Fixed an annoying problem with my M1330

I got my Inspiron M1330 (Vista) back in October. Since that time I've had two incredibly annoying problems. One is the often mentioned sleep mode crash. If I put it to sleep, there's about a 90% chance I'll have to do a hard reset to wake it back up. I've tried every fix known and updated every possible driver with no luck. I've just resigned myself to never use sleep mode as long as I own it.

The other problem that had me about ready to throw it out the window was the frequent WiFi crash whenever connected to my home WiFi network. I'd be connected for about 20 minutes, then my connection would drop, then mysteriously come back up on it's own minutes later. Sometimes my laptop WiFi would act like it was not working, sometimes my router acted like it wasn't broadcasting. Either way, it often took a reset of my laptop to get the WiFi to work again.

I finally found a fix in this forum, from last summer, that has fixed my WiFi problem. I wanted to repost it in case others are having the problem. My WiFi router (Netgear) was set to WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES] settings and "Auto" on the channel selection. The poster said he changed this setting to WPA2-PSK [AES] and set the channel to a specific channel as opposed to "Auto." This worked perfectly for me, and I haven't had a dropped WiFi connection at home in over 48 hours. The only problem is, as the OP noted he experienced as well, that my WiFi speed at home has dropped by nearly half. That's annoying, but if the trade off is I don't have to worry about losing my WiFi connection every twenty minutes, I guess I'll take it.

 

Get a new router perhaps?

 

I have the Intel draft N card in my m1330 and it's been rock solid (connecting to a Belkin router).

 

Yeah, I've thought of that. The main thing was just getting to the point where I could stay on line. Now that I've accomplished that, I'm good for awhile. If I find the speed slowdown is intolerable, I'll try a new router. Although I doubt the router is the entire problem. It sounds like the WiFi card has been a serious issue for the M1330 for many people.

 

I have the belkin N wireless router and the dell b/g wireless built into mine and mines been rocks solid to with no problems even with the router either! Thank God for that!