Problem with xps M1530

I got my XPS M1530 a few days ago, one of the problems i'm having is this

The wireless on the laptop seems to suck. I have a router in my living room. When i go to my bedroom, which is not that far away and on the same level of the house, the internet is very slow. Connection to the router is listed as very good or excellent but the speed is 1.0-2.0mbps most of the time. This is very slow compared to 11-15mbps in the living room. Is there any driver updates or something that might fix this? My dads Toshiba works fine in my room.(I'm 15, thats why I'm still living with my parents ) but my laptop takes forever to load something, and playing an online game would be just about impossible from that room.

I hope someone knows how to fix this because I really might consider sending it back if the internet doesn't even work just down the hall from the router.

Also, i paid the extra for the wireless n mini card, the next gen one.

 

in vista under power configuration, you will find some options for the transmit power of your wireless card under AC or battery. maybe your laptop is trying to save power by decreasing the power to the card when using battery power. change the settings to use full power and it may improve reception. just a shot in the dark.

 

even when plugged into my ac power and on high performance mode it is slow. Any ideas what it could be now? I appreciate it though. That might help some, as i did not know that. Maybe even the high performance has it turned down. although i doubt it.

 

what kind of router is it? like a/b/g/n? Look up drivers is my only piece of advice.. but if it isn't N, then you can't take advantage of N speeds or anything like that... hope you know that...

 

yea i know. It's a 2.4ghz D-Link router. So i know i won't get the n speeds.

Where would i find out if my driver is the newest? sorry if that''s a dumb question

 

for your card you could look on dell's website or intel's i'd just go to support.dell.com look up drivers and manuals, type in ur service tag, and see if you got the most up to date drivers.

 

I updated drivers and I'm sitting in my room right now at 11mbps. Hopefully its not just luck, but i think its fixed. thanks a lot man! I really appreciate it. now I just have to bug dell about my crappy screen, and if they get that worked out I'll be happy!