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very poor laptop wifi performance

C

cubby1223

Lifer
I'm trying to upgrade an Inspiron 1420 to resell. Fresh install of Windows 7, no virus/malware on the machine.

Everything has gone perfectly, all except for the wireless performance. Connected by hard wire the laptop can transfer files with other computers at the full 100mbps, and pull files down from the internet at its full 70mbps. But when I connect by wifi, speeds are capped at around 4mbps. Not good. (and yes, other devices get full speed by wifi). And, latest device drivers from Windows Update were installed.

I have a replacement wifi card on order from ebay, $6 is cheap enough to try it out.

In the mean time, is there anything else I could be checking out to try and fix the performance?


(oh, I took the laptop in because virus & malware had completely trashed the existing Vista install, and it had been sitting unused for over a full year - in other words, I don't know if the wireless was working fine on Vista or not, the laptop would lock up trying to start Windows)
 
Exactly what wifi card are you using in that old laptop? Without knowing the hardware nobody can give you an intelligent answer. The other thing about swapping wifi cards is that the new card must be supported by the bios white list or it will not work. I recently swapped the old card out of my alienware with the intel 7260ac which is on the white list and works great.
 
Dell Wireless 1505, with a broadcom chip.

I want to go with an intel-based card, if this is a driver fault (Dell really doesn't support this laptop past Vista 32-bit). The official intel-based option is only wireless-g. Taking a chance on an intel WiFi 5300 and if it works, great! It was pulled from an HP, so maybe not, thanks for the info on bios whitelists, I don't normally need to do this type of work on laptops, did not know that. It was only $6 so not a big deal cost-wise, just it's yet more time devoted to working on this thing.

I'm really hoping it's not the antennae wiring at fault, that's going to be an effort to replace.




update: I must have googled wrong either, the official intel-based wifi card meant for this laptop is wireless-n, I put in a purchase for one of them (only $5).

Still just putting the question out there if there's anything I can try in the mean-time to help fix the wireless speeds.
 
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