New cheap Dell laptop offer (merged)

Woody

sicandar wrote:

anyone else have trouble wih their wireless card on th dell

Mine will sometimes find the wireless network and other times not. A couple of times it finds it half an hour later - i know the wireless signal is good as other computers picks it up fine and when it does get picked up by the dell the signal is strong.

YES. This was happening for me. I am coming to the conclusion that there may be some generic fault with the mini PCI WiFi card.

Derek_Duval

sicandar wrote:

anyone else have trouble wih their wireless card on th dell

Mine will sometimes find the wireless network and other times not. A couple of times it finds it half an hour later - i know the wireless signal is good as other computers picks it up fine and when it does get picked up by the dell the signal is strong.

No problem with mine, picks up even the weakest of signals. Loads better than my PDA.

iduncan

jess_skaterdude wrote:

oh thats what the problem is last night mine internet speed was varying from ultra fast to painstaking - seemingly at random! if i add my own pcima wireless card will that confuse it? or will i get a better signal

adding your own pcmcia card will definately confuse it.

As it doesnt have a PCMCIA slot!!

jess_skaterdude

iduncan wrote:

adding your own pcmcia card will definately confuse it.

As it doesnt have a PCMCIA slot!!

oh i c, I am a fool!

Sid_Harper

ExpressCard seems to be a new thing from the PCMCIA guys.

Expect cards in the future but not now.

If you want to upgrade the wireless, you can use a USB adaptor (ok - a bit fragile if you're moving the machine around, but it's the only way really).

marlowtech

Woody wrote:

YES. This was happening for me. I am coming to the conclusion that there may be some generic fault with the mini PCI WiFi card.

Sounds like there is a fault. I've had 4 of these and one of them had to go back with wifi intermittent fault...Dell were quite helpful about it though and the service was good...

talkshop

I noticed there are 2 wireless network indicators at bottom right of screen.

Even though one of them said no network, it still worked perfectly. The one with green bars always seems to work fine.

coolio_2

I ordered this as soon as it was posted by no email confirm yet. Anyone received anything?

sicandar

Hmmm phoned tech support who made me do full diagnostcs then asked me to get a screwdriver to open up the back - I told him to call me back as i did not have a screwdriver to hand - but really I thought it was a bit dodgy - anyway he never called me back

any suggestions what I should do now - send the laptop back? ask for money off? and there is a slot to the Left of the computer what is that if not pcmcia? should I ask them to send a wireless card for that instead?

real1314

...they will want you to open up the memory / mini-pci cover to check the wireless card that is in there and maybe check that it's properly seated, nowt to worry about, and you won't get dell supprt if you don't follow their resolution procedures, it's a bit like refusing to check if there's water in your kettle before complaining that you can't have a brew.

had no problems with mine, wireless is fine except when the microwave is on, but you'd expect that to cause problems, more to worry about from the microwave than the laptop.

bear in mind that distance, walls, other electrical devices can all affect wireless connections.