Intel 6230 Wireless N with Bluetooth

I was quoted an XPS 15 system yesterday by a dell rep with the N 6230 in it, but today he informs me that "it is not compatible". hmmmm....

 

Good info, particularly where you point out that encryption level can affect throughput. To clarify on your point about the G/N specs, 802.11n as approved by IEEE in 2009 does specify the use of 40MHz channels in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrums. The G spec does not, though it does benefit from the MIMO technology as described in 802.11n.

 

I dunno...HP and some other manufacturers use whitelists to prevent some WLAN cards to be used. If you install an unauthorized card, it prevents the laptop from booting. I have no idea whether Dell does this.

 

It definitely can be done. I did this with an L501.
I'm not sure if the L502 comes with 3 antennas as I'm still waiting for it however my L501 didn't. Perhaps someone who already has there's can confirm? I'm fairly sure those with WWAN will have the third antenna although again that may hve just been with the L501s.
When I bought a 6300 it came with a third antenna and it was a case of installing the third antenna behind the LCD as I didn't have WWAN. It was straightforward and easy enough but very time consuming.

 

The laptops only come with the required number of antennas for the respective card. The 6230 only comes with two. If the antennas come with the card, it should be a straight forward process. I don't know why dell didn't offer the 6300 with the L502x. I'll wait for a 6330ish type with three channels and bluetooth before I swap mine out.

 

Giving up on the 6230 card for now. Switched back to my Intel 6200 card today using the same drivers that were installed for the 6230. No issues on either 2.4 GHZ or 5 GHZ. Hopefully drivers in the future will correct this issue.

 

I just noticed that I'm having 2.4 GHz issues too with my 6230. If I use the website emory.transloc.com, I'll frequently get "map loading error" and "you are experiencing network connectivity issues." However if I connect with 5 GHz, I haven't seen these problems.

 

Just received my laptop yesterday and I have to say the wireless performance is crappy. Bad signal strength, bad throughput. Plugging in a cheap $10 USB adapter raises me from 2 bars to 5.

 

Ken, open up the big cover on the bottom of the unit, and check that both antenna cables ore connected to the wireless card. Some owners have reported disconnected cables.

My 6230 card works great.

 

You could try flipping the cables ... this worked for me big time.

I'm using dell driver for the Intel 6230. 14.0.1.2.

 

Flipping them? As in to the "wrong" posts? I wouldn't think there was any real difference between the two antennas... perhaps it was a side effect of making better contacts once you swapped them?

 

You are right, there shouldn't be a much difference between the two.
I doubt it was a side effect of better contacts either... Initial inspection, it was on there correctly and took effort to pull out for me as usual for all the wwlans replacements I worked on.

 

Mine came with all antennas black, white, gray, gray/white, and black/white. Incidentally, these are the same colors as the ones in my XPS m1530, which has an Intel 4695AGN card with three antennas, and the black, white, and gray ones were hooked up to it.

Of course this gray antenna could be different. Still, an antenna is an antenna as far as radio wavelengths are concerned, as long as the length is okay, so it might work even if it was specialized for the TV card.

 

Thanks. I'll have to give it a try. I should note that I'm on 2.4GHz 802.11g right now which is an important datapoint because everyone seems to say that the 5GHz 802.11n seems to be fine.

 

As long that antenna, operating wavelength range include something between 2.4~5.8 ghz, you be fine. I doubt the gain and power is low for that either.

As for Ken,
If you see it still connected after you opened, try reconnecting them and see if that works.

 

I swapped the antennas and my wireless strength definitely improved. Could, of course, just be an effect of removing and replacing.

 

I have a Dell XPS 17 (got it 2 days ago) with 6230 and I get a weak wireless signal. I am certain that thats a problem with my laptop and after I found this thread I was wondering how can I open and switch the antennas to give it a try? Is it simple or..

 

Fairly. The wireless cards are usually the most accessible piece, aside from the memory. Turn off the computer, unplug it and remove the battery, discharge it by holding the power button for a few seconds, then open up the bottom plate. The wireless card should be obvious. You can pull the antenna off and switch them. Just be careful not to bend the small pin inside the antenna connector.

 

the wireless card is below the keyboard. not below the maintenance plate for memory and hdd.

so you will have to do a little bit more.

 

No, you wrong:

 

lol... good one. made me laugh a little. thanks.

 

Preliminary examination: reseating antennas doesn't seem to have an effect. Swapping the antennas may improve 2.4 GHz performance, but seems to degrade 5 GHz performance.

 

I just noticed something: On battery, I was getting horrible 2.4 GHz performance. Then when I changed the Windows power profile to "Maximum performance" it was all better again. Maybe the "medium power savings" setting is overly agressive for this card.

