New SXPS16 - Wireless Issues

I just got my new SXPS1645 yesterday, and the wireless was working fine for a while. But it seems that after a sleep/restart, the NIC may or may not work. When it works, wireless works just fine, but when it decides to not work I get either "Not connected. No networks found in range." or "Connected but no Internet access". I know my wireless access point is working because two other computers are accessing it just fine.

Now the weird thing is, I tried to install the latest drivers but I get a "This software is not compatible with the hardware in your system" message, and the driver refuses to install.

On an unrelated matter my service tag isn't being recognized by Dell's driver's website. When I try to enter my service tag for chat support on the Canadian site, it tells me that the service tag is from the US, but when I try US chat support, the system tells me the tag is from Canada.

Has anyone had this or a similar problem? I hope it's just a driver issue and not a hardware issue...

SUMMARY:

NIC: DW 1501 Half-Mini N Card
Issue: Wireless connectivity is hit or miss when restarting/resuming from hibernate or sleep

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

I'm not too sure about your wireless problem. I have the Intel card. However, as far as your service tag goes, you have to wait about a week for it to get entered into the system. I had the same problem when mine first got in, none of the Dell sites (service, drivers, etc) would recognize my service tag or express service number. After about a week, everything worked like it should.

 

Thanks for that. I actually called Dell Tech Support about it while repeatedly trying to get the system to recognize my service tag. It was painfully ironic that the second the tech picked up after a 30-minute hold, it worked.

On a side note, the tech support hold was horrible. Not even bad lobby music, but an overexcited 10-second recording looping for 30 minutes telling me to visit support.dell.com

Oh and about those drivers that refused to install - I tried installing it through Device Manager instead and it seems to work for now. I'll update in this thread if it seems to fix the problem.

 

If you call the regular Dell support line, you'll wait forever on hold, and then get transferred several times before someone can help you.

Call directly to the XPS support number. It's 1-800-232-8544, at least in the US. The service there is much better, and you'll generally not wait on hold for more than 5 minutes. I learned this the hard way, lol.

 

Thanks. I did get transferred exactly to that support number even though I'm in Canada. Still, I did wait a fair bit with that looped voice recording Anyway, hopefully it's solved. If my wireless still works a while from now I'll post steps here for anyone else who encounters the wireless issue.

 

Sounds like the card is going to sleep. Mine was doing a similar thing. Go into Device Manager, find the wireless card, right cluck on it and fine the option for 'enable power saving' or similar. Untick the box (disable the function).

I also did this for Bluetooth as I use a BT mouse and the laptop was turning off the adapter and killing the mouse.

 

I'm in Canada too. I had a nightmare of a time trying to get help from their customer service. "I can't help you with that but i'll put you through to someone who can," was said to me about 9 times....

 

Already did that lol. It didn't do anything. Only updating the drivers seems to have fixed the issues, and I was only able to do that by manually feeding it through Windows' driver update wizard.