Using 40Mhz Band on draft-n

Hey folks,

i recently purchased a Dell I Inspiron 1520 using XP 32 bit and a Belkin draft-n wireless router.

The wireless card in the notebook is a draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card Rev 2.0 (Chipset BCM4328 / BCM42055000), however, I cannot seem to get it to utilise the 40MHz bandwidth option, inspite of the modem broadcasting the option to do so.

Is there a registry entry or option in order to make the laptop connect using this bandwidth as opposed to 20MHz.

 

bump... nobody knows?

 

I've no idea, sorry (free bump)

 

I have the same card and it seems to die whenever I try the 40mhz band.

Getting drivers for this card is a pain too.

 

For a while, this fixed my same problem...
Under device manager > dell wireless 1505 > properties
"advanced tab"
set antenna diversity to "AUX"
This was done by a dell tech while they were connected... no clue why it worked... but my speeds went from 130 to 270mbps

Also, it is frustrating that there is no software to explain these advanced settings, especially since the drop down menu cuts off some of the options... and I came across this:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/network/p70008/EN/props.htm

however, 3 months later the card went back to using the standard 20mhz band...
This time, the tech got it working (although neither of us knew how)...
Odd this is that the card is connecting to the 'Standard bandwidth" channel on my router, but connects at wide bandwidth speeds...

I am searching for the broadcom driver to use instead of the dell driver (because it is a broadcom card)...
The chipset is BCM4328 hopefully this will help me find the broadcom version of the driver instead of dell's labeled driver...
(and hopefully broadcom will have more recent updates!)

Sidenote: the dell wireless card utility provides good info by telling what channel the card is connected to, and what band (20 or 40) it is running at...
utility = good, driver = lack of instructions.
I set my router to use channel 6 as wideband, and it automatically set channel 4 as standard > card connects to channel 4...
I then set my router to use channel 4 as wideband, and router automatically set channel 2 as standard > card connects to channel 2...
Odd thing is, like i said... it still connects to the standard channel at 270mbps

hopefully the first part, changing antenna to aux, will fix your problem... if not the utility helps troubleshooting, and i'll try to and post back here if I find the broadcom version of the driver

 

I found a generic broadcom driver:
http://www.x-drivers.com/component/option,com_remository/func,select/id,3203/

I'm running vista, the dell driver is 4.170.25.17, and the generic one is 4.170.25.19 ... so, it is more recent...

The device is running at 40mhz, but still connecting to the "20mhz" channel...

I also found this:
http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/Intensi-fi-PB02-R.pdf

Our exact chip is: BCM94321MC
which is described here: http://www.broadcom.com/products/Wireless-LAN/802.11-Wireless-LAN-Solutions/BCM94321MC

Unfortunately, there is no direct download for drivers from broadcom...
and the generic driver also leave me with advanced options without a clue as to what they do...

I also found this site: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/BetterByDesignDemos_SystemSpecs.pdf

which mentions a system (AMD Platform - Acer Ferrari 1000 Notebook) that has the same broadcom chip in it (Broadcom BCM94321 (Internal)) and suggested these settings:
• Afterburner= Disabled, AP Compatibility Mode= Higher Performance
• Power Output= 100%, Power Save Mode= Disabled, WMM= Enabled,
• XPress Technology= Disabled
• All other modes set to default

hope this helps...