EDIT: And lo and behold, I found this: http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-006205.htm

 

I checked out that article, but I don't find any of the settings they mention with either method. That article was written in 2003, I wonder if maybe it needs further updates? Or maybe I'm just blind...lol. which method did you use to enable CAM?

 

Oh, I didn't even read the steps in the article until after. I guess they didn't update it for Windows 7.

I just used the Windows Advanced Power Options dialog. Under the "Wireless Adapter Settings" node, you can set the Power Saving Mode. By default it will be at Maximum Performance when plugged in and Medium Power Saving when on battery. I noticed that on battery in this mode, the PROSet Statistics tool was showing most recieved packets coming in at 6 Mbps, and even the Low Power Saving mode had issues. But as soon as I set it to Maximum Performance, they all jumped to >54 Mbps (for some reason it doesn't show the higher transmission modes)--it also never recieved any in-between packets.

Of course, this theoretically should have been an issue for my previous m1530 with the 4965AGN, but maybe the extra antenna helped prevent some of the issues? Or maybe something about this card exaggerates the problem.

 

I tried disabling power management on the Intel card, but the poor performance issues remained. It's not overall connection speed or bandwidth that is giving me a problem, rather it's the length of time it takes to connect to anything. Accessing shared folders on other computers there is always a delay of several seconds, for example Outlook takes much longer to connect to the mail server than it should, and Quicken takes over 30 seconds to open a file on another computer. Ping tests have inordinately large response times. Even booting takes longer with the 6230 and once the desktop is up I can watch for minutes as the wireless card tries to connect.

I had a Broadcom BCM943224 laying around, I popped that in and boot time is faster, wireless connects before the desktop icons appear, browsing file shares is barely slower than browsing local folders, mail server hase no more than a few seconds delay, and Quicken opens much faster, about 10 seconds or so. Transfer speeds are slightly higher, but a few mbps more isn't a big deal. Signal strength is better though, and much less finicky about positioning and movement when using the Broadcom card.

Sucks that I lose bluetooth, but I have a gut feeling it's a driver issue and it will be resolved eventually. This is a very new card after all...and I'm glad that I've got an alternative in the meantime.

 

That's too bad... I guess these are two separate issues.

 

Where did you order the 6230 card from? Apparently HP has a laptop with a similar model number (nc6230) and it's muddying my search results.

 

Anyone have any idea why I can't connect to WPA networks with the 6230?
I've tried connecting to 4 different wireless-G routers, including the commercial grade equipment at my office. Doesn't work on WPA or WPA2, personal or enterprise (Windows was unable to connect to [SSID]). Works fine on WEP and Unsecured. I've reinstalled the drivers from multiple sources, reinstalled Win7, even had Dell swap out the card.
I've only been able to connect to one WPA router, which was an Apple AirPort Extreme (which is N).

Thoughts?

 

Maybe they swap you with an another bad one?

Mine pretty much fixed itself oddly. WPAx-X working fine on mine with expected min 66% throughput on each band.

 

Can anyone just give a pretty simple walkthrough of how best to configure this wireless adapter as well as any links for the best drivers?

 

........lllll

 

Updated issue:

We have two laptops. My new Dell XPS 17 and a 4 year old macbook pro. The speeds seem okay on my new computer but it is a bit choppy.

For the last 5 days, every time I make skype calls, the call drops a lot and is basically useless because I can't carry a conversation. With the old macbook pro, the conversation hardly ever drops and is much much more smooth.

What could be wrong and what could be done to remedy this? It is very frustrating because skype is important for my job. If it wasn't I probably wouldn't notice a problem.

I am very very sorry to be bumping my own post here but I am really getting desperate and neither dell nor my wireless provider had a working solution.

When I test my speed on speedtest.net, I can get anywhere from 8mbps-30mbps but the chart of the speed is VERY choppy and goes up and down quite a bit. On our old MBP, it almost always gets a very steady 26 or 27mbps and a pretty flat line chart so obviously something is wrong with my computer specifically. Dell updated my drivers to the latest drivers and I really have no idea what else I can do.

Any suggestions would be so greatly appreciated and I apologize again for the bump

 

I just upgraded my 1030 to a 6230 last night, and had ridiculous issues with throughput. It would chug along pretty decent, then freeze, etc. I was getting 1Mb/1Mb on SpeedTest.net, copying large files over my network was around 500Kb/sec, etc. Horrible performance!

After reading this thread, I tried the Power Management suggestion, and bumped it from Medium Power Savings up to Maximum Performance. The difference was like night and day! SpeedTest.net was 5Mb/1Mb and I was pulling files down over my network at around 10-12MB/sec (that's MegaBYTES).

