Dell Mini's n adapter can't find my 5G radio.

[Tom62]

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?

 

[ccatlett1984]

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.

 

[ccatlett1984]

According to Atheros's own site, that wifi card only supports 2.4Ghz band.
Overview

But they do list it as 802.11n, which i thought was 5ghz band only.

 

[Tom62]

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!