So as of late, I've been having some trouble with my XPS M1710. I brought it home for the winter break and I experienced some trouble connecting to our wireless network. Fine. I've had this problem with my previous laptop, and anything wireless in my house seems to love to play dead.

At this point i was sometimes able to connect to the internet for maybe an hour at a time. eventually it went down to half that, and steadily decreased to the point where 5 minutes after i connected, it would die again. Herein lies another problem. even if i could detect the network, if i tried to reconnect after the disconnect, it would fail. i would have to go into manage network connections, disable the wireless and then re-enable it (with all of vistas god ****ed permission prompts along the way)

I just assumed my house was wireless hell, and shrugged it off. I tried stealing our neighbors wifi (like my mom's laptop) but i still had the same problem, though my moms laptop works fine...

the ONLY exception to this is (and im only realizing this now) when I logged onto yahoo messenger to webcam with my friends. i don't recall my wireless EVER dieing on me while i was using my webcam. very, very peculiar

now, I just got back in stockton last night. Internet was working alright for the first hour. then it happened again. only this time, i couldnt just disable my wireless and then re-enable it. you see, when i went in to manage connections it was already disabled and i couldnt do jack about it. i cant re-enable it, i cant change the configurations either (not that i know what any of it means).

So i rebooted in safe mode with networking, and the internet was back. i felt confident, so i rebooted into normal mode again, and it worked. for about an hour. the next time it went out (hour or so lateR) i just quit, and went to bed. this morning, the thing went out only 10 minutes after my turning the laptop on.

along the way ive tried reinstalling drivers from the hardrive but it just stalls and does nthing, or "stops responding" I also tried a system restore to about a week ago, to no avail. the system restore just has that little green bar that slides around and does nothing. when you click on the box, it stops responging agin.

turning off/on the wireless at my house was inconvenient, but haveing to reboot every time i need to use the internet is downright ridiculous. im in the engineering computer lab rightnow, and ive downloaded the latest driver onto a flash drive to isntall later. i locked my dumb **** out of my dorm room, so i cant go back and do it now. crap, ive just realized my zune is in there too. 45 minutes til class. graaar

if anyone has the slightest idea of what to do, please send some advice my way. i know less about computers than i do about cars, and even that is a not so great figure. I've spent the last however long ive been in this lab looking at other forums seeing if this is a common problem, and the first part where my laptop wouldnt connect seems kind of normal. it doesnt appear that i tried to fix it properly. ive seen nothing yet on people's wireless network connection permanently disbaling itself though

The computer is a Dell XPS 1710 running vista home premium (i think). the wifi is an Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965 AGN. the internet is how i keep in touch with my HS friends and i have a feeling i'll go bat**** crazy withuot it lol

thanks everyone, sorry for the ridiculously long read

 

My neighbor was having a similar problem with an external USB wireless receiver.
I switched the unit with another and it was fine.
The original unit was not functioning correctly.
It could be the receiver in the laptop is on it's way out.
If you could borrow another external receiver you could test that theory.

 

Hey Arin-

One more thing to think about..When you are on your laptop are you running on battery or are you plugged in? If you are running on battery, a lot of laptops are optimized for battery life so they will disable any power using devices like your wi-fi adapterafter a period of time. check your power options on battery.

 

I am plugged in. My laptop only disables the LAN when running on battery. oddly enough, i'm back on the laptop, and its working for now.. as soon as it konks out again, im going to uninstall the old driver, and install a new updated driver.

i really hope the reciever isnt on its way out, ive had this laptop for less than six months, and my parents and I spent a small fortune on it. I'll see how long this bit of working lasts...

 

To turn off the annoying Vista permission BS open up the Control Panel, and type in user account into the search box. You'll see the link for "Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off". Click it. Uncheck the box, and reboot your computer. You should be done with obnoxious prompts!

 

Thanks! I am going to try this right now.

As i expected, it did die on me again, same symptoms, same innefective attempts at fixing it. Vista wouldnt let me uninstall the driver, OR install new ones. I decided restart, but it also wouldnt shut down. i unplugged it, took out the battery (to kill it) and started her up again, but in safe mode. safe mode DID let me uninstall the old driver, and it did let me isntall the new one, all in a timely manner (as opposed to sitting there and watching vista do nothing for half an hour)

So its up and running now. Hopefully it lasts

PS, i love the irony of vista asking for permission to disable the thing that makes the permission popups come up

 

Vista isn't anywhere near as annoying once you take control of it's permission junk.

 

I get the same sometimes as I have too many connections for tv etc so to get connected to one I want to use I have to go into internet connections and disable others, I guess they conflict , so then it works for me.

 

Its nicer now, without those permission things, but there are still issues. Like the fact that it would not let me make any changes to the drivers (remove old, install new) unless i was in safe mode.

I still maintain the belief that the only thing good about vista is the thing that lets you flip through windows in 3D. thats it. I normally would have gotten XP on this laptop, but you couldnt get the red one with XP (i know i know... shame on me lol)

 

Its the Red Dot isn't it ?