Acer 5100-3357 from Circuit City....

My desktop died and I purchased the 5100-3357 from Circuit City, listed at 649.99. Unfortunately, the wireless network card in this model was unable to hold a steady connection to either of my routers: a microsoft wireless B and a linksys wireless B. Needless to say I returned it and had the tech support guy make sure it could connect to one of their routers. The same thing happened (connect...disconnect...connect...disconnect) but he assured me that it was just the network card "refreshing" the connection. Compare this to my cousin's HP2000t that gets a flawless wireless connection on my home network and try to accept what this idiot of a tech support person was saying. I ended up returning it and eating $97 for their return fee. A steep price to pay, but a lesson well learned: don't buy this model or buy from circuit city.

 

Umm, I have the same model, from the same store and the wireless has worked flawlessly for a year now.

I don't think ALL Acer 5100 have this problem, I'm sure it was either a defective card or bad drivers.

So just cuz you had one small problem with one laptop from that store, doesn't mean that all of those laptops have the same problem, and doesn't mean that CC is a bad place.

You really think that there's any company out there that makes 100% perfect notebooks all the time? If you're idealogy is to be followed (aka if 1 laptop has a bad part then noone should ever buy from that store and that model) then noone would be buying laptops ever from any store.

 

Actually if its the Intel Wireless Card all you need to do is update to the newer drivers from the Intel website.

 

vestige is correct. I bought a Acer 9810 and i wasn't getting an excellent connection 15 form my router and i went to Acer site and they had the same version of the intel driver i had on my machine. I went to Intel and there was a new version. I installed and have been excellent signal on every network i've connected to. Your cousins wireless card is probably is an Intel also. Intel is the standard. It's amazing the Circuit City tech didn't recommend that you update drivers.

 

This most likely wasn't the problem, why you ask? Acer AFAIK does not ship AMD systems that use AMD chipsets and motherboards with Intel anything wireless. He stated he bought an aspire 5100-3357 which is part of the aspire 5100 series which only use AMD processors, chipsets etc. The wireless cards you will normally find in AMD based systems are usually broadcom or Atheros cards.
Now I am not saying that you couldn't replace the default wireless with an Intel wireless card but it will never come from acer like that.

The problem is more linked to what adinu said "either a defective card or bad drivers."