Intel WiFi Link 5300AGN & M15x Help!!!

Hi Everyone,

I got my M15x around the middle of Dec, and the poor thing has had two motherboard swaps in that time frame, and now I am having some severe wireless issues. For the first time since I got my M15x, I attempted to play WOW, only to get continually disconnected, so I started to monitor my wireless connection. The connection speed to my DLink DGL-4500 is not stable at all, it keeps changing speeds, dropping as low as 28Mbps. I am only about 10 feet from my router, and the signal strength is rated as "Excellent." My wife has an HP Desktop with an Atheros based 802.11n PCI card, and she has no problems connecting, it is just my M15x. Does anyone here use this combination (DLG-4500 and Intel WiFi Link 5300) and have these issues? If you have this card (Intel WiFi Link 5300) in your AW, what router and having solid connections, what router are you using?

After several hours of surfing, it seems it could be an issue with 802.11n compatibility between the Intel card, and the DGL-4500. Some people have reported dropping it to 802.11g fixes it. So, later today I am going to give this a try. However, if this works, it is just a temp solution,as I paid for 802.11n, and I want to use it!

Thanks in advance!

Rich

UPDATE: I just switched off 802.11n mode, and the problems seemed to have gone away. However, I would like to use 802.11n, so if you are using 802.11n with the M15x and the Intel WiFi link 5300, what router are you using?

Rich

 

I always had trouble with D-Link stuff for some reason. Did you check if there is a firmware upgrade available? Also, its not a huge deal if you use 802.11g as I assume that the bottleneck will be your internet connection. (Unless you want to do file transfers)

 

Hi Wattos,

Thanks for the quick reply The router is running the latest firmware (1.22NA), and I am using the latest Dell driver for the Intel card (13.0.0.107). The driver from the Intel site is actuall the same one that Dell is providing, go figure...

The biggest bottleneck I have here is my Home Server backups. However, it seems that the other 802.11g clients don't have an issue backuping up at that speed, so I don't think it will be a problem operating slower. As of right now, slower is better than intermittintly After I check if dropping to 802.11g fixes it, I will update my original post. Thanks again!

Rich

 

Hi Everyone,

It seems that the issue with the Windows 7 driver for the WiFi Link 5300AGN is related to a settign in my DLink DGL-4500 router. I found a posting on the DLink website refer to a specific setting as an "Intel Compatibility setting." It is refering to the channel width (20 MHz or 40 MHz). Setting it to 20 MHz enables "Intel Compatibility mode,", and also stabelized the connection. it seems that under Windows 7, the Intel WiFi Link 5300AGN does not like 40MHz channels when using the 2.4GHz channel (at least in congested areas, there around 8 or 9 wireless netowkrs around my house ).

Good Luck and Thanks!

Rich S.

 

setting the 5300 options under the network connectivity is crucial:
set 2.4 channel to auto
set 5.2 channel to auto
enable wireless n mode
set band to auto 20/40
ad hoc channel to 1
disable ad hoc power management
enable QoS
keep fat channel disabled
enable mix mode protection
leave everything else at default

then check the router settings and ensure that they are set in similar compatible mode
check the dns relay settings: some dlink's have issues with their firmware on that setting -- the dlink board has some good insights.