 

Just found this thread on the netgear site. FWIW, I am using a WNDR3700 V1 dual band router.

v2 drops both 2.4 and 5 band when disconnected from AC power - NETGEAR Forums

Definitely looks like a power management issue.

 

I only got reasonable throughput if I had the adapter setting "802.11n Mode" set to disabled. If I set it to enabled my connection speed would be 1 - 5 Mbps, on disabled it would be 54 Mbps.

Then I found out you can't have > 54 Mbps with TKIP security. I changed my router's security to WPA2/TKIP+AES and now I can connect at 130 Mbps (with 802.11n Mode enabled)! I still only see about the same throughput as 802.11g, but at least it is connecting at n speed.

The card should not connect at 1 Mbps just because you are using WPA instead of WPA2, but at least it is working with my router now. Hopefully they fix the drivers soon.

 

Anybody have issues updating their driver with this from the Dell site...

1.0.78.20504, A01

Mine keeps on hanging...says it can't stop the service. I go in and manually stop the services hangs and rolls back.

 

I believe that is the software. The driver has a version number like 14.0.1.2 (Dell site).

There is a new driver on the Intel site as of 6/6/11. It says version 14.1.1.0 but when I installed it, properties say it is version 14.1.1.3. Just installed it so we'll see if any of my connection problems get any better.

 

I can't seem to get it installed. It hangs/can't close the Bluetooth Media Player Controller, Process ID 5520. When I go into task manager to see the processes, it's not listed.

Wonder if possible to install via Safe Mode?

 

I have an Intel 6230 Wireless N with Bluetooth, too. But I'm not sure whether it is an Engineering Sample or not. This morning, when the computer was downloading at some 700KB/s, the wireless connection just disappeared. Even after I opened the device manager, I saw this wireless adapter was gone, too. But the bluetooth part worked fine with my mouse. Then I rebooted the computer, nothing changed. After about 20mins, the wireless adapter came back again. My Notebook is ASUS N82JV. This adapter was installed by myself.

Here are two pics of the aida64. When the adapter was gone, PCI-E 2.0 x1 port #2 showed Unknown.

 

wikipedia says this wireless card is part of Intel's 2011 Huron River platform, and it is used in Series 6 chipset. The chipset of my computer is HM55, which comes from Series 5 chipset. Is it this card not compatible with HM55?

 

Was is easy for you to up Grade? I just tried to upgrade my 1030 to the 6230 and now cannot get any wireless networks. Well Xps15, was ordered with the 6230 but came with the 1030, Dell have sent me out a 6230 but I can't get it to work, I have installed all drivers and deleted settings then re-installed drivers to no avail. Any tips or advise any one?

 

I had a huge issue with the 6230, Dell sent me a new one but I fixed mine and the new one is not installed yet, try this

go to safe mode, uninstall the driver and all the applications, reboot and go to safemode, then install this driver http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det... 64-bit*&DownloadType= Software Applications , this driver is the older one which works perfect.. lets try to install the wireless without bluetooth first..

after you do this, boot in normal mode and make sure that the wireless is enabled, and you can see the wireless light on the top panel on the top of the keyboard..also make sure the Antenas are connected to your wireless device.

 

Cheers, New drivers out version 14.2.0.10, A05

What worked for me was using SafeMSI to enable the installer service in Safemode, uninstallling previous version, restarting in safemode WITHOUT networking, didn't work when I installed in safemode with networking, installed the newest driver in safemode without networking and restarted normally and my 6230 is installled and working

 

can't find 'em, can you link please ?

 

An alternative solution if your L502x or L702x is largely stationary (like mine) is to use a USB wifi dongle.

I have the L702x with an Intel 1030. I also have 5GHz wifi N set up at home on a Linksys WRT610N router. However, I am not sufficiently tech savvy to change the wifi card on the L720x due to where it is located on the machine. Therefore I decided to go the USB dongle route.

I tried several dongles (Linksys AE1000, Netgear WNDA3100v2 and Dlink DWA-160). I have a rock solid 5Ghz connection on my DWA-160 (it's the earlier rev A2). The Linksys (Ralink chip) and Netgear (Broadcom chip) had occasional disconnects, whereas the Dlink rev A2 (Atheros chip) worked best. Honestly, it's been a bit of a lottery and other people could have different results depending on what gear they use on their own network.

Kind regards

 

Here you go : Drivers and Downloads

 

Yeaaaah thanks they solved the power saving issues for me !!
You made my day

 

Cool, happy to help

 

Well I've spoken a bit too fast, it did improve the stability by a huge margin, but there are still some occasional drops.
However it's much better now, so there's still hope for a complete fix