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I think I have a defective wireless card

post #1 of 8
7/30/07 at 12:09am
Thread Starter 
I think my new Inspiron 1420 has a defective wireless card.

My computer's wireless internet connection to my router works just fine for about 15 minutes and then the connection cuts out. When I hover over the taskbar icon with my mouse, it says, "Limited Network Connectivity." Then, after a minute or two, the The taskbar icon changes to a red X and says "Not Connected," and I am unable to connect to the internet.

When I check Network Connections, Wireless Network Connection is permanently disabled. Even when I right-click the Wireless Network Connection and click Enable, it remains in a disabled state.

I have tried Windows Vista's "Diagnose and repair." I have also tried uninstalling and reinstalling Intel's 3945 Wireless ABG software from my laptop's driver page on Dell's web site. Nothing works.
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post #2 of 8
7/30/07 at 5:43pm
Not sure that it's your WiFi card. I have been having the same problem recently with the wireless card built into my D620. It intermittently disconnects and indicates that new networks are available but won't reconnect to my network until I reboot. Connection time ranges from 30 minutes to over a day before disconnecting. Very irritating when I'm dialed into the work VPN.

I've searched and posted on the Dell forums to no avail.
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post #3 of 8
7/31/07 at 1:34am
Thread Starter 
It's got to be the card itself or the driver. Anyone else having this problem?
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post #4 of 8
9/19/07 at 3:03am
same thing happens to me on my university network I have an e1405 with 3945
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post #5 of 8
9/19/07 at 11:19pm
I was having that problem with XP. Doing all the windows updates and running Avast took care of it. I installed Vista about a month ago and haven't had that problem yet.
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post #6 of 8
9/20/07 at 3:27am
my 1405 w/ 3945 has been doing this a lot lately as well.
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post #7 of 8
9/21/07 at 12:17pm
Thread Starter 
I was eventually able to fix the problem by installing updated drivers from Dell.
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post #8 of 8
9/22/07 at 7:25pm
Sometimes this is caused by power saving features in the driver. From Device Manager uncheck "allow Windows to turn off this device to save power", inside the driver properties select any "Constant Awake Mode (CAM)", and set Tx power to max.
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