Howdy - Recently bought a Dell Inspiron 1012 mini with an Atheros AR9285 802.11 b/g/n wireless adapter. When connecting to my home network, the card only recognizes the 2.4G radio on my Netgear dual band router - it can't find the 5G signal at all! I know the 5G radio works because it streams to our TV at that speed. Dell Support couldn't help me out. Anyone experience this or have any ideas?
Wifi issues can be a royal pain. Welcome to the forums btw, I suggest first looking to see if there is new firmware for your router. If there is newer firmware, i suggest you upgrade to it. Be sure you have the latest drivers from dell for your card, you might also look for drivers directly from atheros.
Chris, I took your advice and ran with it. Spoke to Dell Support after looking over the product spec sheet. I'm not a tech, but near as I can figure, the 802.11n claim is a specious representation. Apparently, the chip communicates at 2.4G and up to150mbps only, but can communicate with n routers. Dell says the speed of the connection is limited by the size of the mini's processor and memory, not the chip, and that the Ghz is just a broadcast frequency. (Though I wonder how the chip could find my router if it were not dual-band). So, I guess I'm stuck with it, though I might pick up some speed if I can shoe-horn more memory into the unit.
Thanks for your help. It got me onto the right answer, though it wasn't the one I hoped for. You've got a rep from me!
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