Hello and hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I can really use some help with a wireless network connectivity issue I'm having with a 2 month old Dell Vostro 1510.

I have 2 laptops sitting side-by-side on my desk here at home. A Toshiba A70 approx 3 years old and the Dell Vostro 1510. Both are running WIN XP SP 3, and use wireless connections to a D-Link DI 713P wireless router connected to a cable modem. Up until 3 days ago, my Vostro was running merrily along with no connection issue. All of a sudden the wireless connection dropped and I can't get it back. In the meantime, my Toshiba machine a foot away from it has no problem with its wireless connection to the same router.

This is what I've done so far to troubleshoot the issue with the Dell Vostro:

- release/renew IP - renews IP, wireless icon in systray shows connected but no internet, can't ping router either.
- turned wireless transmitter off/on
- rebooted cable modem and router - rebooted laptop - ipconfig shows IP assigned - tried to ping router again - times out
- Using device manager, uninstalled/reinstalled the wireless (Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card) - wireless icon shows connected after a few seconds, however same problem.
- Dell wireless network utility shows my wireless network, among others - removed my wireless network from the list and reconnected to it - re-entered WEP key - shows wireless connection reestablishing, then shows 'connected' - I checked for valid IP again - same problem.
- checked TCP/IP config on wireless connection - standard default settings are ok - tried assigning static IP rather than dynamic - same problem
- ran ipconfig /flushdns/registerdns
- ran winsock fix
- connected the Vostro directly to the cable modem and internet works fine.
- ran virus scan in safe mode - nothing found

Can someone suggest something? I need a wireless connection to these machines, wired is not an option. My rounter is very old, however my Toshoba laptop wireless is fine. GRRRRRR!

cheers,

bart

Hi bart

hmm, even this Vostro notebook is pretty new, I would go for a complete system test of that notebook (not that Dell WLAN test tool!) cause Dell will ask you if you already have done so.


This sounds like a broken WLAN card....We're running Dell notebooks in our company too and there'd been two of them which had a 'bad' solder connection.

My advice: Due to the warranty contact Dell user support tell em your S-TAG, your problem and the results of your tests. They'll help you.. I'm sure about that.

Regards
B. Udo

I've had very good luck with Dell laptops up until now but I won't be surprised if that's the problem. I'll do the system test as you suggest and get on the phone with Dell support...I was hoping not to have to go that route.

Cheers, and thanks for the input.

Me again bart

won't be a problem to change that WLAN adapter. Open one cover, unplug the adapter at two connections and insert a new one the opposite way.... finished.

Good luck when contacting Dell support...
B.Udo

Just like to mention:

" re-entered WEP key" ...WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is flawed, not secure...it is broken long ago...
http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/isaac/wep-faq.html

" it takes just three seconds to extract a 104-bit WEP key from intercepted data using a 1.7-GHz Pentium M processor. The necessary data can be captured in less than a minute, and the attack requires so much less computing power than previous attacks that it could even be performed in real time by someone walking through an office."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...ticleId=9015559


Please use WPA
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3552826
http://techdir.rutgers.edu/wireless.html

tks Sentinel - I'm comfortable with replacing hardware components on laptops. Chachazz - tks to you as well. As for WEP, I'm aware that it's not that secure anymore and can be easily compromised. My router is quite old and only supports WEP. Since it was working fine , I didn't feel the need to upgrade. Once I get this immediate issue resolved I'll go out and splurge on a new one. BTW, something I did not think to do is check for wireless network driver corruption, so I uninstalled the driver and downloaded and installed a fresh one - same issue, only other possibility is the card itself.

Cheers,

B