post #64 of 139
8/15/06 at 5:07pm
How can you be hitting 235mb/s??? What hard drive do you have that can write information that fast.
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post #65 of 139
8/15/06 at 5:31pm
Don't know about your drive Stormlifter, but my SATA 60GB 7200RPM clocks in at a nice 304mb/s (or 38MB/s)
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post #66 of 139
8/15/06 at 5:42pm
OK just got one of my N cards installed -into my M1710. First impressions = bad.

Yeah yeah the thing reads 240mbit. Big whoop. Tried transferring a 500mb file to my XBOX (which is hard-wired to the N router (Netgear WNR834B) and I topped out at 2.5 mbytes/second, often closer to 1.9 Mbytes. This is from just downstairs, a maximum of around 50 feet from the router. Sure, it's a little faster than what I was getting with the 3945 G card, but only 0.5 mbyte at best.

I then went upstairs, right NEXT to the router, and my speeds barely increased to 2.7mbytes/s.

So no real joy there.

Got the other N card installed, in my M1210, and thought I'd do a file transfer from the M1710 to the M1210.

Result?

Rubbish. Same thing.

Verdict: Waste of time.

Ah well. I knew I was buying into something unfinished. What amazes me is that there really is NO point to Draft-N.
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post #67 of 139
8/15/06 at 6:07pm
Wow, that sucks. Thats equivalent to approx. 21Mbps... My Pre-N RangeMax240 (WPNT834) router with the RangeMax Pre-N PCMCIA card absolutely blows that speed away... From a desktop machine directly wired to the router, to my I9300 with the Pre-N card I can SUSTAIN 90-95Mbps transfers all day long. I would have been almost positive that the mini-pci version could at LEAST keep up with that!

Here is some info from the Dell Support driver page...

http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=171897

Quote:
Important Information

Before installing this device, be sure to update your system with the lastest FlashBIOS from http://support.dell.com.

This device should only be used on the following systems: XPS™ M1210, XPS™ M1710, XPS™ M2010, Inspiron™ E1405, Inspiron™ 640m, Inspiron™ E1505, Inspiron™ 6400, Inspiron™ E1705, Inspiron™ 9400.
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post #68 of 139
8/15/06 at 6:17pm
Already using the latest bioses on both systems, though thanks for the tip. I'm really disappointed.

On the plus side though, web-pages, surprisingly, are most DEFINITELY snappier to open, running at 40mhz vs 20mhz (for b/g) perhaps being the reason?
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post #69 of 139
8/15/06 at 8:27pm
Something there cant be right....
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post #70 of 139
8/15/06 at 8:58pm
Just got back with the Belkin N1 Draft-N router, and it has even worse performance. Back that goes to Best Buy...
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post #71 of 139
8/15/06 at 9:18pm
Hey, believe me, I'd love to be doing something wrong, but it doesn't appear to be the case. The card says it's running at 270mbit (or 135mbit, or whatever it fluctuates and says....) in 40mhz mode. There's really not all that much to set up....
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post #72 of 139
8/15/06 at 9:38pm
Also, there are LOTS of options for the 1500 card in device manager. I mean, what is "Afterburner Mode," and why is it disabled? Do I want to enable it, etc?

Lots of options. Anyone?
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post #73 of 139
8/15/06 at 9:41pm
I got a quote from Dell for the card:

<TABLE style="WIDTH: 650px; HEIGHT: 154px" borderColor=#0 height=154 cellSpacing=0 borderColorDark=#0 cellPadding=0 rules=all width=650 borderColorLight=#0 border=1><TBODY><TR style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; LINE-HEIGHT: 1; PADDING-TOP: 0px"><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 4px; PADDING-LEFT: 4px; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.5">Card,Wireless,Minicard,DW1500 Multiple Output (NJ449)</TD><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 4px; PADDING-LEFT: 4px" align=middle>1</TD><TD align=right>$45.95 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
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post #74 of 139
8/16/06 at 10:58am
Does the 1500 have two or three antenna connectors?
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post #75 of 139
8/16/06 at 12:57pm
Just 2, like the other wireless cards. Black and white cables.
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post #76 of 139
8/16/06 at 3:09pm
I just tried the Buffalo N router as well. It performed better than the Belkin for me, but still not as good as the Netgear WNR834B. The Netgear is the best of the N routers if you ask me, and Netgear is good at releasing firmwares too.

The Buffalo wouldn't even let me update the firmware. It came with 1.42, and there's a 1.43 BETA on the Buffalo website, and it kept saying invalid firmware when I tried to update it. That said, 1.42->1.43 might not be that much of a difference.

And THAT being said, all the routers are not very good at this time, even with the Netgear being the best.

But hey, maybe it's the Dell card being crap? Who knows?
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post #77 of 139
8/17/06 at 7:31pm
Ok. There's DEFINITELY something amiss with these Dell N cards. I just got yet ANOTHER router to test, the Linksys WRT300N, and the Dell 1500 cards REFUSE to connect any faster than 54mbit. This results in about 2mb/s transfer rates. If I could get connected at 270mbit, maybe I'd actually get some more decent speeds over my network?

It's weird because the card's software says it's running at 40mhz, but it's not 270mbit. Gah!

*EDIT*

Bizarrely, switching the router from "N-ONLY" mode to "Mixed Mode" fixed this problem.

Final results: Not awful. But not as consistent as the Netgear. The Linksys seemed to "stall" on file transfers, - that is, stop transferring for a second, and then continue. The Netgear is the best N router on the market, and heck, I've pretty much tested them all!

*EDIT*

OK this is REALLY weird. When moving my Logitech G7 around while transferring files, the transfer rate PLUMMETS. I've tested this on both my M1210 and my M1710, with DIFFERENT Logitech G7 wireless mice, and the results is the same. Is that weird, or is that weird? Literally, the transfer rate essentially STOPS when moving the wireless mouse around. Touchpad has no effect, though...

Weird!

At the end of the day, firmware updates are needed, though I suspect the culprit here is the Wireless 1500 cards. It just amazes me (sort of....) that Dell reps could say this technology was worth releasing. I'm getting around 3mbytes/second transfer rates with the systems right next to each other and right next to the router (the Netgear). That's how many Mbit? 24?
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post #78 of 139
8/17/06 at 9:24pm
William, please check out my post: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread169603.html

Also, you might want to try setting up both your Wireless-N laptops in Adhoc mode to see what kind of file transfer speeds u get then. My guess is that you're not going to get any faster than this (Adhoc) type setup...

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post #79 of 139
8/17/06 at 9:32pm
I responded to your post. Let's keep each other informed.

I'll try Adhoc mode and see what speeds I get. Give me a bit to set it up.

Will report back shortly!
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post #80 of 139
8/17/06 at 9:43pm
OK just tried. The 2 cards connect to each other at 11.0mbit, even when sitting next to each other. They don't even access the 40mhz band. So that's a big waste of time too.
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