Dell Laptop with Windows 7 and SLOW wireless

Ok, so here's the problem and I can't find an answer to this anywhere so I joined up and hope someone has at least heard of this. Thanks in advance if you have some clarity to add.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 Laptop and stuck windows 7 RTM 32 bit on it. All was well but now connecting wirelessly is slow. Like slower then 56k modem slow. I have a Dell 802.11n wireless mini card installed that works PERFECTLY under windows XP. I was getting 80 % signal strength under Win 7 and getting 1 mbps where as in XP I was getting 78 to 100 mbps with the same signal strength. Oh and ethernet works perfectly fine.

For a time I was able to download the corresponding vista driver from dell and then replace the driver that win 7 automatically installs for it, then flipped the card switch off and on and it would work like it should for a while, but then reverted to the same slow network speeds once the laptop was reset or turned off and on. Now flipping the switch or re-installing doesn't work either. I've tried resetting the router, no go and none of my other computers or products have a problem with it. I've tried doing a few things suggested in other posts, like assigning a static ip, disabling ipv6, etc... Nothing has worked.

I'd love someone who knows what it may be or has heard of this precise problem, although I think I may be stuck waiting until Win 7 makes it debut in Oct and until Dell releases a proper 7 driver for it.

Laptop: Dell Inspiron 1520
Wireless Card: Dell brand mini draft 802.11n card
Router: DLink DGL-4500 draft 802.11n
Windows 7 32bit RTM

bday456 said:

Ok, so here's the problem and I can't find an answer to this anywhere so I joined up and hope someone has at least heard of this. Thanks in advance if you have some clarity to add.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 Laptop and stuck windows 7 RTM 32 bit on it. All was well but now connecting wirelessly is slow. Like slower then 56k modem slow. I have a Dell 802.11n wireless mini card installed that works PERFECTLY under windows XP. I was getting 80 % signal strength under Win 7 and getting 1 mbps where as in XP I was getting 78 to 100 mbps with the same signal strength. Oh and ethernet works perfectly fine.

For a time I was able to download the corresponding vista driver from dell and then replace the driver that win 7 automatically installs for it, then flipped the card switch off and on and it would work like it should for a while, but then reverted to the same slow network speeds once the laptop was reset or turned off and on. Now flipping the switch or re-installing doesn't work either. I've tried resetting the router, no go and none of my other computers or products have a problem with it. I've tried doing a few things suggested in other posts, like assigning a static ip, disabling ipv6, etc... Nothing has worked.

I'd love someone who knows what it may be or has heard of this precise problem, although I think I may be stuck waiting until Win 7 makes it debut in Oct and until Dell releases a proper 7 driver for it.

Laptop: Dell Inspiron 1520
Wireless Card: Dell brand mini draft 802.11n card
Router: DLink DGL-4500 draft 802.11n
Windows 7 32bit RTM

Check to see if win update has replaced the vista driver. If so un-install and hide the update so it doesnt download again

Ken

Thanks TGsoldier, It was a clean install since you can't upgrade from XP. I almost never do upgrades since I backup all my personal documents etc... and have a gigabit network to restore them quickly.

Zigzag, here's where I get a little cloudy. The driver may in fact be the same as the vista one that's on dells site. It has the same version number, but the one on dell's site says it's from 2007, while the one that 7 puts on says it's from 2008. Although as I indicted, even after re-installing the one from dell website it still no longer works properly now even though it has in the past. I'm about to give up. It's not even my lappy, it's my mom's. She's pleading with me to get that stupid pogo.com site up and working so she can play wordwomp...lol

Think it's definately a driver problem though? If so, it may not be worth the aggrevation to continue until a new driver is available.

Thanks guys, much appreciated. I'll try it out and letcha know.