Inspiron 1520 problems possibly connected

I have been experiencing some seemingly unrelated problems with my Inspiron 1520 (specs in sig) after a clean install of vista premium.

The first problem is:
about 25% of the time i close the lid to my laptop without first putting it to sleep or shutting it down it doest resume. I have to shut it down manually and restart the computer.

The second problem is:
my inspiron stopped recognizing usb devices seemingly randomly a couple weeks ago. I fixed the problem temporarily; i heard on this forum that i needed to install the chipset driver (?) again. I installed that and it started recognizing all my usb devices again (external HD, logitech mouse and keyboard, flash drive, printer, and cell phone cable). today my usb devices stopped working again and i have not had time to reinstall the driver yet. but since this has happened twice seemingly unprovoked i imagine there is a bigger problem.

The third problem is:
This problem is a little more vague than the other problems but i am confident it is a real problem. I have a cable connection to the internet and a Linksys DI-524 router (wireless G) 15 feet away from my computer and an intel wireless AGN network card. I live in a house with 8 roommates 7 of which have computers and we all use the same wireless network. I experience much slower speeds or even pages not loading at all. when my roommate who is 5 feet farther away from the router than me with a lower spec'd laptop with a wireless g card gets normal speeds even when i cannot connect to the internet. and interesting thing is that the guys down stairs get much slower speeds than us who are upstairs closer to the router. the downstairs guys are probably 30 feet away from the router and we are 15

the drivers i installed after clean install were all the ones on the dell dvd plus dell quickset and the video driver 163.69 i think from online.

I believe that all these problems may have the same root problem but i do not know what that problem would be. does anybody know the cause of these problems?

 

I set mine so that shutting the lid doesnt do anything because it doesnt resume from sleep. If I press the sleep button, I have to let it completely go to sleep before shutting the lid or else it will not wake up.

My USB ports dont work after waking up from sleep. However if I have my mouse or whatever plugged into the same USB as when it went to sleep, it will work upon resuming. Plugging in any new USB items doesnt.

At least you can connect to your router, I have the wireless N card too and it will not connect at all to mine. Other computers can connect and surf the internet just fine.

Everyone who has these sleep problems seems to have installed all the Dell drivers..Im going to reformat whenever I get the time and install only drivers that are absolutely necessary to see how that works.

 

1st: This has happened to me too...but no one responded to my thread. Anyway, you have to hit the power button for it to wake up, the keyboard and mouse are, I think, USB for some reason and get shut off so you can't wake it up that way. Also, you can also go to power->properties->advanced and set the "closing lid" to do nothing, which personally I like better since I can get up and walk around without having to log back in.

3rd: This could be a router problem, or a firewall problem. Do you use Mcafee? That's been known to slow one's connection down to a crawl, as has Zone Alarm. Also, did you install the Intel drivers? You can either set Windows to use the Intel or Window's own version of networking.

As a last resort you might want to try doing a clean install of your OS again from a disk (not the recovery partition), then install all the latest drivers from the Dell site.

 

Well I went ahead and reformatted..only installed the video, audio, and wireless drivers (Windows detected everything else) and sleep is working perfectly fine. The issue must be with one of Dell's drivers.

 

thats strange i have been told the problem of the closing lid might happen because a problem with the video card driver.

 

thats strange i have been told the problem of the closing lid might happen because a problem with the video card driver.

 

Is your laptop's wireless speed any better if you put it where your rommate gets a good signal? You might try something like the "Airsnort" or "Netstumbler" utilities mentioned here
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread71822.html
and move the laptop around the room to see if there are places where you get a better signal... or a worse one.

That's not too surprising. Pipes or electrical stuff that runs through the floor might be interfering with the wireless signal. The more interference, the slower the connection will be.

 

i have not tried moving my laptop to where my roommate gets good speeds but our desks are in the same room 4 feet away from eachother and his is 4 feet farther from the router than mine is.

as for the programs ill try them out.

please guys i really need some assistance on this.

 

please any input is appreciated. im not very knowledgeable about networking and the internet.

 

Any luck with problems #1 and #2?

Are you trying to use n or are you using g?

Don't know if these links will help, but
http://www.pcmech.com/article/clean-up-a-wireless-signal-by-changing-the-channel/
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wifihomenetworking/qt/wifichannel.htm
http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/8931-0-0-225-121.html

You might check using Netstumbler to see if there are conflicting channels near where you have your laptop, maybe from neighbors' routers.

Did you get any results using Netstumbler or Airsnort? Any variations in signal strength moving your laptop around your apartment?