Extremely Strange Wireless Problem

[buckdog05]

I am working on an extremely strange problem with the wireless connection on a Dell Studio Laptop 1737. Seemingly randomly, this laptop started having an unreliable wireless connection. Later in the day, it completely cut off. The owners of the laptop took the laptop to a neighbors house, and it connected to his wireless network without a problem.

They figured that their router was bad, so they replaced it. The replacement router didn't make a difference. The neighbor, along with another computer technician brought laptops to their house, and both laptops connected to the internet without a problem. The Studio Laptop 1737 still did not connect, so he installed a USB wireless adapter. This fixed the problem for one day, but then the connection stopped working. The technician thought the problem might have been caused by Windows Vista, so he upgraded (did upgrade, not clean install) to Windows 7.

This didn't solve the problem the internal adapter, but since then the wireless adapter has worked in the computer, although the computer has not been moved since it started working with Windows 7 out of fear of the connection being lost.

I searched on Dell's website, and an updated driver for the wireless adapter for the 32-bit version of Windows 7 does not seem to exist. The 32-bit Windows Vista driver installer package does not install on Windows Vista.

I checked for 2.4GHZ cordless phones, and none are in the house. The network has been tried with and without WPA security. I've tried changing the name and channel of the wireless network.

We are scared that if we send the computer to Dell for service, they will say that nothing is wrong with it, because the internal wireless works at neighbors houses and at a public place, and I can not possibly figure out why the laptop wouldn't work here but it does work at other locations.

The desktop computer that is wired up to the network works fine, and my iPhone works fine when connected to their wireless network.

Do you have any possibly ideas as to how to fix this issue? Have you ever seen anything even remotely like this?

Thank you!

[bonestonne]

pop open the laptop and check the internal wireless card. the antenna may have become loose, or the card itself may not be seated properly.

If all else fails, replace the internal card, should be maybe $30 at the most if you do your research. or call up dell, say you have a faulty wireless card and request a replacement (only if the laptop is still under warranty).

if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, then it is a duck.

if other computers work fine, then naturally, the problem lies within.

[GrofLuigi]

I've seen some hardware combinations (in this case wireless card and router) that won't work together no matter what, but work fine with other equipment. Maybe the replacement router was also "incompatible" with the card?

In my neighborhood, with two different laptops I see two totally different groups of wireless networks. <- Edit: Same channel and everything, of course.

Also, turn off all power management for the wireless network card and play with its other (advanced) parameters - there can be many of them, so just type the name of the parameter in Google.

GL

Edited November 8, 2009 by GrofLuigi